Fuji X100T Project - Back to the Sea
Back in March 2015 I went to the Photography Show with the intention of picking up a deal on a Fuji X100T. I've always been a Canon user but there's always been something enticing about the Fuji X100 and after trying out an X100s for a couple of months, that was it .... my mind was made up. I wanted ..... no .... I needed the the X100T! The intention was to have a decent pocketable camera (well coat pockets anyway) with creativity options and of course those wonderful colours that Fuji seem to have with their film simulations. Errrr .... so it probably seems a little odd that I've chosen my first project to be in black and white but hey .. I'd been reading a copy of Black & White Photography magazine and it inspired me to try something different.
So ... "Back to the Sea". Why? Well a couple of reasons really. Firstly it's a play on words, because the idea is that I would go to the coast and instead of shooting out towards the sea I would turn my attention away from it ... so I would have my back, to the sea. Why would I do that when almost all the nice photos you see in the regular photography magazines are shooting sunrises or sunsets with waves over rocks, general water movement or that often used big stopper to smooth everything out?? Well, because I was getting bored of it. Don't get me wrong, there are many nice photos shooting out to sea, but I wanted to do something different from everyone else. Something different from the typical chocolate box cover or a slightly different slant on a Landscape Photography magazine cover.
A few years ago, I was doing a little bit of landscape photography and was shooting so many below average photos that I just needed to slow down. A tripod and various filters eventually helped me improve the standard of photograph but maybe it stifled my creativity a bit. I was churning out the same type of photos as everyone else, month after month and I was losing the enthusiasm to get out of bed and shoot. With just the Fuji X100T and my little Domke bag it's all so light weight and I can quickly try different perspectives in seconds, instead of wrestling with the tripod.
Also, because my project tended to have me shooting away from the sun, the contrast between foreground and sky was lessened and the filters were not necessary. My Canon 5D Mark II 17-40L, range of filters and Gitzo tripod are not on their way to eBay anytime soon, but I am loving my Fuji and the lighter load. I'm also loving the image quality - many Fuji users talk about this, without being able put their finger on what it is or why. I feel the same way.
I could of course have just picked up my 5D and walked around with it, minus the tripod, filters, large bag etc - it would have been a much lighter load. But I just love the X100T. It's cool & retro, it's light, it's small, it's image quality is excellent and I like the single focal length it restricts me to. OK, so I have the wide converter but that's tiny and fits in a pocket. It's my favourite ever camera.
Comments
Very nice thank you for sharing