Blog Post #48

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

I haven’t put a blog post out for a couple of weeks now so it’s time for a bit of a catch up ahead of Christmas.

Purchases

There were two exhibitions this year that left an impression on me. Those were the Vivian Meyer and Chris Killip retrospectives. I talk more about these in blog posts 43 and 46 respectively. I don’t usually purchase books at exhibitions because they are usually heavy and I would have to hump them around for the rest of the day. Another reason is that they can often be found cheaper on Amazon Prime. I know I should be supporting galleries with purchases so I try and buy a coffee or smaller item when I am there.

Books are a great way to study photographic technique and the way that different photographers take different approaches. They tell you a lot about the photographers themselves too. The main themes of the books are documentary and street photography and display some of the finest examples of both that I have seen. The Killip book was procured from Amazon but the Meyer book had been out of print for a while but a back order with Waterstones delivered the goods. I am really looking forward to having a good look through both of these and adding to my knowledge on how the masters do it.

Another recent purchase was the newly released Fujifilm X-T5 black body. To help fund the purchase I traded in my trusty X-T3 and was sad to see it go, but London Camera Exchange offered me a good trade in deal and I prefer to do business with my local camera shop. I didn’t go for the X-T4 when it came out but the new features the X-T5 has over the X-T3 makes it more justifiable. I haven’t really had a chance to use it in anger yet but hope to do so soon. The first thing I noticed was that it was noticeably lighter and smaller than the X-T3 but packed a lot more features and technology.

I mentioned in a previous blog post that I wished manufacturers focussed more on the stills side of taking photos and stopped running away with adding video capability to every new camera. Fujifilm claim this is addressed with this model in that the main upgrades are towards the still photography capabilities of the camera. I mentioned the camera was smaller so I wondered if this would be an issue holding it and whether it would affect the ergonomic layout. I remember when the Olympus OM-1 came out I considered buying it but when I held one it just didn’t seem to fit my hand hold properly. The X-T5 has a more pronounce grip “bump” than the X-T3 so it wasn’t too bad. If I find its an issue though Fuji are bringing out a dedicated grip for the camera so even they must have considered some photographers may struggle. I will try one out. One thing I noticed when unboxing it was the lack of battery charger. A cable is provided for using the camera as the battery charger but I never like tying up my camera as a charger when it should be taking photos. Fuji claim that the battery life on the X-T5 batteries is much better than the X-T3 batteries (which shouldn’t be difficult) , but a spare battery and charger were purchased anyway. I always purchase manufacturer batteries and chargers as opposed to the much cheaper copies which can actually damage you equipment and invalidate the warranty. Two other things I usually fit to my Fuji cameras is a soft button release and a thumb rest. I haven’t done that this time to see how I get on. Once I manage to get out and about taking some shots I will cover my impressions on the X-T5 here.

Given that I had a good run up to Christmas selling prints and Zines directly from my website, I decided to shell out for some new software to compliment my Adobe suite. Having done some research I decided to take advantage of the 60% off offer that Topaz Labs were running for Black Friday. I already had DeNoise and was very impressed with it so I went for the rest of the suite (with the exception of Video AI). The payment and download process was simple and they linked straight into Lightroom as a plug-in. I discussed in my last blog that I was a bit sceptical about the use of Artificial Inteligence in the extreme when it comes to photography, but if it helps post processing I am happy to take a look at it. The suite is easy to use and has a common layout theme across the different modules. Photo AI seems to be a conglomeration of all the modules doing multiple adjustments based on the “Autopilot” recommendations. I am really looking forward to working with this software package and maybe even re-visiting some old Raw files.

Shooting in all weathers ?

My wife and I thought a few months ago that it would be nice to get away for a few days before Christmas, to have a break sort of thing. Little did we know that we would pick our break right in the middle of the coldest snap in December for 10 years. We headed up to Glasgow to see family first and left the cold English temperatures to be greeted with the even colder Scottish temperatures. A visit to Glasgow was confined to visits to The Glasgow Gallery of Photography and Street Level Photoworks. The plan was to head up to The Barras but given the grey skies and freezing air I doubted if anyone else would be about. After Scotland we headed to Lancashire for a few days in a static home. The temperatures were so low our intended accommodation was out of bounds due to frozen pipes so an alternative was provided. A trip into Blackpool didn’t last long as it was so cold and there was virtually nobody about. We also visited the illuminations that night and I think we were the only car driving along the promenade. It convinced me that Blackpool is not Blackpool without people. I didn’t get many photos so the X-T5 didn’t get its intended run out.

It got me wondering. Am I a fair weather photographer? Do I only head out in warm weather? The answer has to be no because even although I didn’t get much done in the sub-zero December, I was equally uncomfortable in the July +30C days. I need to address that.

I would like to close by wishing you all Happy Christmas and hope that Santa has some photo goodies for you.

I hope you have enjoyed this blog post and thank you for reading it. If you want to comment on this blog post please do so below or you can contact me by using the “Contact Me” facility in the website header.

Pete