Granada captured by Fuji’s XF 14mm f/2.8

At the Mirador de San Nicolas, looking out on Alhambra and Sierra Nevada
(ISO 200, f/8, 1/450s)

A couple of weeks ago, we took a short but much needed break from the Belgian winter and from all other things-as-usual. We set course on Granada, a city of UNESCO World Heritage fame that we hadn’t visited before. This was to be a relaxing family trip, so I was told to go tourist-style and leave behind any heavy stuff or tripods.

My travel kit was easy to assemble: first the X-Pro1 with the just arrived all-new 14mm f/2.8 wide angle, then the X-E1 with the 18-55mm zoom, and finally the 35mm f/1.4 just in case. Everything fitted comfortably in my Think Tank Retrospective 7, with room to spare. Sometimes things fall nicely in place…

Alhambra – The Palace of Charles V
(ISO 800, f/8, 1/60s)

Alhambra – The Courtyard of the Lions in early morning light
(ISO 400, f/11, 1/170s)

We found ourselves in a sunny but bitterly cold Granada, with above-zero temperatures between mid-morning and late afternoon only. The wind had a nasty chilling bite. This time of the year the light is very harsh: perfect conditions to challenge the sensor’s dynamic range. The quality of the out-of-camera JPEGs keeps surprising me, it is simply amazing how much shadow and highlight detail is captured and available to be further exploited in post-processing. I did often shoot at a minimum ISO 400 or 800 to maximize the potential dynamic range enhancement.

The Courtyard of the Myrtles, one of Alhambra’s signature shots
(ISO400, f/11, 1/180s)

Tesselations and arabesques 
(ISO400, f/11, 1/180s)

The harsh lighting conditions and the huge contrast between indoor and outdoor scenes however call for shooting RAW followed by careful post processing: that remains the best approach to reveal all highlight detail while maintaining low noise shadow information. Adobe’s Lightroom 4.4 release candidate finally brings us X-Trans demosaicing support at the level of the sensor’s image quality; this software was used for all sample images in this post.

Around the Courtyard of the Lions 
(ISO400, f/5.6, 1/40s)

Around the Courtyard of the Lions
(ISO400, f/5.6, 1/50s)

The Fujinon XF 14mm f/2.8 proved to be all that is reported by many reviewers and early adopters. The lens is sharp right from its maximum aperture, shows excellent micro-contrast and is virtually distortion-free. Color rendition is superb. Autofocus is more than adequately fast (behaving like a true tourist on this trip, I almost never selected manual focus). Shooting handheld only, I was able to use fairly long exposure times with a very high keeper rate. In one word: the 14mm prime is a pleasure to work with!

Alhambra – Hall of the Ambassadors 
(ISO1600, f/5.6, 1/8s)

Alhambra – Ceiling of the Hall of the Abencerrajes
(ISO800, f/4, 1/45s)

The very wide field of view of course means that perspective distortion always lies just around the corner. Lightroom’s lens correction tools make it easy to compensate when desired, and the image files allowed so without visible loss of quality and detail.

Looking out at the Palacio del Partal
(ISO400, f/5, 1/450s)

The famous fountain in the Patio de Lindaraja
(ISO800, f/6.4, 1/60s)

Let there be no doubt: the 14mm prime is a beautiful lens that is likely to come along on many more trips. And that’s just one of its many potential applications!

Vista from the side gallery of the Generalife
(ISO400, f/11, 1/480s)

Generalife – View on the Patio de la Sultana
(ISO200, f/8, 1/850s)

More images from Granada and its wealth of monuments and sights to follow.

Gear notes: Fujifilm X-Pro1, Fujinon XF 14mm f/2.8

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Good to see you back!

I know, it’s been too long… I will not even attempt to make come up with an explanation.

Just too much other stuff on the burner.

Not that my photography did come to a standstill, though. Riding the waves of the Photokina announcements, there were a few gems added to Fujifilm’s X-line, to my great excitement. You know that I have fully embraced the X-series cameras, X100 first, X-Pro1 later as well as the excellent Fujinon XF lenses. Over the last two months, they were joined by an X-E1, the 17-55 zoom, a Samyang 8mm fish-eye and –as of today – Fuji’s latest: the XF 14mm f/2.8.

I now pick up those tools almost exclusively for most shoots. As Fuji and others build towards a complete “X-system”, exceptions get rare. My full frame Nikon D700 and its great but heavy f/2.8 zooms only see some action for very specific projects. My Nikon DX gear is sadly collecting dust and goes up for sale, a few FX travel/prosumer zooms as well.

No, it is not all about the equipment! But since I picked up the X100 and helplessly fell for it, I am enjoying my photography more than ever. A more deliberate shooting style, greater challenges calling for better preparation… these are only a few of the elements that contributed to a kind of creative revival and boost.

The good news about having stopped blogging for a while is that there is now a backlog of images to share (and alas, also still a bunch to process). So stay tuned!

Gear notes: all images in the collage shot with X100, X-Pro1 or X-E1

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Xboxes on a stroll

Finally back after a long period of… well, just no time for blogging. Luckily, that did not mean no chance to get out shooting (just almost no spare room for reviewing, processing etc.).

I took my X-cameras along on a full day of street photography in Brussels’ Marolles neighborhood, situated between the Law Courts of Brussels (the biggest building worldwide constructed in the 19th century) and the Brussels-South railway station. During the Middle Ages lepers were exiled to this area, where they were cared for by the nuns of Maria Colentes (Marikollen) – hence the origin of the area’s name.

In later centuries, the Marolles became a working class district, and in modern times even a laboratory for the construction of social housing. The neighborhood today is known for its social authenticity, as it houses a mix of generations and ethnicities.

Visitors and tourists will be attracted by the daily secondhand trade market on the ‘Vossenplein’ and by the many antiques in the surrounding streets. But if you venture a little further, there is much more to discover!

Not uncommon for street photography in general, I find this subject matter ideally suited to be captured in black and white. So these few selected shots got a good dose of Silver Efex Pro.

Gear notes: Fujifilm X-Pro1, Fujinon XF 35mm f/1.4 & 60mm f/2.4;
Fujifilm X100

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