’twas kinda short work week this week. Monday was Memorial Day, so that was a holiday and Friday was my bi-weekly day off. No traveling this week, but I was able to get 1 1/2 photo walks in this week. More about the 1/2 walk a bit later.
None of the cameras has gotten a lot of usage since they showed up, thanks to the CoronaVirus, but the X-Pro2 and the XT-2 were a bit jealous of the usage that the x100f was getting, so the X-Pro2 was the camera ‘du jour this week.
On Tuesday, the X-Pro2 was mounted with the 35mm f1.4 that was bought off of E-Bay some time back. It was more or less permanently on the X-Pro, and when the X-Pro2 showed up, it migrated to that body. There is a lot of chatter on the innerwebs about the magical qualities of this lens, but honestly, I never got that in my usage. It was good, but never found the “magic”.
Until now. Oh my, what a difference a camera upgrade makes. Dunno the cause, but all of a sudden I’m smitten with this lens. The other huge leap in upgrading to the X-Pro2 is Capture One provides far better simulation support than it did for the X-Pro. In going through this first set of images in C1, with the camera set to Kevin Mullins “Classic Chrome” settings, they required virtually no post processing. Of course, most had to be straightened as I don’t seem to be able to take a level photo, and several benefitted from a bit of a crop, but by and large it was just a minor tweak here and there and they were done! Nirvana,
Last week the Nextgen gallery was used to post the images. To be honest the whole thing was a bit clunky. Nextgen provides a very limited subset of it’s features in the free version in the hopes you will pony up for the annual subscription for the “Pro” version. Also prefer the images inline versus “stacked” if you will. So this week the images will be presented using the native WordPress Gallery.
Well, that’s about 1/2 way there. For whatever reason the images are inserted randomly and reordering them is a bit clunky. I also don’t understand why WP inserts a grey stripe at the bottom of each picture. That doesn’t display in the editor. But, this is what we have for now.
Anyway, the imagery is awesome. I love it and couldn’t be happier. Can’t wait to try Kevin’s other simulations.
Now, onto the 1/2 walk. On Thursday the X-Pro2 was mounted with the 18mm f2.0 lens. This lens is widely panned by the “pixel-peeping” crowd particularly on dpReview. It seemed to do fine on the X-Pro, not being significantly below the 35mm f1.4 in image quality. Unfortunately this lens did not get the boost in image quality from the X-Pro2 that the 35mm one did. They aren’t bad, but definitely not as good as the 35. H’mmm. Interesting.
See for yourself:
You will notice that it was a bit dreary. That’s why it was a 1/2 walk. About 2/3 through the walk, the skies opened up and I had to call Melanie to come pick me up. So, not unsuccessful, but not exactly succesful.
Imagery from Fairfax City will be our main focus for a bit. There’s lots to shoot, and I’ve not even begun to scratch the surface. Will also be looking on ways to expedite insertion of images. The WordPress gallery works, but the randomness of the image insertion, limited formatting options, and the odd grey stripe inserted at the bottom make it decidedly sub-optimal. There has to be a better, albeit inexpensive, way to do this. I’m not adverse to paying for tools, but as this is a hobby, the willingness to sign onto an annual “subscription” is minimal.
Until next time:
