Another vote for Affinity photo for RAF files - it does a great job with my S5pro.
There’s a free trial period too.
The Fuji is being put away as soon as the battery is recharged up. That leaves me with two full-frame cameras capable of putting me in charge, my Leica RF camera and my Nikon DSLR. So I left early this afternoon for a walk, with just the Nikon and a 50mm lens. I managed to get it to use the settings I wanted, then sat down on a bench and turned off any and all automatic functions I know of. I left “auto focus” on, but only when I press a button on the back of the camera. The. shutter release focusing is de-activated. Since I didn’t bring my Sekonic meter with me (still practicing with it) I guessed at all the settings, and usually I was close. Fine tuning was done with the histogram. I hope that’s not “cheating”. I’ll see how well I did once I get the images uploaded, but I feel very good about them. Sometimes it took two, or ten, images to get what I was after though.
My only “complaint” is that my relatively new 50mm lens is controlled by the camera. If I want to shot at f/8 I need to turn the knob on the front of the camera, in manual mode, which tells the lens to shoot at f/8. I guess if it was an older lens, I would turn the aperture ring on the lens to f/8, but the new lenses no longer have manual controls.
To me, the Df was/is more enjoyable than the Fuji. The Fuji also has an optical viewfinder, but the one on the Df is much nicer. I have no desire to ever buy a “mirrorless” camera. To me, seeing an electronic representation is not as good as seeing it optically.
I was thinking yesterday afternoon that I’m losing my mind. I read the Sekonic instruction book many times, and while I knew where to look for things, it never made sense to me. Then I watched a YouTube training video, and all the pieces fit in place. It looks terribly complicated, but like a lot of other things, it becomes intuitive once I know the reason why I do the various tasks to use it. With the exception of Joannna, I doubt if anyone else in this forum is using a hand held exposure meter.
I started looking at your website - very impressive. I’ll post what I was thinking about later tonight. For now, I just want to look through the images. Every image I’ve seen so far looks like the definition of “perfection”, from the camera placement, what’s in the photo, the composition, and the detail.
More later!! Beautiful!!!
My reactions to your photos are “wow”. Tripod necessary. Adjustment to keep vertical lines vertical is something I can try to do in-camera, or later with PL4. The graduated filter - I fully understand why it is necessary. It is something I eventually will want to buy at least for the larger lens on my Nikon. I already have a perspective control lens, that will work fine on my Nikon Df.
All of these shots of yours were “slow and methodical”, getting every part of the image perfect. I did buy a more portable tripod, as I think that’s an essential tool.
When I was walking around this afternoon, I found several shots to take that I struggled with, first getting the idea position to shoot from, then verifying with the histogram that the exposure was probably good, then trying to use depth of field to get rid of distractions. I was thinking of you, as I took it. In the ten minutes it took me from start to finish, the light went away, putting an end to my fun.
I could have done this with the Leica, if I had the tripod, and either viewed it on the rear LCD or on the Visofles housing. The Nikon made it easier, with the big bright viewfinder - and I still have a magnifier eyepiece mounted. I wish I had brought my meter with me, as with the Nikon I had to trust the histogram - but shooting raw should provide some flexibility. Because it isn’t LF, I could take a shot, review it, and make changes, then re-shoot. A tripod would have been helpful.
You know, for photos like the ones on your website, shooting in LF seems like a huge advantage. That I was shooting in 35mm is simple - it’s all I’ve got.
More later.
I know this has nothing to do with a Fuji or sensors, but you have this amazing ability to leave me wanting to see more! Most photos I look at, think about them, then move on. One more time you’ve put just enough into to photo to capture my attention, and to start thinking about what the whole scene looked like. Maybe that’s because when I view it as large as I can, it is as clear as my being there, and I want to view the rest of the boat.
This is despite the fact that you’ve arranged the photo so all the “lines” direct my focus right to the bow of the boat. My attention follows the lines, gets to the bow, and then wants to see more of the scene.
Sorry, this has nothing to do with Fuji stuff, but it has everything to do with “photography”; what to include in a photo, and what to exclude. Very nice!!!