Quinault Rainforest

After another long break from posting on the blog we return to where we left off. After I left New York I traveled to Seattle and went on a road trip through Washington and Oregon. My first stop was the Quinault Rainforest.

35mm 1/80sec, f/4, ISO 1000

It is an amazing place, especially if you don't have much time for hiking the trails around it. You can just drive your car and park it every few miles along the road and discover waterfalls, creeks, huge threes and moss everywhere.

35mm 2sec, f/16, ISO 200

I used my little joby tripod to take the long exposures. I would have preferred my old Benro tripod, but I was happy to be travelling light.

35mm 1/80sec, f/4, ISO 1600

Visiting Quinault was easily one of my best memories from the trip and it proved to be a nice test for the Fuji x100s. Low light hand held shots, macro and long exposures were all there.

35mm 2.5sec, f/16, ISO 250

You can actually do a loop around the lake in search of interesting spots, sadly the road changes from asphalt to gravel halfway through which is not as enjoyable.

Back to NYC part 2

   No trip to New York is complete without visiting Grand Central Station. It's like no other train station that I have ever been to. One of the reasons for that is that half of the people that are there, have no intention of boarding a train. They are there, like me, for another reason...to take pictures of the station itself and the busy traffic of people going in all directions.

35mm 1/30s, f/4, ISO 1250

Carrying a small tripod has advantages, but here I found it difficult to use because it is so short, the only way was to lay on the floor. Which turned out to be a sight for most people in the station, some guy rolling around on the floor trying to take pictures..

35mm 1/100s, f/4, ISO 2000

This is where the Fuji x100s excels - Shooting with shutter speed under 1/30s , where most DSLRs will have a hard time.

35mm 1/8s, f/5,6, ISO 1250

  When you go outside you see buildings everywhere. Grand Central Stations is surrounded by all kinds of glass and concrete facades. I am glad it's still there, unlike the sad fate that befell the old Penn Station...

35mm 1/100s, f/5.6, ISO 640

To be continued....

Back to NYC

    NYC is such a unique place. During the summer I had the chance to visit again, and this time it was for a longer period of time - 4 days, compared to the few hours I spent there when I first came to the United States. Last time around I was lugging a very heavy bag with a bunch of lenses and a heavy tripod, but thanks to my x100s all I had with me was my Billingham Hadley Pro filled with some batteries, the x100s and a JOBY tripod.

35mm 1/250s, f/8, ISO 500
A view towards Manhattan from Brooklyn

    The first day started with an early morning walk around the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. There were only some joggers around and it was incredibly peaceful. The weather sadly was dull, and it remained murky and rainy for the length of my stay which in turn lead to my decision to shoot black and white from this point on.

35mm 1/250s, f/2.8, ISO 1250
The subway train at City Hall station

  The best way to travel around New York is the subway, although it's not always comfortable. you could be waiting at the station and the temperature can easily be around 30 degrees celsius, and then the moment you get inside the train you are greeted with a chilly 15! There is no middle ground, it's always very hot or very cold (at least in June).

35mm 1/125s, f/4.5, ISO 800
Canal Street Subway Station

   Next stop - Canal Street, known for China Town and Little Italy right next to it. Many people have heard about the fake Prada and Gucci bags, but the reality is that you won't see more than some souvenirs and trinkets. What I found really interesting was the people that live and work in that area. I wanted to capture them as they are without them being affected by the presence of my camera, and the x100s was just perfect doing that. With its almost silent shutter, I just left my camera dangling on my neck and started taking pictures without looking in the viewfinder.

35mm 1/1000s, f/4, ISO 640

35mm 1/500s, f/4.5, ISO 640

35mm 1/500s, f/4, ISO 640

To be continued...

Long time no see

Wow! That was a long break! One year after my last post I can finally find some time to write again. Many things have happened since then, but the one thing that remains the same is how happy I am with my Fuji x100s. I recently bought the new TCL-X100 which has been a great addition to my camera, giving me the ability to shoot not only 35mm but also 50mm. I will test it thoroughly later this month.

Photo by digital-trends

In my upcoming posts I will share some pictures from my trip to New York, Washington and Oregon. And just to get things going...A picture of the soviet army monument in the center of Sofia that I took last weekend. This shot has been quite elusive because there is no water in that spot in general. But because of some recent rain, I was able to finally get it.

1/250s, f/11, ISO 500

A Lovely Morning

       I had to drop some documents in the center one morning and I jumped at the opportunity to take some more pictures and continue with my exploration of Sofia. After you get out of the metro on Serdika Station you end up before the Saint Sunday church.

1/250s  f/11 at ISO400

It used to be called Saint King, but after it was blown up by the communists before WWII and its reconstruction was finished it was renamed to Saint Sunday.

1/125s  f/5.6 at ISO400

Passing through one of the side streets behind the Saint Sunday church, I found a dragon on a column! Guess where? On the entrance of another church!

1/500s  f/8 at ISO400

 Sofia's center is a mix of all kinds of architecture and I particularly like the statues carrying the weight of huge decorated balconies on their shoulders. This building has been renovated a few years ago so it's in pretty good condition. Sadly there are many others that are falling apart because the owners of the apartments in the buildings don't have the funds to maintain them, or because they are waiting for it to fall apart so they can demolish it later.

1/125s  f/16 at ISO200

The building of my old middle school, the 127th school. One of the oldest if not the oldest school in Sofia.

1/250s  f/11 at ISO200

The right light can make even the most greyish and neglected buildings look pretty. I am not sure where this kind of design originates but Sofia's center is full of apartment blocks like these.

1/160s  f/11 at ISO200

The colors on the back of this building were a nice refreshment to the greyish monotone of that part of the city, and I don't think that there is another one like it in Sofia.

1/250s  f/11 at ISO200

                    Memories from the socialist years. Smiling and looking towards a bright future.

1/320s  f/11 at ISO200

I loved the light so much this morning but sadly I had to cut it short because it was time for work...

The Billingham Hadley Pro

        I've been a long time user of the Lowepro camera bags, I had a total of 2 backpacks and a shoulder bag. They are pretty durable, although their weather cover is a bit flimsy, and once wet...its very wet. But let's be honest they carried whatever I put in them, and my Flipside 400 AW has been with me all over the world filled with a minimum of 12 kg of camera gear. After I started selling my lenses, and my D700 had taken it's place on the shelf next to my Nikon N90s, I no longer needed a big backpack. Google has been by my side helping me with what decisions to make from the very beginning. The search ended when I came upon a camera bag company from England, named Billingham. For one or another reason (price and availability in BG) I had never heard of them before. I was amazed to find out that there were people out there that had one of those bags for over 20 years, and they were still doing the job. Tradition, high quality, great design, real leather and waterproof canvas/fibernyte and a huge amount of satisfied customers all over the world - my next bag was going to be from Billingham.

Picture: Kai Sheng - flickr.com

        The next question was which one? They have a huge variety of shoulder bags, and for a long period of time I had my heart set on the Hadley Small. Why would I need something bigger? My x100s was so small, and I wanted to be free from all that weight that I carried with me in the past. But literally in the last possible moment before I ordered it from amazon, I decided to get the Hadley Pro, a little bigger + a handle on the top. When it finally arrived I didn't regret my decision, the Hadley Small..would have been too "small", ironic eh? And after all you are paying quite a lot for one of  those bags, you better be able to use it for a longer period of time, and not for just around your city but for travelling as well.
        Speaking about money, we come to the price tag, and it is a shocker for many, at 300$ that's quite a substantial sum of money for an accessory, luckily I funded it's purchase from the sale of my lenses. The combined price tag of all my Lowepro bags is well over 400$, so is it that much really? But anyway you rationalize it, the reason you buy it is because you love it, and you can't put a price on that.

The x100s

       You can shoot in different frame sizes, from 3:2 to 16:9 and 1:1; Then you have "advanced filter" - toy camera (shaded borders and a greenish haze), miniature (top and bottom blur), pop color, high and low key a bunch of partial colors and some more that I don't intend to use. You have the option of choosing signature fuji film colors - astia, velvia and provia. There is also a pretty good macro mode. A thing to mention is the video, in the many reviews I've read of this camera they say its ok-ish and nothing special. But from what I've seen so far at 60fps full HD, the image quality is awesome, and that's a tool that I will definitely explore more in the future.

Picture: Gary Cruz - flickr.com

       Autofocus is pretty fast, even in the dark it will lock on, but you have to look for contrast in the frame, that's the easiest way to get a lock. And even if you can't do that..then you have the amazing Manual Focus. Equipped with focus peaking and split image, focusing manually is an absolute joy. Don't expect the battery to be as good as on your DSLR, the battery of my Nikon D700 can last for days, and up to 2500 frames or more. Fuji says that you will get around 330 frames out of this battery, but you can probably extend that if the camera is not in high performance mode, you don't use the screen as much and you are taking single images, not bursts. I've solved this problem by buying 2 additional third party batteries for 10$ each instead of paying Fuji 50$ for one. Thats true for other accessories as well, as the third party options are most of the times as good as their Fuji counterparts for a 1/4 of the price, check out JJC photo accessories.

Next stop, the camera bag.

     

Film meets Digital

           The Fujifilm x100s. First things first, it's gorgeous! The moment I saw it I knew that was the next camera I wanted to have. It looks like it came straight out of the 1960's, and that is no coincidence as its looks are based on the Leica M3. It has goregeous manual controls and an incredible Electronic View Finder (EVF) which gives you the ability to see how the picture looks before you fully press the shutter.

Picture: by the Author

Picture: by the Author

           It's price tag of around 1300$ or 1100£ is a lot for many people, given the fact that you have a fixed lens of 23mm (35mm Full Frame equivalent). But what a lens it is, incredibly sharp and at f/2 it works as a great portrait lens as well. I personally relish the opportunity to get back to the frame itself, rather than wondering about changing lenses, zooming and so on. Going from high quality zoom lenses to a fixed focal lenght lens is a challange, but a challange that I look forward to. I funded the purchase of the camera by selling two of my lenses, and I can say that I don't regret it for a second. I haven't felt the need for them since I got the x100s. Due to the fact that the camera itself is pretty rare, accessories are quite difficult to find, and I had to resort to ordering them from amazon.co.uk all the way to Bulgaria. The first thing I added to it was the leather strap from an old Zenit M12s film camera, which is one of the lightest and softest straps I've ever used. Next I added to additional batteries and a screen protector. I am still waiting for an adapter ring, lens hood and a leather case from the UK.
          As I mentioned earlier, switching from the familiar DSLR to a new system is a big thing, and you don't really know what to expect. For the first few days it was like starting to get into photography all over again, everything was foreign to me, I had no idea how to set things the way I wanted to, but after a while it all became more familiar and the camera started to do my biding...

A difficult choice

           I heard about the Olympus OM-D EM 5 and I looked into that, but it's a bit too bulky and pretty close to a DSLR's size. What I was looking for was something lighter and as close as possible to the quallity and abillities of my old Nikon D700.

Picture: dpreview.com

       
             Even though I started with a Nikon N8008, followed by the Nikon N90s which is still my favourite camera body. My entry into the DSLR world came in the shape of a D40 which was a great camera for its price and size at the time. Later I bought a D300, followed by the D700. So you can say that I am a Nikon guy, and Nikon has their own V1 and J1 systems, but I never warmed up to them when they first came out, and that hasn't changed now. Which lead me to the conclusion that I had to look at a different camera manufacturer, which is a big step for any photographer due to many reasons. So where to next?

Picture: gizmodo.com

             I have some old film cameras, and the feel of the controls is incredible, you feel at one with the camera, every single rotation of a knob and the click of it falling in place...So was there something that could evoke that feeling combined with the benefits and quality of a digital camera? Turns out there was....