Wrapping Up And Moving On

Christmas has come and gone once more and 2015 is almost here. It's at this point we tent to look back at the year past and plan ahead for the one on the way. 2014 has flown past so quick and in a lot of ways I feel I have talked so much about photography, but not shot nearly enough. I've had some good things happen this year, like becoming an official Fuji X-Photographer and shooting some amazing musicians for Project Jazz.  But I feel I could have been more productive and I'm busy making lists of things I want to do or try in 2015. I need to set aside regular times for shooting on the streets, but there are other types of photography that I want to do more of and a few that I want to tick off from my bucket list. I also have a list of documentary projects that I need to confirm. All of these street shots were taken with the X-T1 and the 35mm f1.4. I haven't switched from my preferred X100S, but just thought I'd have a bit of a change and the 1.4 came in handy on these dark days.

I'd like to thank all of you that follow this street photography blog and if you are one of the many new followers, welcome aboard. I'll try to do more regular posts this coming year and over at my photography blog HERE. Thanks especially to those of you that sent emails with very kind comments on the pictures I post here. I'm always blwn away by the value some of you place on them and I never never never take that for granted. It's these emails, likes and comments that keep me posting here.  I hope you all have a great time over the festive season and a fantastic new year. I have more pictures shot around the Xmas season that I'll post next week. Happy new year to you all and best of luck for 2015.

Six Dead In Glasgow Rubbish Truck Crash

Another Christmas disaster struck the city of Glasgow today, when a rubbish lorry (refuse truck) ploughed through shoppers and cars before smashing into the Millennium Hotel at George Square. At the time of writing this post, it's thought that the driver of the truck had a heart attack and lost control. Six people are believed to be dead with many more seriously injured, many of them children.

And Now For Something Completely Different :: Street With A Fuji 50-140mm

As the name of this blog would suggest, I usually shoot street photography with a 35mm lens. But after some random shooting while trying out the latest 50-140mm f2.8 zoom from Fuji, I naturally was drawn to the city streets. I can't say I felt comfortable walking around with what is a 75-210mm in full frame terms, and a bit too big and obvious for street photography. But I enjoyed the change and once again this lens blew me away with it's sharpness and quick auto focus. You can see some of these in colour by clicking HERE. Looking at these pictures, I find it interesting that I came away with the same shots I would have with a 35mm lens, I just stood further away. It just shows that we frame the shots with our eye, not with the lens. I also shot some portraits and  reviewed this lens HERE.

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Corfu Streets

Here's a few shots from the streets of Corfu. It's almost a shame to convert them to black and white, because the light was so good. The first two shots are from the X-E1 with the 35mm f1.4. The rest of the shots are from the X100S with the standard 23mm f2 lens.

I'm Now An Official X-Photographer

I'm very happy to announce that Fujifilm has invited me to be an official X-Photographer. I've known about this for some time now, but kept it hush hush until I was added to Fuji's X-Tog site. You can see my bit HERE.

I've been a Fujifilm user since the X Series began and was lucky enough to get my hands on the original X100 as soon as it was available. Looking back at the pictures I've shot since then surprises me a bit. The time has flown and I'm pleased with what have produced so far. The cameras have come on leaps and bounds and with the firmware update coming this December, it looks like everything I've wished for is finally coming (to the X-T1 at least).

I'm looking forward to whatever comes next.

Kage - Fuji - Street

A quick Friday hodge-podge of a post and of course some recent street shots.

The Kage Collective entered phase II this week with release of our new website. It's been two years since we launched the collective and a lot has happened in that short space of time. I suppose the big difference in the group is that we have grown to eight members over seven different countries, with the most recent members being Vincent Baldensperger (France), Craig Litten (USA), Bert Stephani (Belgium) and Kevin Mullins (UK). We now have a new blog on the site called Chronicle, which is a place all eight of us will be writing for regularly. Patrick (LaRoque) has written the first post that lays out what's new on the site. So rather than me re-hashing it here, why not click HERE and take a look at the site. Then have a look at our firs three blog posts on Chronicle.

Fujifilm anounced the X30 recently, but what's interesting about this X20 replacement is the mass of features included that users like myself and many others have been asking for. Here are a few

• The ability to move focus point without having to press an Fn button first.
• Being able to customise what's in the Q Menu
• Exposure metering where the focus point is
• Manual control over video
• Exposure Compensation dial works in Manual Mode when using Auto ISO

I'm really hoping these features will filter down to current models, like the X-Pro1, X-T1, X100/S through firmware. Thanks to Fuji for listening (as always). With Photokina coming up in about 10 days, who knows what's coming. X-Pro2? X100T?

I'm heading out tonight to the big smoke to shoot some night time street shots, but I'll leave with a few from this week. Captions below each photo for camera lens choice.

Rob The Street Photographers Bag

Millican are based in the beautiful English Lake District and produce old school, rugged and well made bags for the great outdoors. I was first introduced to Millican via a project called Freedom Through Photography that I was involved in to promote their collaboration with Fujifilm UK to produce camera bags for the X Series. I'm not sponsored or paid by Millican in any way, I'm simply writing this review because I feel I've finally found a small, discreet and well made bag that suits street photography and small documentary shoots and I though I would share it with you.

So why such a small bag? That's easy, the bigger the bag, the more we try to cram in to them. I'm definitely guilty of this and I regularly have that inner voice that tells me I'll need as many lenses I can cram in. But when shooting street photography it's good to travel light. To be honest I would be happy to just have my X100S and some spare batteries, but my inner voice wouldn't allow that. The bag in these photos looks bigger than it actually is. It's really not much bigger than an iPad Air.

What you see before you is Rob The Traveller, but Robert The Camera Bag is also available. The only difference between the two is that Robert includes the Small Camera Protector, while Rob doesn't. I bought Rob because it (he) is available in Slate Green, but Robert is only available in Grey Blue and Antique Bronze at the moment. I have both large and small camera protectors, so I already had that covered (as you can see in the last photo).

The only downside to Rob is that because I have a lot of stuff in the main compartment, it can be a bit of a fumble to slide my iPad into the dedicated section at the back (inside) as the pouch has a thin material, rather than a firm padded devider (which would make the bag more bulky). This is a minor thing and not a deal breaker in any way. I have a piece of card covered in cellophane (that came with prints) in there at the moment that gives me something rigid to separate my iPad with my camera and lenses and allows my iPad Air to slide in easier.

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The material Millican use for their bags is a high quality weatherproof 100% cotton canvas and veg tanned leather. This is my third Millican bag (I also have the X-Series Christopher and Matthew The Daypack) and the quality and craftsmanship is the same on each of them. These things are built to last and will probably look even better as they age. I love the old school fasteners on the main and rear compartment and the leather covered handle is extreamly useful. On Millican's website it says they Rob was "inspired by Grandad's old binocular case, which travelled the world. And then some". I love that!

INSIDE Inside the main section of the bag has a separate section for iPad at the back and one at the side that I use for a Zoom H1 audio recorder. There is also a zipped compartment that is ideal for business cards or bank cards. It's a safe place to keep your phone or wallet when you're on the streets too. The Small Camera Protector fits squarely on the bottom with enough room for another on top if required. This small insert will hold cameras up to an X100/X100S or X-E1 with an 18mm or 27mm lens attached. My recent street setup has been the 28mm and 50mm conversion lenses inside the camera insert on the bottom of the bag (separated by a padded insert from an old Lowepro bag). My X100S sits on top of the Small Camera Protector with the lens hood attached. I also have a mobile phone pouch on the bottom of the camera insert that the two conversion lenses sit on (see the last photo on this post). This pouch keeps my cables in one place and saves me from stuffing too much into the front pocket of Rob.

FRONT POCKET The front pocket is very handy and where all those important bits and bobs go. I have a Moleskine notebook and pen, spare X100S batteries, lens cloth and Apple Earbuds. It's unusual for me to need to change SD cards on the street, so I keep a spare SD card in it's plastic case inside the internal zipped pocket in the main compartment. The front pocket is also ideal for a mobile phone.

What's in my street photography bag at the moment? Here's a list of everything you see in the photo above. The two things that are missing are my Apple Earbuds and Lens Cloth. iPad is not essential (obviously), but it's nice to be able to read or write when stopping for coffee or travelling on a train. An iPad Mini might be a better option to save on weight.

Rob The Traveller bag by Millican

• Fujifilm X100S
• WCL-X100 Wide Converter Lens for the X100/S
• TCL-X100 Tele Converter Lens for the X100/S
• Zoom H1 Audio Field Recorder
• Small Camera Protector by Millican
• iPad Air
• Apple SD Card Reader
• iPhone Cable
• iPad Cable
• Phone Pouch for cables
• Business Cards
• Hotel Shower Cap for shooting in the rain
• Moleskine Notebook (Evernote version)
• Pen
• Extra Sandisk Extreme SD Card
• 2 Spare X100 Batteries (I usually have a third too)

So that's Rob. A small well made street bag that doesn't look like a camera bag and 28mm, 35mm and 50mm options. Another possible setup would be an X-E1/XE-2 with an 18mm or 27mm lens attached inside the camera insert and an X100/X100S on the top. Two cameras with two focal lengths. Rob or Robert would also make great lens bags, (probably) large enough to hold two large f2.8 zooms for those DSLR users, or two to six Fuji (or CSC) lenses (depending on which ones). Click HERE to visit the Millican website.

If you're looking for something a bit bigger, Christopher, The larger of the two X-Series bags is now available in Grey Blue as well as the original Antique Bronze and includes the Large Camera Protector.

Glasgow Commonwealth Games 2014 & Testing New Fuji Glass

Fuji X-T1, 10-24mm f4 at 17.5mm. Shutter speed on this was 1/60th sec while panning with the bikes.

I've had the pleasure of trying out some great new Fujifilm X Series Lenses that they sent to me recently and thought I'd post some street shots here before I review them over at my DCP Blog. The lenses are the tiny 27mm f2.8 Pancake, The super wide 10-24mm f4 and two converter lenses for my favourite street cameras the x100 & X100s. these two screw on lenses take the standard 35mm (full frame equivalent) lens down to 28mm or up to a 50mm. 28mm, 35mm &50mm are all great street photography focal lengths, so there's pretty much something for every street photographer wishing to use the X100 or X100S. Reviews for each lens coming soon.

X100S 19mm wide angle converter lens

X100S 23mm standard lens

X100S 35mm tele converter lens (50mm FF)

X100S 35mm tele converter lens (50mm FF)

X100S 35mm tele converter lens (50mm FF)

Fuji X-T1, 10-24mm f4 lens at 24mm

Fuji X-E1, 27mm f2.8 lens

45 Minutes On The Street With The X-T1 & 56mm f1.2

I spent 45 minutes shooting on the streets today with the Fuji X-T1 and the 56mm f1.2. As the name of this blog suggests, I like to shoot street with a 35mm focal length, so with the 56mm coming out at 85mm (with the 1.5 crop), this was way different from what I usually shoot (on the street anyway). I fired off a shot to see how my exposure was looking. As I was in Aperture Priority Mode it was really to see if I needed any exposure compensation. A woman was walking in front of me and I stopped and took a shot of the back of her head (it was only for exposure after all). When the shot was previewed for half a second in my viewfinder I could see that not only did this lens look stunning, but the X-T1 focuses really quick. My settings were Auto ISO 3200 with a minimum shutter speed of 1/125th sec and my aperture was set to f2.8. Usually I would be shooting street photography with my X100 at f8 to give me a bit of leeway with the focus and moving subjects, but this was a new experience in the world of X.

I was curious to see if the 23mm f1.4 would perform as well, and if the X-T1 would become my new go to camera for street, even though I had no intention of this new body being my street camera. But to be honest, I was enjoying the 56mm too much and I decided that the 23mm would have to wait for another day when it could have the X-T1 all to it's self. So I'm sure that will be my next blog post here soon.

Feel free to ask any questions about the X-T1 in the comments.