Right, a bit of catching up to do – this post contains several sets of photos from the last few months – this is a re-post of several posts I put up earlier as I thought it better to lump them together into one.
St Mary Redcliffe
Back in April I bought a new camera – a Fuji X-T20, and this was the first trip out with it. Given that my office at the time was pretty much next door to St Mary Redcliffe, it was nice and simple to drop in one lunchtime. I’d worked there for over 10 years and this was the first time I’d been in to take photos…
The main reason for looking at the Fuji was practicality – when we went to Cornwall last year, I found I was leaving some of the Nikon kit behind because it was so damn heavy and it’s just daft to have kit and not use it. I’d been looking at the Fujis for a while, and had had a play with an X-T2, but it didn’t sit right in my hand – and it’s also expensive! When the X-T20 came out, I had a look at one and pretty much bought it on the spot. It’s a seriously good camera and actually has a lot of the internals of the X-T2, including the sensor. On top of that, the lenses have a great reputation – I bought the 18mm f2 and 35mm f2 Fuji lenses (28mm and 50mm equivalents), and have since added the manual focus Samyang 12mm.
I haven’t done it yet, but the Nikon kit will be going – a real shame to be waving goodbye to the Nikon 24-70 and 70-200 f2.8 lenses as they are so good, proper pro quality lenses – but they are big lumps of glass, the 70-200 in particular is very heavy.
Anyway, back to the photos – a nice set of pics as I got to know the camera.
Redcliffe and Surrounding Area
May 2017: Following on from the initial trip out with the new camera, I took a couple of lunchtime trips out to get to grips with it – not venturing far from Redcliffe, only as far as Castle Park and the new footbridge.
The main “highlight” was a car driver shouting “stop effing taking photos” at me as I took a shot in the street that he happened to drive through. Lovely.
Portway Whales
May 2017: I’m not sure how long they’ve been there but it wasn’t until I started a period of driving to work that I noticed the wickerwork whales in the disused sports ground on the A4 Portway in Bristol. So obviously I had to go and take some photos.
Bristol University Botanic Garden
June 2017: I had a bit of spare time in June as I was in the process of being made redundant – all worked out OK, I had a new job sorted before I left so went straight from one to the other – so I had a few opportunities to get out and take photos.
These are from a visit to the Bristol University Botanic Garden. This was the first time I had the Samyang 12mm lens for the Fuji, and despite being manual focus it’s lovely to use and plenty sharp.
The shots of the dragonfly are worthy of picking out – these are serious crops on the originals as the longest lens I’ve got on the Fuji is equivalent to a 50mm, which isn’t particularly telephoto. They show how good the Fuji sensor and lenses are.
The last photo is also worth mentioning as it’s the first one I’ve taken with my large format 5×4 camera where I’ve thought “wow”. Properly pleased with the shot.
Bristol Harbourside
June 2017: I took a wander along the southern side of Bristol’s Floating Harbour for pretty much the first time – I’ve only been in Bristol for 21 years now – and also took a boat trip round the harbour for the first time! As always, I ended up taking photos of tatty bits.
I’ve been finding that the Fuji works very well for black & white images, particularly with its film simulation modes – Fuji Acros is excellent. I’ve also picked up some Lightroom presets which have been working well.
Clifton Cathedral
June 2017: One place I’ve been meaning to go and have a look at for a long time is the modern Clifton Catholic Cathedral, and seeing it on a TV programme prompted me to finally go along.
It’s a really interesting building, if you like that sort of thing – it’s verging on brutalist concrete, but really interesting especially in black and white.