Last Post

I won't be posting any more to this blog. I have a full-time job and a little daughter, so I think I'd rather spend what little time is left over taking pictures, cooking, playing music, and doing other things I enjoy. I write for a living, so prattling on about photo topics halfheartedly for nobody in particular gives me no real satisfaction.

This blogging platform doesn't offer much flexibility for posting photos, so I'll be presenting my work elsewhere.

I'll leave the blog up, though, in case you find any of its old posts to be of any use. Looking for a review of the Olympus XA2? How to develop photos using caffeine and vitamin C? Try the search bar.

Here's where you can see my work on the web:

Daily photoblog 

B&W film shots

Project 365

My best work (my daughter's site)

Balloon landing

Sometimes, a photo opportunity literally lands across the street. This big balloon touched down softly just as I was leaving for work this morning.

Classic car

This is a (I think) '55 Chevy Bel Air that's parked outside of Paulie's Pig Out BBQ in Afton, VA.

Fuji X100: A few more shots

The X100's growing on me. It's very quirky for sure, and even difficult to use at times, but the image quality's great. I wish I could screw some more lenses onto it.

I took these yesterday at a makeshift war memorial - the soldiers' boots represent Virginia soldiers killed in action. The X100's built-in ND filter let me shoot the shot with the flags at f/2...but auto ISO chose 3200. Huh?

Fuji X100: Leprechaun Sanctuary

Fuji X100: Some rock and roll pics

I've been diligently carrying the X100 around everywhere I go until I have to give it back. I'm learning to live with many of its quirks, and I'll publish a "tips" post once I'm done with it. Here are a couple things I've figured out lately:

•  There's a way around the "silent mode" flash dilemma - just turn off the operational volume and shutter sound. Voila, permanent silent mode, and you can just call up the flash whenever you want it. Who needs a fake shutter sound, anyway? (If you do, there are three to choose from.)
• ISO is weird. You can set auto ISO parameters through the setup menu (not the ISO menu), but if you set a specific ISO in the main menu, auto ISO won't go any lower than that number. I had briefly turned off the auto ISO the other day and set the X100 to ISO 400 in order to meter a shot I was taking with a 1957 Ricoh 500, which has no meter...anyhow, I assumed that auto ISO would override the manual ISO setting, not so. No big deal, really, but good to know.

A couple co-workers play in a band that played an early evening show the other day, so I got right up on the stage and snapped a few shots.

Fuji X100: lovin' and hatin' it (updated)

I jotted down my first impressions of the new Fuji X100 the other day - looking at the post now I can see it doesn't jive with most "first impressions" posts I've seen for this camera. I spent a lot of time pointing out the things the camera doesn't do well, at least in my eyes.

While I stand by all of those observations, I did figure one thing out - you can indeed wake up the camera from sleep mode, by holding down the shutter button for a second or so. Then a few seconds later, you're ready to shoot again. Everything the X100 does, it does deliberately.

However, the proof is in the pudding, and I'm loving the images I get out of this camera. It's just not snappy and responsive. Depending on what you're shooting, this is either no big deal, or a crying shame. That's what inspired the title of this post.

Here are a few more snaps - I'll keep jotting down notes as I go while I have an X100 to play with.

Update, 7/1/2011: Eolake raises a good point in his comment below. The X100 is actually plenty responsive, I was just trying to tweak too many things and dive into too many menus at the time I wrote this post. In the end, I just set the ISO, aperture, and shutter at auto and shot away most of the time. Don't make the mistake I did - just shoot away!