Switching to Fujifilm
At the start of 2022, I decided to switch to a Fujifilm X Series interchangeable lens camera, the X-E4. This decision has made a profound effect on my photography. My love of photography is greater than ever. I find myself motivated to go out and take photos and video every day.
Social Media – A Photo a Day
Turnstile – ACROS Film Simulation
As a part of expressing my rekindled love for photography, I decided to start a new photo series on social media. My previous series was about HDR travel photography in Cambodia. This time I’m dialing back the saturation to present street photography in Japan. I plan to post a photo almost every day. I’m not strictly posting every day because I think it’s good to have a rest during the week and avoid the added stress of sticking to a rigid schedule.
I chose to pursue street photography this time for a number of reasons.
- Practically I can’t travel because of the pandemic, so it needed to be something local
- Everyday street photography is excellent practice to improve my photography skills
- I was interested in exploring the use of contrast and tonality, and monochrome street photography is perfect for that
On my way – ACROS Film Simulation
The Camera: FUJIFILM X-E4 Mirrorless
I’ll go into more detail about this camera in a future post. For now, it’s an extremely light interchangeable lens mirrorless, digital camera. It has a “rangefinder” style body with the electronic view finder on the side rather than in the middle of the camera. It also has characteristic manual dials on top to control shutter speed and exposure compensation.
The Lens: Viltrox 33mm F1.4
The first lens I chose for the Fujifilm X-E4 is the Viltrox 33mm F1.4. I wanted a versatile field of view, fast aperture “Nifty Fifty” prime lens. The Viltrox was a well reviewed, economical option. I thought a prime lens might be restrictive, but 50mm equivalent is a very suitable perspective, and I haven’t felt restricted with the field of view at all. If anything, the only restriction I feel is the added weight of the lens. This is a very personal viewpoint because I’m actually coming from using the ultra-compact, pocket sized SONY RX100. As an APS-C sensor camera, the X-E4 is probably one of the lightest on the market now. Most people would describe it as light, portable and even pocket-able (with a pancake lens) in comparison to other cameras with the same size sensor or larger.
Riding to school – Classic Chrome
Tartan Times — Classic Negative