So in the previous post I dealt with the plane shots.   I also did some available light shots not using flash ( it wasn’t practical and I didn’t have an assistant ).

This first shot was taken on Diamond Beach, so named because of the diamond like lumps of ice that litter it.  It’s an amazing place but very cold and there are a lot of tourists.  We moved down from the main area and I shot this with the 90mm f2.  If there is good light and room to shoot this is my favourite lens.  I had to tell Natasha to face the sun and hope the light didn’t look too terrible.  We tried putting the sun behind her but I couldn’t make an exposure work without flash, which I couldn’t use at the time.

The next shot was taken on the 16mm 1.4.  We had arrived early at the glacier and the morning light was still really nice, and a very warm colour, which contrasted nicely with the blues in the background, so again I opted for available light.  I love the 16mm 1.4 for epic fashion shots and it again performed beautifully here.

That’s it for this episode of Fashion in Iceland!!  Next week I’ll post some more, with waterfalls in:)

Apologies for the long delay before getting back to this, I’ve been incredibly busy with photography related tasks over the past two weeks.  While in Iceland we found a brief hour to do some waterfall fashion shots.  I shot these on the 90mm f2 again ( possibly my favourite lens for portrait and fashion at the moment ).  I put the camera on a tripod and went back a fair bit.  The poor models did suffer a bit as it was bitterly cold and there was a howling wind and lots of spray coming from the waterfall.  I shot multiple exposures, some to blur the fabric and the water and then some faster ones to freeze the models ( well, they were already frozen, but you get the idea ).  The other reason I used the 90mm rather than the 56mm is because the 90 is weather sealed, and there was a lot of water flying around.  The weather sealed lenses on the Fuji was essential on this trip.

*Disclaimer* I am not in any way a landscape photographer.  However, as I was over there and had a wide angle lens handy it seemed a shame to not take a few shots of such an incredible place.  Most of these were taken on the 16mm 1.4 lens on the Fuji X-T1.  

The northern lights shots were shot on a tripod.  There were a bunch of us taking them and everyone got some nice shots, but because I had a 1.4 wide angle, which is quite unusual, I was able to keep the ISO at 200, over a 30 second exposure.  Also, the 16 1.4 is weather sealed, and in Iceland, that makes a huge difference, as there is almost always water hitting your camera!  I’ve heard some people moaning about the dynamic range of the Fuji’s but I’ve found it pretty good, not as good as a Nikon with the latest Sony sensor in it, but better than my old 5d mk 3, especially for pulling back highlights.  In conclusion, the 16mm 1.4 is an awesome landscape lens, which I also use for fashion work ( see image below ).

I was asked to photograph a live gig this weekend, its a band I’ve seen before called Dirtbag.  They are really good and I’ve shot them before, but they wanted more shots with the crowd in this time.  From past experience in the very dark venues they go to I knew the Fuji might need some help, so I took a long a D750 and a 50mm 1.4 lens.  I got some great stuff with both cameras, here are some images ( I did use the flip screen on both cameras as well, it was very handy when trying to shoot above the crowd ).

OK, firstly, I’m not talking about high end/commercial photography where you are shooting magazine covers and billboards.  I’m talking about the hobbyist market, people who just want to get better photographing other people and hopefully create some interesting images along the way.   I’m talking about how to get to a place where you can easily find people who want to work with you and create images that you are happy with.    So, you’ve got this camera, you want to go shoot a fashion model, how to start?  I will intersperse random model pictures so the wall of text doesn’t look so boring.

1.Get to know that camera really well and learn to shoot on manual mode.  If you end up shooting in the studio, you will absolutely have to be able to shoot in manual mode and understand the role aperture, shutter speed and ISO all play and when to use which values.

2.Don’t spend a ton of money on gear.  Unless you are shooting events like weddings, or sports, you don’t need high end gear.  Do not get sucked into GAS ( Gear Aquisition Syndrome ).  Almost any modern DSLR or mirrorless camera will be fine for model photography/portraits.  If you are trying to shoot kids running around that’s a different story, but again, knowing your camera well will help a lot ( zone focussing for example)

3. You need a basic portrait lens, which means something longer than 70mm.  If you are only going to be shooting in a studio the aperture doesn’t need to be super wide, but if you want to shoot outdoors shots with lovely bokeh, then something like an 85mm 1.8 would be ideal.  The 135mm f2 is also generally considered an excellent portrait lens if you have the space to use it.  Zooms are great, but generally a lot more expensive so if you are starting out, maybe stick with primes.  Get a 50mm 1.8 or 1.4 if you can afford it, as this is a very useful focal length and the 50mm primes are very good value.

4.Get on social media and set up a photography page.  Once your work starts getting good, you can pick up a lot of shoots via social media.

5.Join an internet modelling site, like PurplePort in the UK, or Model Mayhem if you are abroad.  There are others, but those two are the ones I use.  Internet modelling sites come and go so find out which one is the hot one at the moment and use that.

6.To start with, you will need to pay models.  There is no getting around this, and even further down the line, you will need to pay to shoot with the best models.  Treat the people you work with with respect, don’t attempt to use the sites as a dating service.  After about 10-20 shoots, you should start  to have built a decent reputation as a non serial killer, and hopefully your images will be getting better.  You can then try and get TFP shoots if money is an issue.  TFP is Time for Print ( when you used to give prints in exchange for time ).  These days it means time for images, effectively, as most of us are on digital.  TFP is great, but there are many pitfalls.  I’ll be writing an entirely separate article on that shortly.

7.Use the internet.  Youtube is full of photography tutorials, many of them excellent.  You will need to learn lighting, how to help models pose, and photoshop.  It can be overwhelming, so I would start simple.  Book a model for a natural light session, get the sun behind them and put a reflector in front of them and have a go.  The best way of learning is to practice, and practice some more.  Assuming you are paying the model, if you mess it up, it doesn’t matter, they won’t mind and most experienced models will be able to help you out with where to stand them etc.

8.Push yourself on every shoot, try something different every single time.

9.Find a photographer whose style you like, and invest some money into a one to one session with them, or go on a workshop.  If you do go on a workshop, pick carefully, some are good, some not so good.  The ones with huge numbers of people, not so good generally ( from personal experience, 6-8 is the maximum number of people I would want on an all day workshop ).  A good training session can really accelerate your learning.

10.Use pinterest to make moodboards for shoots to give you ideas.  You can share these with your model for the day to give them an idea of what to bring.

11.Network like crazy, if you want to shoot fashion then you will need a team, or at least need to know a few designers.  There is only so much stuff from Primark you can shoot ( although I’m not knocking Primark, I’ve seen some amazing shots done with stuff from there ).

12.Related to the above point, get to know some good makeup artists, these can make a huge difference to your portraits, especially at the start when your photoshop skills are likely to be a bit basic.  You will almost always need to pay for make up artists, because their material costs alone are quite high, but a good one is well worth it and will elevate your shoot to a new level.  Just make sure you allow a lot of extra time for the shoot, the first set of makeup will usually take 60-90 minutes depending on how chatty the MUA is!

There is a lot more I could say, but this is just my first attempt at putting down some thoughts.  I’ve been doing this for 4 years now.  I don’t make any money from shooting models, but I’ve gained a lot of other things and it’s been amazing fun.  One thing that may surprise you is how many new friends and contacts you make in this industry, that alone makes it worthwhile.

It’s now been 18 months since I got my x100s.  It was my second one, the first was sold after a few months to make way for the 23mm 1.4 on the X-T1.  However, I missed having a carry everywhere sort of camera and I realised I’d not fully utilised the capabilities of this mini beast so I bought another one.  18 months on and I’ve taken some of my all time favourite images with this camera, so I thought I’d summarise my experiences and throw around a few images.

The Positives..

1.The look and feel of the camera.  Some people just don’t get on with it, but after taking the time to really get to know it, I love it.

2.The OVF – I don’t always use it, but its there when I need it and I love being able to see people walking into the frame.  Like at this wedding…

3.Sharpness..when used correctly, images just have a great feel and tone to them and are super sharp ( with one exception, see negatives ).  I’ve used it for group shots at weddings with no problem and the clients have loved the results.  And I’ve used it on my kids..alot.

4.The leaf shutter – this is a big one for me, as this year I’ve really been pushing myself to use flash more in my fashion work.  This camera is a sunlight killer, you can do great things with it once you figure out that the sweet spot is 1/1000 at f2 with the nd filter on.

5.The pop up flash..the above shot was taken using an SB700 flash, the flash was off camera and triggered by the x100s using its pop up flash in commander mode.  I was at f2, 1/1000 and iso 200.  The sun was in a horrible spot, awful shadows all over the place, but my little x100s killed it.

6.The silent shutter.  I love using this thing at weddings, no one notices you, the priest/vicar loves it.  It makes candid shots a breeze, like this one, where I was very close to the couple and the priest had given me a stern talking to about not making too much noise.  After the ceremony she thanked me for being so quiet that she never knew I was there.

7.That 23mm lens..good for so many things, from landscapes to weddings to people/portraits if used correctly.  I’ve also used the teleconverter a lot this year and its amazing.

The Negatives:

1.Battery.  Everyone knows this.  Plus in a hurry its easy to put it in the wrong way round.

2.If you get too close at f2 your images come out soft.

3. AF could be snappier but I’ve found it pretty good over all and fine for my uses.

4.Soft skin at 3200 ISO above if using the otherwise excellent jpegs.

OK..overall its basically my favourite camera of all time.  I didn’t upgrade to the x100T as the upgrades were not big enough for me to justify the cost, plus, this thing does pretty much everything I want as it is now.  OK, time for more pics..I’ve used the x100s for just about everything except sports and wildlife, and increasingly I’ve been using it in the studio.  The shot below was using an x100s and 3 flashes.

I’m a bit late to the party with this, as 2016 has already started.  I had a bit of a break over the Christmas period, but now it’s time to get back into it.  This weekend I’ve got some one to one tuition on speedlights to deliver, the weekend after that I’ve got my first underwater shoot and the weekend after that a band shoot in a venue I’ve not been to before.  So it’s a good time to review last year, before I get too caught up in this year.  Last year was my busiest ever in photography.  What really surprised me was how much private tuition I did.  I don’t advertise it, but every month I had enquiries from people wanting to learn how to use studio lights, or speedlights, it was very flattering.  Here is some other stuff that happened last year..

Weddings..some of my favourite yet..here are some images..

Family stuff..I didn’t shoot as much personal stuff as 2014, mainly because I was so busy with other work, but family shots are a priority for me.  Here are some of my favourites from this year.

Fashion with speedlights and wide angles.  One of my main goals this year was to shoot more wide angle stuff and also use speedlights a lot more.  I’m happy to say I managed that and here are a few images.

I also shot some great gigs last year and got some of my favourite ever band images.  More of that this year hopefully.

I shot a lot of fashion/portrait stuff this year, mostly with the new 90mm f2 from Fuji which I absolutely love, but also with the x100s and the 56mm and the 50-140mm lens.  Also did my first maternity shoot and my first shoot with flour.  Here are some images…

Finally, I shot a few more landscapes than I thought I would, both in Cornwall when visiting my parents and also in Iceland, which was another highlight of last year. Mostly I used the awesome 16m 1.4 from Fuji for this, which along with the 90mm is one of my favourite ever lenses.

2015 was a great year, 2016 has a lot to live up to! Thanks for reading.

My son plays for a local football team, Laurel Park.  So does my daughter now in fact.  For 6 years we’ve been going to matches almost every Saturday and training every Wednesday evening.  It’s not like we’re all best friends at the club, but it is a kind of family and we do all get along nicely.  We’ve all been through alot together and all the parents do have a chat on the touchline, and we go to the odd social event.  I hadn’t really realised how much of a family the team is until we lost one of the family this weekend.  Mike Hudson is the grandfather of the one of the players, Ben, and the father in law of the coach, Kelvin.  He was at nearly every match, cheering the team on and being a really positive influence on the boys.  He always made time to have a chat to all the parents, and he always brought shortbread for the boys, which he would hand out at halftime and at the end of the game, along with words of encouragement.  At the last game he was at I chatted with him for much of the match, while my toes slowly froze.  On Sunday he died suddenly in his sleep, and the emotional impact on his family has been catastrophic.  There is a sense of shock throughout the wider Laurel Park family as well, as there was no warning this was going to happen, he was not unwell.  One of the first things my wife said to me was “Have you got any photos of Mike?”.  I often take photos of the boys playing football and then give them to the parents.  They all love them and it’s one of my ways of contributing to the team.  Sadly I don’t have any of Mike, I rarely take any shots of the parents.

It does lead on to something I saw in a Jerry Ghionis video I watched this week though.  He was talking about the group shots at weddings.  The one almost every photographer dreads and secretly hopes the couple will say they don’t need or want.  Jerry made the point that while everyone is alive and well those photos don’t seem that important, but as soon as someone is ill, or does die, those photos will become incredibly important to that family, and as the photographer, your job is  important.  There will of course be candid shots of most of the guests at a wedding, but there are always some who do sneak off the radar, maybe they are not that active for whatever reason and you don’t notice them.  I try to get around everyone at a wedding but I’m sure I do miss people out.  I’ll go to my next wedding a bit less resentful of the group shots, Mike’s passing has reminded me that there really is a good reason for them.  RIP Mike.

Apologies for the lack of action on the blog.  I took a break over Christmas and while I’ve not been updating this blog much, I’ve been busy behind the scenes.  In January I’ve not had many images to post but I have…

• booked 4 weddings
• run a lighting workshop
• been putting together a huge shoot for Beltcraft Studios in London

February is looking pretty exciting as well.  I’ve just gotten the 35mm f2 from Fuji, having finally sold my D750 and 50mm 1.4.  The X-Pro2 is on order, I’m hoping it arrives before my first wedding, which is in London on 5th March.  Oh, and I did an underwater shoot ( more on that below ).  So there will be some reviews of the 35mm and the XPro2 coming soon, once I’ve tested them.  There are a bunch of reviews out there already, but they are all by people who have not paid for the camera themselves, so I tend to take them with a pinch of salt ( Kevin Mullins aside, his stuff I do take seriously ).  The X-Photographers in general I think are great but its hard to be objective when the camera is given to you.  I know most of the time they have to give it back, but I’ve been reliably informed that many of them get to keep freebies.  I think maybe Fuji needs to take a hard look at this scheme, as they now have 700 X photographers, which dilutes the quality and impact of the whole thing in my opinion.

Anyway..before the underwater shoot stuff, here are a couple of cool links I’ve found recently that have given me plenty of food for thought  and things to work on.

http://www.diyphotography.net/using-gelled-lighting-color-theory-driven-stories/

http://petapixel.com/2016/01/30/10-myths-about-the-rule-of-thirds/

Both of these are great articles and well worth a read.

OK..the underwater shoot..this came about because a guy I taught is a qualified scuba instructor, we got talking after the tutor session and decided it would be a good idea to do an underwater shoot with models.  He had all the gear as he had been photographing fish on dives for years.  He kindly let me use his Nikon D7000 with full underwater housing.  We did the shoot and it went well considering I’d only ever scuba dived once, 20 years ago!  I picked it up again quite quickly but it was a steep learning curve and the keeper rate on a shoot like this is very very low unless you are using models who have a lot of experience in this sort of thing ( ours had never done one at all so they did really well ).  Here is my favourite image from the shoot.

With the X-Pro2 just about to hit the streets it’s nice to see how awesome the X-T1 still is for model photography.  Beltcraft is a rather unique studio in London, which has a lot of natural light and tons of interesting ( and old looking ) props and “stuff”.  There is so much there that works well for fashion shoots that last time I was there I only managed about 1 decent image ( it was on a group shoot and I just didn’t have time to work out what to do to best use the space ).  This time I went prepared with a plan, a big team and a smoke machine!  This year my plan is to shoot less, but make the shoots I do bigger and better and if possible, have full teams of make up artists, stylists and designers involved.  Beltcraft was the first of these and I think it went pretty well.  Here are some of the images so far.

In terms of gear, I used my Fuji X-T1, some Cactus flash guns and gels, and the following lenses..

56mm 1.2

50-140 2.8

16mm 1.4

35mm f2

They all performed great, and as I was mostly using constant light the EVF was a huge benefit.

I’m nearing the end of my 2 week break from photography.  There are lots of new shots on the horizon so before all hell breaks loose I figured I should share some of the rest of the edits from Beltcraft.  The next shot I wanted to feel a bit claustrophobic, so I moved in a lot of junk around the model and used a speedlight to highlight her and darken the background.  The postprocessing then compliments the image I was aiming for, with a dark, painterly feel to it.  It is quite a contrast to the punchy colours of the previous edits but I like to keep things varied.

The shot below was one I had in mind when I booked Beltcraft.  There is a lot of vintage Americana type stuff in there and I really wanted to use some of it in a shot.  Many shots I’ve seen in Beltcraft either shoot with a very wide aperture and therefore don’t make use of the background, or just stick a naked model up against a wall ( nothing wrong with that, but I was after something different here ).  I wasn’t sure this was going to work until I got it into post and applied some filters to give it that vintage look I was after.  A lot of people think filters are cheating, but I love them when used correctly and in this case I knew which one I’d be applying when I took the shot ( Nike Analog FX 2, plus some hand cranking of levels etc ).

Finally, this shot was pretty simple, I used window light for a strong backlight and a slight flare, then used a constant light from the front to fill in the face.  The idea here was to contrast the lovely model and dress with the decrepit surroundings.  The colours all complemented each other as well for a general “red” theme which was also in the back of my mind.

I was lucky to get hold of an XPro2 slightly ahead of the general UK release date.  I was really keen to get one as I’d been holding out for one as my main camera and I have a wedding to shoot this weekend.  I’ve read all the reviews, but I took most of them with a pinch of salt, as the people who wrote them are mostly X-Photographers.  While I respect and admire a lot of them, at the end of the day, they get free gear from Fuji so of course they will be positive.  However, I’m really happy with the camera, here are my first impressions based on a day of heavy shooting.  This was a shoot for a mature model, who needed some shots for an agency.  I used a combination of lenses, the 50-140, the 56mm 1.2, the 35mm f2 and the 90mm f2.  All worked flawlessly.

1.It’s FAST, seriously fast.  Everything feels quicker, from just navigating the menus to autofocus, taking shots, even with flash, just felt quicker.  I used off camera flash for some of the shots on my shoot and it worked beautifully ( only for the indoor ones, the outdoor ones were natural light and a reflector ). This is the first X Series camera that has felt close to a DSLR in terms of general responsiveness.  I’ve used my X-T1 heavily for 2 years, so I really noticed the difference.  The speed I was able to fire off shots, even with the flash, but especially without it, was awesome.  You can tell the processor has had a serious speed hike.

2.It’s built really well..obviously we’ll see in 6 months, but I already dropped it on concrete thanks to catching that stupid strap Fuji supplies with my hand as I turned around.  The camera landed on its top, but other than a tiny dent, it was fine and I carried on with the shoot.

3.Ergonomically it has way more in common with the X100 series than the X-T1.  It took me half an hour to get it working the way I wanted, the only thing I had any difficulty with was setting up the dual card slots, and even that was not too bad. (I did need to read the manual for that one )

4.AF speed..seemed very good, and a step in my opinion from the X-T1.  The EVF is a joy to use and so smooth now, I used it in a dimly lit pub and it was just superb.

I’ve only tested AF-S and single point AF,as that is what I mostly use.  I’ll test the continuous focus when I get a chance in a week or so.

5.Image quality – top notch as you would expect, I’ve not really tested super high ISOs but I did accidentally shoot a shot at ISO8000 this morning and it looked a lot better than the X-T1 would have.  Anyone saying there is no ISO improvement must be smoking something good.  In terms of real life use, the improvement is totally apparent to me, I don’t care about charts and pixel peeping, if I’m shooting in a dark pub or church with the XPro2 using the same lenses as the X-T1 I get better results, that’s all I care about.

6.Dynamic range – very good, I was able to pull back some nice detail from shadows and highlights, its easily as good as the X-T1 in that regard, hard to tell if better but I had no issues with the DR on the X-T1, I’ve always thought it was fine and I’ve been using that camera heavily since it first came out.

Here are some images from the shoot, all shot in raw and then converted to Astia in Lightroom..no other postprocessing bar a quick curves tweak in photoshop.

Firstly..I’m not a landscape or street photographer, so these are just snapshots.  I took the XPro2 to Dublin on a business trip.  I had one evening spare so went and took a few snaps.  The camera was awesome, bracketed shooting is so fast now!  These shots are all raws from camera run through Nik Analog FX2, which is a set of filters I love.  I don’t always use them but here I thought they worked quite well.

I’ve been meaning to do a review of the 35mm f2 for a while, but it keeps getting getting lost amongst all the other new stuff I’m testing ( like the xpro2 and the Godox 360 flash ). I used to own the 35mm 1.4 and loved it, but it was very noisy and was not exactly a speed demon in the focussing department.  So what does this newer version bring to the table..

Well, it’s a lot faster to focus, no doubt about that.  When it does hunt ( which is when you get a bit close to the subject in low light I’ve found ), its still very smooth and does eventually lock on.  That hunting happens far less frequently than on the 1.4 and only in extreme low light or back light conditions, where I would expect any lens to struggle.

The weather resistance is a big deal to me, I shot in Iceland last year and I’m often out shooting in the wet in the UK, this lens just adds to the growing number of fuji lenses I can use confidently in these conditions.

Bokeh is lovely, as was the 1.4.

Sharpness..the sharpness is right up there with all the other fuji lenses, it’s as sharp as you could wish it to be, like all my other fuji glass, I no longer really bother sharpening images in post.  I’ve read some more technical reviews of this lens and it’s been very highly praised for sharpness, lack of chromatic aberration and all that technical jazz that really is of minimal importance to me.  I look at images taken with this lens, and they have that magical quality the 1.4 had..punchy, sharp and beautiful.

The lens is also pretty much designed to work with the xpro2 and its OVF..it lives on my camera pretty much and is such a useful focal length that its become my go to combination since I got the xpro2.  I like the look and feel of it, and it’s a great all rounder.  I do miss that extra stop of light though, if I still owned the 1.4, I’d probably hang on to it for when I need that extra light.  For the price, either the 1.4 or this f2 are both stellar lenses.  Some more images now..

I’ve been pretty busy on numerous shoots recently, often working with my new Godox 360 flash as well as using natural light and studios.  Here are some recent images…

This was taken with the xpro2 and 50-140 2.8 zoom in a studio. I love this zoom for studio work, it pretty much lives on my camera in these circumstances.  Here I was using gels and the coloured background to work with Natasha’s outfit.

This was a completely different style on a shoot with Marla.  I used the 16mm 1.4 to get the wide angle look and a Godox 360 flash to provide the fill light.

Once again a shift in styles..this time using the 90mm f2 and just plain old natural light ( which I do love using when I can ).   I love the way the 90mm renders the background here and how sharp it is.

Finally, on a shoot with Jodie, this was using the Godox to give just a kiss of light on her face, I used the 90mm f2 with a 3 stop ND filter on it to allow me to shoot at f2.  The idea is to make it look like a natural light shot, even though I’m using flash.

I’ve been tempted to get this piece of kit for a while.  I’m getting fed up charging a bunch of AA batteries for my speedlights only to have them still go flat really quickly.  This looked like a step up without being in the same price bracket as as an Elinchrom Quadra.  I ordered the main unit alongside the following accessories..

• power cord extension
• double power cord plugin ( makes the recycle time faster for one light )
• octabox/beauty dish modifier ( £20 ).
• wireless trigger unit ( £20 )

They all took a few weeks to arrive from China, I was immediately impressed by the build quality though, its really very solid especially considering the price, and everything seems really well designed.  Total cost was around £350 for everything, this unit has been superseded by newer  more powerful versions, but I only needed a simple manual unit, as the Fuji does not support HSS yet and I don’t use ETTL.  The octabox modifier is brilliant, it folds up really small and is very easy to assemble.  As for the main unit, it feels very well put together, and the battery unit is surprisingly light and you can either clip it to your belt or hang it on a lightstand, which is what I tend to do if I’m shooting without an assistant.

It took me a little while to figure out if the battery unit was charged ( it takes about 3 hours ).  You need to plug the speedlight in and then hold down the power button..it will then show you 4 power indicators, these will flash on and then straight off if the flash is not connected, if the flash is connected it will stay on.  4 little lights mean you are on full power and good to go. The godox wireless trigger is very simple to use, the receiver is like a small usb stick which you just plug into the side of the power unit..this means there is one less battery you need to worry about as it gets it power from the main battery ( another of those great little design touches that this unit has a lot of ).  You then out the transmitter on the camera, its easy to put it on the wrong way round, but if you think about it, all transmitters usually work with the lcd facing towards your face so you can see whats going on.  Once you get it all set up, you can fire away.  Here is a picture I took of a model to break up the wall of text…

So how does it work on a shoot?  Well, I’ve now done 5 shoots with this thing and not had a single misfire.  The documented recycle time on full power is around 4-5 seconds I believe.  In practice, you are very rarely on full power, so the recycle time is pretty much instant.  If you do need full power alot, get the double cord plug in and it will greatly speed the recycle time up.  Compared to a speedlight, it feels FAST.  It’s a lot more powerful than your average speedlight, but you can dial it down to 1/128 and it then produces a lovely fill light, especially with the superb Octabox modifier.  Because it is a bulb rather than a speedlight it provides what I feel is a softer, more rounded light source..it’s like having a mini studio strobe with you.  I absolutely love it, for me it’s a game changer for location shoots, its just so much more powerful and reliable than my speedlights.  However..some caveats..

• it is not waterproof..if it rains it’s back to my speedlights
• it is twice the size of a speedlight so you won’t want to mount this on a Fuji body directly, it would be horrible

I can’t think of any other drawbacks..I did 3 shoots in a row without recharging it and it was still showing almost full power!  Godox indicate you will get 1000 full power shots from one charge, but I almost never use full power so I’m getting more like 3000-4000 shots..which is crazy considering the size of the unit.  It means I don’t have to spend hours charging AA batteries anymore.  You can use Cactus triggers with this unit, just put the Cactus trigger on on the hotshoe and then plug in the godox one on top of it. This means you can easily use 1-2 Cactus flashes as backlights/hair lights and use the Godox as the main light..or optically trigger other speedlights if you need to.  The various light modifiers are very cheap for what you get and seem very well designed.  This is possibly my favourite bit of lighting kit I’ve ever bought.  If you do a lot of location shooting and don’t enjoy charging AA batteries get one! I’m using it with my X-Pro2 and it seems to work very well..instead of HSS I’m using ND filters when I need them..but I find the Octabox modifier when used with the beauty dish it comes with has plenty of diffusion built in so sometimes the 1/250th shutter speed is enough in late afternoon/early evening.   Here are some more images taken with this setup.

I have been waiting a while to be able to shoot some football ( soccer if you are an American ) on the xpro2.  I always used to shoot matches for my sons team back in my DSLR days but I found it a bit frustrating on the X-T1 even though I did manage ok.  I never found the tracking on AF-C that useful even though I know others got on with it ok.  The X-Pro2 is much improved though, this time I didn’t have any issues tracking using zone tracking( the second AF option ), and even AF-C, long the red headed stepchild of the X System AF family, was working really well.  I shot in Velvia and Acros. I used the 100-400 for most of the match, just to get some practice with it, but I did enjoy being able to zoom in close, I think in future I’ll keep using this lens and mix it up with the 50-140 as they both give different looks.  Here are some shots from the 100-400.

And now for some shots from the 50-140..I knew this lens would be superb for this and combined with the X-Pro2 it was awesome.  This was the first match I’ve shot with mirrorless where I’ve not felt the lack of a DSLR.  I’m sure the pro DSLRs would still do a lot better, but most of the misses today were to down to my lack of skills, the AF system was brilliant and I didn’t get frustrated with it at all, unlike many times in the past trying to shoot these matches on various Fuji cameras.

I’m not sure the world needs another X-Pro2 review, but as this is my blog the world can sod off, I’m doing one anyway!  I’ve had the camera 6 weeks and shot as wide a variety of stuff as I possibly could.  I’ve shot a wedding, several model/fashion shoots, wildlife, football, family life, landscapes and a music gig.  I’m over 7000 shots in now on this camera so I think this is a fair time to write a review.  Overall the camera just feels great, fast , powerful, no sluggishness whatsoever, it performs more like a DSLR than any Fuji yet in terms of speed ( although totally different in form factor ), but still retains the mirrorless fun factor.

Ergonomics and build quality:

The ergonomics are almost perfect..I used an X-T1 extensively for 2 years and I wasn’t sure I was going to bond with this camera, as I’m by no means a rangefinder fanatic ( although I have had an X100s and now x100T for the past 2 years and really love it ).  I haven’t really noticed the smaller EVF compared to the X-T1, and I do like the OVF a lot.  This is a camera that gets out of your way when you are shooting.  I found this with the X-T1 as well, and that’s a good thing.  The only miss is that ISO dial..it drove me nuts initially as it’s awkward to use quickly and it’s too hard to turn without messing with the shutter dial.  I have found that I’m getting better with it and it may be that six months down the line I love it.  Luckily I normally use ISO 200 in the studio and spot metering with auto ISO when outside.  I’ve also gotten a lot better at slowing down slightly and taking my time when changing ISO and it’s ok..not as nice the X-T1 solution but ok.  Everything else is amazing, the camera feels much better built than the X-T1, I’ve already dropped it on concrete once thanks to the crappy strap Fuji give you, and it was fine.  I’ve used it in all sorts of weather, no problem.  I’ve not noticed the over heating issue and I’ve only had about 3 instances of the reset camera issue in 7000 shots..I hope they fix that but it’s not a big issue for me.

Autofocus:

The AF is as fast as you will ever need in decent light, and very very good in bad light, especially with the newer lenses.  It feels like a step up from the X-T1, the new processor just makes it a bit faster and more sure footed.  I’ve captured moments I think I might have missed on my X-T1 if I was relying solely on autofocus.  One thing that has really surprised me is how good the tracking/zone focussing is now.  I’ve shot two games of kids football and my keeper rate shot up compared to the X-T1.

Battery Life:

I’ve seen a bunch of people saying they are getting terrible battery life with this camera ( less than 200 shots ).  I’ve not had that experience, but it does depend on which lens I’m using.  On a studio shoot I was typically hitting around 550 shots, but that includes using the 50-140 which I’d expect to drain more battery.  At the wedding I shot, it was more like 600 shots, using mostly fast primes and chimping quite a lot.  I do use high performance mode, but I also switch the camera off when not using it.  I also heard of people wearing it round their neck and leaving it on, which might trigger the eye sensor.  One further thing that may be happening is people not charging the battery fully..the battery charger shows green while charging and the light goes out when fully charged I think, which is very confusing, as it also shows an amber light when you first put the battery in.  Anyway, to sum it up, the battery life for me is no worse than the X-T1 and its faster to switch on and use so I have no issues switching it to off when not in use.  When using the 100-400 the battery level drops a LOT faster..not surprising when using a lens like that I guess.

Image Quality:

The images are great out of this camera, its nice having 24 mp but I was happy enough with 16 for the past few years so it’s not a big deal for me. I’ve been messing around with the noise reduction, at -4 I find it too noisy at high iso but then I’ve never been much good at applying noise reduction in post processing.  I’ve heard from people who prefer it that way and get great results.  I’ve generally gone for -2 on NR.  I’ve found the camera great at high ISO, I’d say about half a stop better than the X-T1 but the real bonus is being able to shoot in raw at 12800.  Depending on the quality of the light, you can get some fantastic images all the way up to 12800.

Film Simulations:

I find I’m using these more with dual card slots, as the jpeg just gets written to the secondary card slot.  Velvia is has been improved and I’m using it more now than I did on the X-T1 ( I used it for the colour football shots above ).  Acros is very nice as many have reported.  Overall they are still great.  Dual card slots and weather sealing are both a big deal for me, and just add to the value of this camera.  I’ve tested the weather sealing pretty thoroughly and all seems well so far.  Time for more images!

Conclusion:

The X-Pro2 is not the most capable camera I’ve ever used, that would be the Nikon D750, which is just a great all rounder.  However, the X-Pro2 is waaay more fun to shoot with and I don’t need the full capabilities of the a D750.  It gives me 95% of the capabilities of a top end DSLR with 100% more fun and I’ll take that!  It’s definitely my favourite camera so far I’ve used, it just begs to be picked up and used and as a result, I make better images than I would with a more powerful camera ( I’m not saying this is not a powerful camera, it is, it’s amazing ).  Now excuse me, I need to go shoot stuff, the X-Pro2 is calling me again.

It’s still early days on my 365 project ( one photo a day for a year ), but I’ve already taken some shots I’m pleased with ( some I’m not, but at least its making me do stuff outside my comfort zone, which is the point really ).  Some days it is hard work but so far I’ve stuck to it.  Here are a few of the images.

There was only one thing I was ever going to photography the day after completing my first ( and last ) marathon….

Sometimes I plan the shot for the day ( easy if I have a shoot booked, like I did with the shot below ).  Other times I have no idea and its very spontaneous, the shot above of my daughter happened just because I noticed the strong light on her just as I was about to leave for work.  The x100T is perfect for this kind of project as it’s always around when I need it.

I had the opportunity to do some bird photography with the 100-400 and finally this lens showed me what it could really do.  I was very impressed with its performance and can’t wait to use it again.  I’ll do a proper review shortly but in the meantime here are some of the shots ( they did need a little sharpening, to be expected on a lens like this ).  Also please bear in mind I’m a beginner bird photographer and also new to using this focal length.