Sometimes, I think DSLRs are the worst thing that ever happened to my photography.
Not long after I moved here from Australia, I travelled all over the south island of New Zealand with a 3.2MP digital camera. It was the first camera I’d owned and I discovered a new passion in photography.
Over time I decided to upgrade my camera to further develop my skills. I needed manual controls and the ability to shoot in RAW to really stretch the bounds of my photography. I started with a Canon 400D DSLR, body only, and started building up a lens collection. We all know how this story ends. It ended with me no longer taking photographs because my kit was too heavy and too professionally oriented. I spent more time reading about photography gear than I did taking photographs.
I’ve now moved away from reading photography blogs and following what the professionals use. I’m not one - neither are you, probably - and there are very good reasons why it doesn’t suit me to use what they use for casual photography. There were four particular areas where I needed to change my attitudes as they were holding me back.
1) Use a crappier camera.
It’s the drive for image quality that led us all to DSLRs in the first place. Do we really need the best though? If I followed that logic to the ultimate conclusion I’d drive a Porsche too. I shoot a Fuji X100s, which is about the size of a decent compact film camera. I’m cheating a little here, as it can go toe to toe with a DSLR for image quality and win. It is however fixed lens, so I am limited to a 35mm equivalent field of view. I can’t add a macro or a telephoto or a portrait lens to get the absolutely perfect shot. I have to make 35mm work - and most of the time it does.
This means I only carry one bit of photography kit and that’s my camera on a strap over my shoulder. It’s very light to carry and there’s no choice paralysis about what to take. It’s really rather freeing.
2) Shoot in JPEG.
I have read a lot of articles about shooting in RAW. It’s true that RAW files have greater latitude in post. I have seen some examples of images that were overexposed half a dozen stops where detail was still retrievable from RAW.
Mostly, I just try not to overexpose my images half a dozen stops. The Fuji JPEG engine is a thing of beauty and images come out of the camera exactly how I like them. Shooting in JPEG allows me to use fewer and smaller memory cards and consumes less battery. Even more compelling, shooting in JPEG allows me to use iPhoto on an iPad to process my photos. I don’t need to worry about how to store my photography library at home. It all fits on the tiny internal HDD on my laptop, with the last year or so of recent photos on my iPad.
3) Don’t fix it in post.
I touched on this with the previous point. I slow down and get the image as perfect as I can at shutter time. This eliminates the need to fix the image in post. It eliminates the need to take dozens of images in drive mode so ‘at least one will turn out’. It also focuses you on photography as the art of composition.
When I load the photos up on the iPad I don’t import them unless they look great in the preview. I don’t have the tools or the skills to fix disasters so I don’t. The benefit is my image editing workhorse weighs 500g and I don’t need external storage to handle the data. I can then upload to Flickr or Facebook from my iPad anywhere I have cellular reception.
4) Let go of the shot.
I’m not a professional and so I don’t have that pressure to get every shot. If my little 35mm camera can’t do it then I let it go. I will have plenty of other shots to remember my holiday with and my memories of the ones that got away.
Taking fewer and more considered shots improves the quality of the ones I do take, and again consumes less battery and fewer memory cards. I don’t want to imply that I think all of my shots are perfect. Many of the shots I like are pretty flawed when you look at the histogram. I’ve also let go of perfection.
This is my photography setup - a Fuji X100s with an 8GB SD card and an iPad Air. For long trips I bring a second battery and the charger for the iPad. I tend to take fewer than 50 shots a day when on a trip so even the notoriously weak battery of the Fuji X100s lasts up to a week. It is still nice to have a spare in case the battery drains inside the camera.
This kit is definitely too weak for a professional. There’s a lot of shots you just can’t get without specialised lenses and external light sources. I no longer feel the need to act like a professional though. It’s enough for me to come back able to share with you the beauty of where I’ve been.
I adore the high ISO performance of the Fuji X100.
I have only been aware that it exists for two weeks, but in that time through my reading about this camera I became convinced it was perfect for me. It’s a compact marketed by Fuji as being the professional’s choice, featuring an APS-C sensor and a fixed 23mm lens (35mm equivalent) with a maximum aperture of f2.0. The relatively large sensor and wide aperture mean this camera excels at low-light photography without requiring the bulk of a DSLR.
It has all the manual control you could possibly ask for, with a manual aperture ring on the lens and external dials to set the shutter speed and exposure compensation. The manual focusing does leave somewhat to be desired but I am content to either set the camera to hyperfocal focusing or leave it in automatic.
It also looks absolutely stunning, with retro styling inspired by rangefinders. It’s hard not to notice the similar style cues to the current Leica range.
While the camera reviews very well, there are also many posts by people who are frustrated with what is commonly called a clunky user interface. I found the Fuji X100 posts at neilvn.com to be an excellent read while I was researching the camera, as they gave me a clear idea of whether these issues would really cause problems in day to day shooting. I was also inspired by the quality of the photographs the camera can produce in the hands of a professional photographer.
Other helpful reviewers were http://www.stevehuffphoto.com, and http://www.kenrockwell.com, with Ken Rockwell’s site including a users guide and a wide range of real life photographs to examine.
I haven’t had any real issues with the UI so far, but I have noticed that I seem to be more willing to adapt to a different way of using a camera than many of my photographer friends. It seems many people expect more customisation so they can change the settings and interface to suit the way they are used to working. I certainly wouldn’t want to make a value judgement about either way of approaching a camera, but this camera does seem to require someone who is willing to learn and change their habits.
I was a little worried that the fixed lens would be hard to get used to, but I am fast falling in love with the 35mm field of view. It’s so close to what my eyes are seeing that I am coming to learn how to compose before raising the camera at all. I’m struggling a little with macro photography - the Fuji has a very nice macro mode, but I seem incapable of stopping myself from shoving the camera right up to my subject. The most effective macro shots I’ve seen browsing flickr taken at this focal length take a wider view and isolate their subject using the rule of thirds and DoF instead of filling the frame, something I’m still trying to learn.
The image quality the Fuji delivers is nothing short of stunning, particularly at high ISO ratings. Even at ISO 3200 the images are excellent and in day time shots it feels like the quality of light has more presence than I am used to seeing on my Canon sensors.
As motivation to keep developing my photography, I’ve decided to try a project365 and post a photograph a day for the next year. I don’t feel my photographs are as striking with the Fuji yet as they were with my DSLR but I know this reflects on me rather than the camera. Hopefully having it as my ubiquitous companion for the next 365 days will help me truly learn how to master its potential.
