While walking on the beach today, practising some mindfulness, I was reminded how beautiful this part of the world is (northern NSW, Australia). And it occurred to me that I don't do as much photography around here as I used to. Why is that? Well, the answer for me is, at least partly, because of the current gear I own. See, about 6 months ago I sold all my landscape gear and replaced it with the Fuji X system, which is geared more towards street photography.
Why did you do that, revo, particularly given you are predominantly a landscape photographer? That's a good question. About 6 months ago, while having my annual existential crisis, I decided I was going to sell everything I owned and head to India for a year or more of street photography. I gave this decision at least a week or two's thought, so by my standards, that was pretty well planned.
I sold all my landscape gear (Nikon D810, Nikkor 14-24mm f2.8 and 24-70mm f2.8) and bought a Fuji XPro2 and X100T and some flash and other accessories. Of course, within a few weeks of doing that, I realised the folly of selling my house and car and moving to India, and called off the entire trip.
Now, I've been to India a couple of times before, and on my last trip a few years ago I took a Fuji X100, as well as about 48 kilos of Nikon gear. Of course, the Nikon gear got hardly any use, and was basically just dead weight in my pack and constant stress that $6000 of gear was going to get stolen any minute. But I absolutely fell in love with the Fuji X system. An absolutely stunning camera to use for street photography. Small, light, well built, old school looking, great fixed focal length lens... it barely stood out on the streets - as opposed to a gigantic Nikon DSLR with a 1 kilo lens bolted on to the front of it. So this time around, I upgraded to a newer version, and got the XPro2 as well for a mix of street in India and to still be able to get high quality landscape images while back here in Australia.
Raja the camel approves of the small and light Fuji X100
But here's the thing. The difference in using a Nikon D810, with its big bright through the lens viewfinder, and the XPro2 with its smaller electronic viewfinder (which is stunning for what it is) can't be understated enough. At least in terms of my personal experience. Without having done any landscape photography before with the Fuji X system, I was unprepared for how much of a lesser experience it is looking at a landscape scene through the viewfinder when compared to something like the Nikon (or even the Canon 5D I had before that).
Long story short, I don't feel inspired to pick up my Fuji for landscape work the same way I was constantly inspired by the Nikon. The Nikon had a bazillion clean and detailed megapixels, with phenomenal high ISO ability... and did I mention it had a big bright viewfinder? For me, a lot of photography is loosely identifying a shot with my eye, and then looking through the viewfinder to see whether I think it will transfer to the flat 2D medium of photography. And this is where the difference between a DSLR, where you are viewing the actual light of the scene through the lens and viewfinder, and a mirrorless camera like the Fuji X where you are viewing an (albeit very high quality) electronic lcd image of the scene, becomes most apparent. For me, there is no comparison between the two in terms of my photography style. I find looking at the electronic viewfinder in the Fuji X uninspiring, flat and lifeless.
Interestingly, this isn't something that I experienced using a Fuji for street photography. I think the difference lies in the subject matter. The "scene" in a street photograph in my personal style is largely the person who I am photographing. Of course, aligning elements around them can be important, and can really make a street photograph. But for me the primary focus is the person. There's less arranging of elements and depth of field and focal length etc like there is for a landscape shot.
Goat Herder, Rajasthan, India. Fuji X100
Holi Boy, India. Nikon D810, 24-70mm
Old Weathered Dude, India. Fuji X100
Perhaps it's in the viewing as well. A photograph of a person automatically captures a viewer's attention, as we automatically begin to relate in whatever way possible with the subject. But a landscape image doesn't have that automatic sensation. With landscape photography you have to use the elements in the scene (as well as depth of field and focal length) to draw the viewer's attention to the point of maximum interest in the image.
Fungi, Tweed Range Rainforest. One of my last ever shots with the Nikon D810
Despite all the hurdles that I perceive between me and my Fuji and an inspiring landscape shot, I did manage to capture a couple of nice images on the sole landscape shoot I have done with the XPro2. In this case, the inspiration was a some awesome looking weather - a big storm passing through with the afternoon sun illuminating it from a clear sky behind the storm. On this afternoon, I grabbed my camera gear and headed to the local headland where I expected to get some good light. Rushing from the carpark through the coastal walking track to the headland, I was desperately trying to remember how to operate the Xpro2 - I'd only shot some test shots in the house to familiarise myself with the controls. As I exited the forest and appeared on the headland, the scene blew me away and I quickly set up the camera and tripod and fumbled like crazy trying to find settings and whatnot. Thankfully, I got enough right to capture the following:
Lighthouse, Fingal, Australia. Fuji XPro2 and Samyang 12mm
Moving along the headland I headed towards what's known as the Giant's Causeway (not to be confused with the real deal in Ireland) to see if I could get some lighting strikes over it. Alas, I was actually too late to capture any, as the storm via that perspective had moved well offshore. But I still managed to get some nice shots there. Although, if you look at the following image, you might agree with me that I could have used a few extra mm's of wider angle that my Nikkor 14-24mm had to get a bit more width and get a bit closer to the edge while squeezing in a little more of the foreground.
Giant's Causeway, Fingal, Australia. Fuji XPro2 and Samyang 12mm
Somehow I need to regain some inspiration for landscape photography. This time of year is good, as it's storm season, and storms and the coast make wonderful partners. But this time, I definitely need to revise the settings on the Fuji. I haven't picked it up for a few months now, and the layout wasn't familiar to me even back then.
Stay tuned to see if I can manage to drag myself out of the house and flick the right buttons to capture something inspirational this summer!
great colors and compositions . congratulations my friend. excellent shot
Cheers, thanks!
I just replaced my Nikon dslr with a Fuji x100f few days ago. I love shooting street photography so much and just couldn't do it well enough with the big dslr.
But on the other hand, I like capturing beautiful landscapes and I know I'm going to miss my Nikon at some point.
It felt literally like I was telling this story. Thanks for sharing! And great captures!
Cheers mate! How are you finding the electronic viewfinder? One good thing about the X100 series is that you can use the standard viewfinder. Although, I also had the wide-angle converter for the X100T, and for that you need to use the electronic viewfinder. By the way, if you are looking to expand the range of the X100F, the wide angle converter is really good quality. I didn't get around to using it for proper landscape at all, but for street you couldn't see any noticeable degradation of image quality at all. I was really impressed.
Been busy last few day so didn't get to play around with it yet. Yeah, I saw there are wide angle conversion lenses, that's pretty nice. Even though I'm used to my 35mm prime lens from Nikon, it's nice to have options. :)
Looks like this is a trend... I did the same thing recently. Sold my Nikon for mirrorless.
The double rainbow is obviously a sign. Sometimes constraints and limits can be a blessing in disguise when it comes to creative endeavors. Maybe you will find the new camera set up pushing you to create things you would not have otherwise with your other gear. I love this post and can't wait to see future photos taken by you on any camera.
Much love - Carl
Cheers, mate! Thanks for the kind sentiments.
Great performance, very sensible with lights and color tones!
Thanks James.
thank you for taking us thru your journey. I am struggling to figure out the right balance of gear, and also recently sold my Nikon gear and currently have two: an Olympus x-10m2, and a Sony a7ii. I mostly enjoy portrait photography, so the Olympus wouldn't serve me well, and I'm mostly just using the Sony. I LOVE it. The issue with the viewfinder is interesting, and I haven't had the same issue with the Sony. But then again, I haven't really shot any landscapes. Anyway, great post!
Thanks mate. I'm sure I'll get used to the EVF eventually. Maybe it's as simple as turning the brightness down a bit.
Amazing photography. Looking beautiful. That photos are looking like professionaly captured. I like these. I really enjoyed these photos to see. Keep sharing. I wait for your next post.
Cheers mate!
nice photos
Thanks mate.
Nice photos
@joe.public I see you around and always making good comments on good posts by good posters. Are you interested in curation? I would love to chat with you about something. DM me on steemit.chat @carlgnash
Cheers
Thanks Joe! Photography, along with travel, is one of the only things I have passion for any more. So it's a bit of a strange place to find myself without much photography inspiration. I think part of it is just unfamiliarity with the Fuji. I think with enough shooting I'd probably get used to the viewfinder. It's just got to be a matter of getting off my arse and taking the camera out and start shooting again.
Or move to India (this is a potential idea again, if steem booms). ;)
Yeah I'm stoked! By far my biggest potential payout yet. And timing with the payout multiplier that we are getting due to the really high value of SBD, is really lucky. :)
I'm actually going to try and exchange and withdraw a small amount of steem to pay some bills, but I'm a total noob to cryptocurrencies. I really got no idea as to the best way to do it. There was an Aussie made a post a few weeks back about converting steem to AU$, but I'm not certain I'll be able to find the post again. If you've got any tips, or traps to avoid, I'd love to hear them.