Yes, this boy has a new toy. Give boy Fuji toy. After wavering for several weeks I finally capitulated yesterday and bought a Fuji X100s camera. This may seen like a rather frivolous purchase as I already have the original X100. In fairness to both Fuji and me the two are some way apart. It is like upgrading from a Toyota to a Lexus, or a VW to an Audi (only hopefully with better service in the case of the latter but that rant is for another day).
The biggest improvements in my eyes are those revolving around manual focus. The speed is now super slick and Fuji has given us a choice of focus peaking or split image. The former means that you get little fairy light effects around the elements of the image that are in focus. With the latter you see the image in three parts and when they come together you are focussed – very similar to a rangefinder or old SLRs. But this can be done very quickly and just for good measure you can programme the camera to give you a focus check. This enlarges the area you are focussing on in the viewfinder or on the LCD and makes your job even easier.
Any road up, I have been slowly recovering after the adrenaline rush of the wedding stopped. It feels like resurfacing from a deep SCUBA dive, not that I have ever done so. Life is now more or less back to normal. We ventured onto the Island yesterday and did some chores and curiously I found myself in a camera shop and Mrs. Ha found herself in a clothes boutique. And guess what I WON!!! I spent more than Mrs. Ha. Not by much I hasten to add but enough to give me the warm inner glow of triumph. And of course she looks better in her new outfit than I do in my camera.
This morning I simply had to take the X100s out for a spin. I only had an hour and a half and I wanted to practice the manual focussing. I set the camera to shoot RAW files with a monochrome jpeg on the side (B&W with red filter to be precise). This was not about finding great subjects, although that would have been rewarding, I simply wanted to familiarise myself with the camera. Most of the shots you see below have been taken from the jpegs, Some modest cropping to straighten a few and generally I felt I wanted to add a little punch. That meant boosting contrast and clarity. No additional sharpening was applied. The colour images are converted from RAW and simply saved for web.
I hope its the real thing – you can never tell in China.
Clearance
The Chinese Opera House going up
Local House – one of my favourites
I’m in charge – but I may not be sharp!
The local cat
Park pathway – ring my bell
Otis
G’day sport 
Follow the leader
World’s Apart
Under the banyan tree
Just to be clear I would not post a single on of these to any forum. Not even close. And that brings me on to my second point today. I mentioned a while ago that I was doing less on FB and migrating my photos to Google +. And I am doing so. If you don’t believe me, go and check! I even joined a few ‘Communities’. They are certainly active and I have seen some very nice images indeed. Looking at them I have drawn a few learnings.
Most of the images are effectively reworks of things I have seen before. I am not talking about montages or composites but just plain ordinary photographs. Even though they may be of high technical quality, there is remarkably little that I would consider creative. It may well be tough to find a new angle on “a rose” but if so, don’t post.
The ones that do work for me tend to be minimalist – simple, uncluttered, with a clear focal point / subject. “Busy” photos leave me wondering what it is I am supposed to focus on – no pun intended.
Light and colour are vital components of colour images, whereas monochromes can work more through mood. I have been pleasantly surprised how many people prefer to end up with a monochrome image. On balance I see more quality images (again, a personal interpretation) in the B&W galleries than I do in the colour ones. I especially like the Nature in Monochrome community.
I have also decided that I have overdosed on shallow DoF. Why did I use a F0.95 or F1.2 aperture? Because I can! Oooooh, lovely bokeh! My own conclusion is that in many instances the selective focus (deliberately creating what Rough Seas would call the blurred or out of focus bits) does not add to the aesthetics of the image. I need to think more about why I am choosing the F-stop I am.
I have some other thoughts but I shall save those for when I am feeling more combative. And anyway I am tired now. I have to work tomorrow and must do some prep. So that’s it for another thrilling instalment of “All Downhill”. Do come back for more because if you don’t I’ve wasted a lot of time. TTFN.
And finally, if you got this far……….. drum roll:
All downhill from here 