In my quest for miniaturisation I have pre-ordered the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera.

It’s a dinky little device dedicated to shooting video. It appears to be perfect for my needs!

For more info have a look on the Blackmagic Design website.

http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/products/blackmagicpocketcinemacamera

I need to do some digging around for the ideal lens to go with this, but I’ve got plenty of time for that!

The Panasonic 12-35mm looks pretty good. It was used to film the footage in the video below.

I can’t wait to get my hands on this bit of kit!

This morning I had a request to do a direct comparison between the D800 and the X-Pro1, so here we have it.

These images were taken within a few minutes of each other so the light didn’t change that much and both cameras were compared with the same settings and some variations.

I started with the D800 in manual mode, setting its aperture to f / 8.0 and shutter speed to 1/500th. I chose these settings to eliminate any chance of camera shake and to give a depth of field that was going to be fairly sharp right the way through.

I left the D800 to decide the ISO, which it judged to be 1600.

Comparing this way wasn’t really fair, because each cameras metering system judges a scenes exposure differently. What I’ve done essentially here is use ‘ISO priority mode’ in the D800 and applied those settings to the X-Pro1.

The image below show a direct comparison at exactly the same settings, but keep in mind that the D800 decided to use this ISO, whereas the Fuji was forced to use an ISO it wouldn’t have chosen.

(Click the images for a full screen view)

To make things fair I allowed the X-Pro1 to decide which ISO it thought was best at 1/500th f 8/0, it chose ISO 2500.

In many ways this is the fairest comparison of the two. Both cameras were allowed to make the best exposure using the ISO that is best for itself.

Having completed the tests above there was just one thing left to do, force the D800 to shoot at the ISO the Fuji chose. Which you can see below.

There are so many variables to consider here and by no means is this comparison totally accurate. I hand held the camera, the two lenses are completely different, the light may have changed slightly etc. I’m sure there are other things as well that I haven’t taken into consideration.

Also the D800 image was much larger than the X-Pro1, so in Photoshop I downsized it. (From what I understand this should actually go in favour of the D800 image quality.)

Both cameras took RAW files and the images are not edited at all except for the resizing of the D800 image as mentioned above. The images were then saved as a high quality .jepg after being put together in Photoshop with text overlaid.

Now then! Just for a bit of fun I ran Auto Tone and Auto White Balance on both images in Lightroom 4! The results are below for you to make judgement on.

I will still have the D800 and Tamron lens around for another couple of days, if there’s anything that you’d like me to do in way of comparison with the X-Pro1 in this time I’m more than happy to do so.

*Added*

Histograms from both of the exposures where the cameras were allowed to choose the best ISO.

D800

X-Pro1

I’ve used the same lighting setup for almost three years now.

This is made up of x2 Yongnuo YN560 speedlites and Yongnuo RF 602/C wireless flash trigger and reciever. This is complimented with a couple of Westcott Umbrellas, light stands and a few other snoots, gobos and what-not.

I discovered last night that the triggers do not play well with the Fuji X-Pro1. The flash units themselves work perfectly when mounted directly onto the hotshoe, so it’s not all bad news.

When the triggers are in place the flash (off camera) goes nuts, firing wildly by itself.

I’m not quite sure why this is as they seem to be pretty universal, they worked on a Canon 40D, Nikon D7000 and Nikon D800 without issue.

I’m a bit reluctant to pay out a huge sum of money for something that serves a very simple purpose, so as tempted as I am to have Pocket Wizards it’s just not going to happen at the moment.

There are quite a few options out there, but I think I will go for the Yongnuo RF603/C which, by all accounts does work with the X-Pro1. At about £20 for a pair it’s not the end of the world if they don’t work either!

I loved my Nikon D7000, it’s the best camera I’ve had.

I ‘upgraded’ to the Nikon D800 in December 2012 and I’ve never really got on too well with it. I bought pro glass and was able to use it well enough. I even created some of the best images I’ve ever taken with it, but there wasn’t a bond there. We just didn’t get along well together.

I recently started exploring the option of buying a used Fuji X100 to have a play and do some street photography. I was feeling so conspicuous with the D800 even with a 50mm on it.

This led to a whole lot of research into mirrorless camera systems. I seriously considered the Sony Nex6 as an option as well, it seems like a good camera too.

I kept on going back to the X100 and the X100s being really drawn to the style of the camera and also due to just how well received both of these cameras have been. I wanted to buy the X100 a while ago, but the funds weren’t there and I couldn’t believe that it would be a viable replacement for the D7000 that I had at the time.

After a lot of research into images taken with the Fuji cameras and reading of reviews, I started discovered the Fuji X-Pro1.

I’ve long been tired of carrying my D800, 24-70mm, 14mm, Gitzo legs and Arca Swiss Z1 ballhead up and down mountains… There are countless occasions where I didn’t make a picture because it was just too much hassle to get everything out and set it up. There were also times where I didn’t even take my camera with me, because it was too cumbersome. Especially when out with the kids. I thought long and hard about this and decided that the D800 was the wrong tool for the type of photography I do. Sure it’s a great camera on paper and for many people, but if it’s not being used then it’s the worst camera in the world!

This is what happens when I get an idea in my head! Out with the old and in with the new!

Fare thee well old friend… Actually, we weren’t that friendly after all, forget that!

Enter the Fuji X-Pro1, the most exciting camera I’ve had in my hands for a very long time. I already favoured primes on my D800 so the choice of picking this camera up with an 18mm F2, 35mm F1.4 (oh yes!) and 60mm F2.4 Macro lenses wasn’t a hard choice. I’m still missing something on the very wide end that I enjoy shooting so much, but I’m just going to see how I get on with these three whilst I learn the camera.

A tower of joy!

I spent my first day out with the X-Pro1 today and I enjoyed it. It was challenging and I made a lot of mistakes with it, but I really enjoyed that!

I’m looking forward to getting back to basics and remembering what it is that I love about photography. I had become way too concerned with technical perfection in an image instead of making great images!

Last night we arrived at Farleton Knott at around 1am and walked up to Farleton Crag to experiment with photographing night climbing.

I didn’t think that these would turn out so well from the preview on the camera screen, but thought something might be useable.

I’m pleasantly surprised at the results, although next time I think I’ll use a smaller aperture to photograph the climbing segments with the head torch to prevent so much exposure and I think knock the head torch down to the dimmer setting.

Out again tonight for sure!

For a university assignment I created a magazine article aimed at people who might be interested in starting night photography.

The facts are often wildly inaccurate and the writing style is not great!

I’m aware of ‘widows and orphans’ in my text layout and too many hyphens, but it came to the point where time had run out and I had to put it to bed!

I did think that some folk might find some of it interesting and informative though.

My hope is that if it does nothing other than inspire a few folks to go out and take some pictures in the dark and get some pleasing results then it’ll be a success!

(This is by no means a definitive guide, the brief asked for an article to showcase photographs so not as much attention went into the writing of the article as would be preferred!)

Hit the link to see the PDF!

Richard Berry Night Photography Guide

I’ll keep this fairly short as I already had a good long rant upon leaving Flickr illustrating how it was a bunch of photographers patting each other on the back in order to get a pat on the back in return. That still very much remains, but there is something that I cannot ignore…

The SEO on Flickr is superb. I’m certainly no expert on this, but when I search images on Google with loose terms relating to one of my images, the copy on Flickr shows up fairly high on the results with the copy on my website, hosted by SmugMug often doesn’t seem to appear at all.

Having said this, I’m in the process of renaming all the actual files on SmugMug due to Google picking these up rather than the keywords (apparently).

So as long as I make sure to link to my website and Facebook in my description on Flickr it is absolutely worth putting images on there just for how prominent they are in search results.

I’m approaching Flickr in a different way this time, I won’t be going out fishing for comments and likes. It’ll be something of an ‘up the flag pole it goes, who will salute it?’ strategy!

Then of course the first image I uploaded upon renewing my Pro account soared into Explore and has had an awful lot of views! Coincidence? Who knows…

I haven’t been slack with my 365 on the side of getting out and doing things, I just haven’t been sitting at the computer!!!

One, two miss a few…

The weather has been so miserable of late and I’ve been doing some (paid) work that isn’t mine to share so the 365 suffered a bit.

Very foggy all day long which was kind of interesting.

Today’s image is a part of my current university project with the theme being ‘adventure’, with adventure to be interpreted by the individual.

I’m working on a little series of urban adventurers with the hope of hooking up with a few other folks over the coming month.

If you are a skater, BMXer or do any other exciting activity in an urban setting around Cumbria, feel free to get in touch and we can arrange to do some pictures.

This one was inspired by the print on this Moon t-shirt.

These are for sale from the Kendal Climbing Wall shop and online here.