3 and 5 With The X-Pro2 And 35mm f2

More from this years Edinburgh Festival. Three Colour and five black and white. All from the X-Pro2 with the 35mm f2 lens. This camera has turned out to be an amazing street machine, especially with the 35/2. Pretty soon the 23mm f2 will arrive and I'm sure another amazing street lens will no doubt be with us.

Speaking of the X-Pro2 and the 35mm f2 for street. My Kage Collective pal Patrick La Roque, who actually had his right hand surgically removed and replaced with an X-Pro2 and 35/2 combo, has been back on the Street Focus podcast with host Valerie Jardin sharing his top tips for street shooters. 

More Fuji X70 From The Hip At The Edinburgh Festival

More X70 shots taken from the hip. This tiny camera with it's 28mm (FF) lens is a surprise hit with street photographers. Although it doesn't have a viewfinder, it's so inconspicuous and nonthreatening that I can get in really close to the subject. I still love my X100T or X-Pro2 for street, but when it comes to shooting from the hip, the X70 is under the radar.

Hip Replacement : The Fujifilm X70 for Street Photography

The X70 was delivered 5 minutes before my train was due to leave for Edinburgh. It takes 5 minutes to drive from my house to the station, so I ripped open the cardboard box and then quickly opened the familiar black Fuji box (no ripping here). I grabbed the plastic bag with the camera inside and stuffed it in my pocket. I had batteries, an SD card, a leather wrist strap and a lens hood in my camera bag just incase the X70 arrived on time (Thanks Royal Mail Special Delivery). 

I got To the platform with only seconds to spare, boarded the train and sat down to unwrap the small, but surprisingly weighty X70. I bought the black version because I wanted it to be as stealthy as possible on the street, otherwise I might have gone for the silver and black version (like myX100). But this was about function rather than looks. 

The camera is pretty much an X-T1 with a touch screen LCD, but without a viewfinder. I have two X-T1's so it was like second nature setting the X70 up. The buttons are smaller and a few reviewers have expressed a dislike to them due to being tiny and certain ones being a little awkward to press. Maybe it was because I was anticipating this, but I don't have a problem and even prefer them to my X-T1's by a long way. The button layout is sort of familiar, but again slightly different from other X-Series cameras. I could be wrong, but I don't think any X-Series body has ever had the same layout. The layout is fine on this one, it's just that I need to constantly think which camera I'm using and where the buttons are. This takes a street photographer out of the zone and that's not good. 

The Main Menu and Q Menu are almost identical to the X-T1 except for a couple of items related to the touch screen. I like that you can hold in the Trash button for a couple of seconds to reassign it to control another feature when in shooting mode if you like. After all, it only needs to be a trash button in playback mode. And speaking of buttons, there's one on the side of the camera under your left hand that can be used to assign what the focus ring does. There's plenty of options, including ISO, film simulation, digital crop and many more. On the subject of cropping, the Digital Crop allows you to choose the full size of the 28mm lens or a cropped version at 35mm or 50mm. I don't see this as a problem for the 16mp X-Trans sensor, but I won't use it too much. 

The touch screen works well and I had no problem seeing it on a bright day. There is an optical viewfinder available as an optional accessory, but it is cold shoe and only displays two bright frame lines on 28mm and 21mm, but no other information. Why 21mm I hear you ask? Because like the X100 series, the X70 has a WCL (wide conversion lens) available that screws on the front of the fixed 28mm lens to take it down to 21mm. If it's anything like the one for the X100 it will be sharp and gorgeous.

Just returning from the Edinburgh Tattoo

But back to the touch screen. The limited amount of functions are enough for now. I'm not a big fan of touch screens, but I can see a few situations that it could come in handy. When shooting, there's a little on-screen button at the top right of the LCD that toggles between OFF, FOCUS (tap the screen where you want your focus point to be, but it doesn't actually focus) and SHOOT (Tap a point on the screen and the camera will focus and shoot). There is a short delay in the Shoot Mode as the camera locks focus, so it's not that great for street photography where the subject is moving quickly toward you, but fine for static or slow moving targets. The big plus for this mode is not needing to press the shutter button, which can disguise that you're actually taking a picture. 

The X70 does have a few negatives, but I think these could all be fixed in a firmware update.

1. There should be an option to switch off the LCD when using the optional VF-X21 optical viewfinder.
2. When setting the X70 for use with the WCL-X70 in the menu, the focus distance scale in manual focus disappears. This has to be a bug.
3. The focus distance scale when in manual focus, is too small on the LCD and the blue bar that shows your zone of focus is really difficult to see. This is important when zone focusing. 
4. Tap to focus and shoot is a great feature on the touch screen, but the lag needs to be reduced.
5. Another useful mode of the touch screen would be tap to focus (but not shoot).

As you can see from the picture, the X70 is shorter in length than the iPhone 6 and just a fraction shorter in hight. The iPhone 6 does win in thickness though:o). I've used this leather wrist strap (by Cam-In) on a few of my X-Series cameras, but I think I'll have to find a smaller one for the X70.

I can't believe you're talking to this clown

The X70 is the best camera I have used when shooting from the hip! The tilting screen can be flipped out slightly for general hip style, or all the way for a shot from the ground or even a TLR style where you're looking straight down at the screen. I can flip out the opposite way to shoot above your head. Like a lot of photographers, I had no interest in a camera without a viewfinder, but after the first 5min on the street with the X70 I was hooked. 28mm focal length (full frame) for a hip camera is perfect for me. It has an interesting look and is far enough away from our eyes field of view that it has a magnetic effect to the viewer. It pulls them in and holds their attention, even if they don't quite know why. I'm looking forward to getting back out on the street with my new tiny friend. 

Harvey Keitel's uncle Frank's sister's cousin's brother's son?

Picasso's Wall

This is the wall at the exit of the Picasso Museum in Barcelona. I tucked under the staircase opposite (not quite out of site) and shot these with the X-Pro2 and the 35mm f2. All pictures are straight out of camera using the Classic Chrome film simulation (settings at the bottom of the post). It's a good exercise to find a spot and wait for subjects to walk through your shot. The optical viewfinder of the X-Pro2 (or X100T) is great for this as you can see when someone is about to walk into your frame. All the light was coming in from above, so the effect is quite dramatic.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

FUJI X-PRO2 CLASSIC CHROME SETTINGS

Noise Reduction: -3

Colour: +3

Dynamic Range: 100%

Highlights: -1

Shadows: 2

Sharpness: +2

35mmStreet Has Moved Here

This is the new home for 35mmStreet (my street photography blog). I've moved it here from Wordpress.com, which will get rid of adverts and make it easier and more enticing for me to produce new content. I'm moving away from the strictly black and white style of the previous site to include colour street photography too. B&W will still be the main focus, but I have shot a lot of colour street stuff over the last few years and haven't really had a place to show it. So enough with self imposed rules and on with street photography. Remember to bookmark the 35mmStreet URL:
www.derekclarkphotography.com/35mmstreet
and follow me on Twitter @35mmStreet (just street) or @derekclarkphoto (for everything else).

Street Photography With The Fujifilm 90mm f2

As a follow up to my review of the Fuji 90mm f2, I thought I'd throw up some of the street shots I took at the Edinburgh Festival with said lens. The 90mm comes out at 135mm in full frame terms, which is 100mm longer than I tend to shoot on the street...just saying. The order is a bit random, but so is life!

The 90mm was a blast on the street. Even at f2, the autofocus locked on and the look is fantastic. I tend to shoot at around f8 with a 35mm on the street, so it's kinda refreshing to see the buttery smooth shallow depth of field that the 90mm produces. I've recently picked up the new 35mm f2? So far I'm really impressed with the performance and at £299 in the UK it didn't break the bank. I'll get out soon and shoot some street with it, so stay tuned. I could do with an X-Pro2 to go along with the 35mm f2 now :o)

Paris Street Photography 2015

Here's a selection of street photos from a trip to Paris earlier this year. Paris is definitely a great place to shoot street, and although their laws are a little more strict on taking pictures of the public than they are in most countries, I was never challenged in any way. I had my usual routine when I'm in a foreign country of getting up around 6am and walking for hours, which is why the streets don't look too busy in these pictures.

These were shot with a mixture of the X100T with the fixed 23mm or the Wide Conversion Lens, and the X-T1 with the 35mm or 56mm. I don't really like the shape of the X-T1 for street photography, so on a more recent trip to New York, I took the X100T and X-E2. But more on that later.

World Press Photo And A Wet Edinburgh Festival

A trip to Edinburgh with two of my photography buddies to visit the world Press Photo Exhibition gave me a chance to grab some street photos.

I don't do politics, but Jeremy Corbyn, who could be the next leader of the labour party here in the UK and then possibly Prime Minister, just happen to cross my lens on arrival at the train station.

Even though there has been a lot of controversy over the last year or so with World Press Photo, it was great to see this years exhibition in the Scottish Parliament building.

Fuji X-Mount Lensbaby Edge 80 Street Photography

I went for a walk the other day to try out my new LensbabyComposer Pro and Edge 80 optic. Yes they have finally brought out a Lensbaby with a Fuji X-Mount. I'll have more Lensbaby street stuff coming soon, but in the mean time, if you want to read more and see some colour shots from this same walkabout and even a couple of tips regards to camera setup, click HERE.

Click the photo above to see the very flat out of camera and slightly underexposed JPEG. I've noticed that the Dehaze Slider in the latest version of Lightroom CC is a must for the Edge 80 (for the colour versions at least).

9 From The Hip

9 photos shot from the hip using zone focus with my trusty X100S. Sometimes it's nice to get a lower point of view. These were also taken on a great day out with Kevin Mullins &co on the cold streets of Glasgow (Scotland). Street works best alone, but it's nice to get together with other street photographers sometimes.