After traveling across state to see the opening of the Moose Peterson exhibit at the Gallery at KelbyOne I planned a stop off at Epcot to take in the annual Flower and Garden Festival on the way home. I always take my XF 16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR lens and I needed to take another lens to get some images of Flowers and some of the butterflies. I didn’t want to take too may lenses as carrying multiple lenses around is hard on several of one’s body parts. So I came up with the idea of taking my XF 50-140mmF2.8 R LM OIS WR lens as it would give me more reach to get closer to the floral and insect subjects that were on display. I thought it would be a good lens to get closer to my subjects.
In The Butterfly House = Fujifilm X-T2 XF 50-140mmF2.8 R LM OIS WR ISO 250 F/5.6 1/125sec 140mm
Trouble is that the XV 50-140mm does not have that close a focusing range so you have to stay back from you subject to grab focus. I also ended up shooting at 1/125 of a second at 140mm when I should have been at 1/250 at least with the 140mm focal length of the lens. I did get a pretty sharp image but could have done better.
It was only after I got home and grumbled about the number of out of focus images (from being too close) that I remembered I had the perfect lens for that type of work and I left it home. What I should have done is take the XF 80mmF2.8 R LM OIS WR Macro lens. It would have been perfect for the images I wanted to take. I really need to be a bit more thorough when making lens selections. Oh well, there is always next time.
When the Fujifilm Classic Chrome film simulation was originally released a lot of people thought it was about the best thing since sliced bread. As soon as I purchased my X-T2 I tried it and was basically underwhelmed. To me the contrast in the shadows was to harsh and the blues of the Florida sky was way to green with the profile applied. Lately though I’ve found that there are some images that look pretty good with Classic Chrome applied. This is one of them.
Chandelier – Fujifilm X-T2 XF 16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR ISO 500 F4.0 1/125 sec at 31.1 mm
The color is quite subdued. This really looks good as a print on matte paper. I guess I’ll try using it a bit more.
Soon I will post on how to apply the ACROS profile to Fujifilm X-T1 raw images (hint: using Capture One Pro 11)
There are functions of your camera that sometimes get forgotten in the push to get the perfect image in your camera. I was doing some hand held macro work outside in the back yard. There was a slight breeze so I switched the Fujifilm X-T2 to continuous low to spray a few images in the hopes of getting the one where the wind wasn’t shaking the leaves I was shooting.
I took a couple of shots then switched back to single shot, or so I thought. On the X-T2 the multi exposure function is right next to single shot and I accidentally moved the drive lever to multi-exposure. Not being a proponent of multiple exposures (i have enough trouble getting one image right) I switched back to single shot when I saw the prompts for next image.
Having never explored the in camera multiple exposure feature I thought I’d give it a try. I had nothing to lose as the Sun was a bit to high and harsh and was giving too much dynamic range. I shot of an image and used that image to align a second image just slightly off from the first. I really had no expectations but was pleasantly surprised by the result.
Seeing Double Fujifilm X-T2 XF80mm F2.8 WR OIS R – In camera multiple exposure
The two images together combined to keep the highlights and shadows within a range. The light of the two images together returned the perfectly lit image I was looking for but not finding in my single shot images. I really like the outcome.
Not that I will now go on a multi-exposure tangent but it is nice to remember there are other things to explore when you start working with your cameras features.
Going to leave this here on the last day of 2017 in case you’re running up against a wall with your photography. Thanks to Marc Silber at Advancing Your Photography for this video.
I must have been one of the first to pre-order the new Fujinon XF 80mm F2.8 R LM OIS WR Macro lens when it was first announced. I got mine today, a couple of days before the lens was to be released. I’m not sorry that I got it before most anyone else. From what I have read this macro is supposed to be special. First impression is that it is special.
I took some fading flowers out back to shoot in the late afternoon sun. I was shooting hand held at between F2,8 and F9 depending. The images I’m seeing are stunning. I was looking through the exposures I took this afternoon and this one stopped me in my tracks.
Rose (Fading) Fujifilm XF 80mm F2.8 R LM OIS WR Macro. ISO 200 1/125 sec at F 8.0
This image is pretty much straight out of the camera with the Fujifilm Provia/Standard film simulation applied and I opened the image up about 3/4 of a stop as I had the exposure compensation set to a -2/3 of a stop.
I’m seeing wonderful color, rich creamy backgrounds, and really sharp detail. I think I’m going to love this camera.
Petals (Orange) Fujifilm X-T2 XF 80mm F2.8 R LM OIS WR Macro ISO 200 1/250 at F9.0
I’ve waited quite a while for this lens. Well waiting may not be the right word but drooling doesn’t sound as good, It was worth the wait.
I think it was Joe Glyda that instilled in me the fact (which should have been obvious) that there is only one Sun. Trying to make you lighting too complicated can leave you with images that visually don’t make a lot of sense. Things like shadows going in two directions just isn’t natural. I’ve been paring back my lighting to just a basic one light setup. Recently I saw a video by Daniel Norton that made lighting as simple as it can get. One strobe light and one small reflector that came with the light, one sun.
Mums. – XT2 Fujifilm X-T2 Fujinon XF50-140mm F2.i R LM OIS WR ISO 200 1/200sec at F14 71mm
I placed the light on camera left and high flr about a 45 degree angle down to the flowers. Then it was just a matter of getting the lights power and the aperature correct. Not a lot of post processing needed to get the affect of sunlight on the flowers. I used a small black v flat at an angle behind. Simple lighting is the best.
Feather Fujifilm X-T2 XF 60mm R Macro ISO 332 1/125 sec at f / 5.6
And then there are some images that just surprise you with the detail you can get by having the Fujifilm X-T2 24mp sensor. I shot this image with available light out on the patio yesterday. First glance was not exciting. I then converted to black and white by applying the ACROS+G Filter in Lightroom Camera Profile. I used a bit of Nik by Google Color Effect Pro 4 (it still works for me and so I will still use it). There is detail in them there megapixels! Click for a full sized jpeg at 4.3mp.
Cloud Valley – Fujifilm X-T2 XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR at 20mm ISO 200 F8 1/400sec
We’ve been having some intense afternoon and evening cloud buildups. Something to do with living in Florida and it being summer I think. So I shot this as a pano of 5 frames that were overlapped quite a bit and ended up with a 47mb raw (really an Adobe dng file). Problem is why go to all that trouble for display on screens with a low resolution. I did an export to jpeg at 2400 pixels wide and it is reduced to 1mp. The image on this page is only 960 pixels wide so it just only 11% the size of the original image. Not sure if I this image would be a candidate for a large print so I wonder why we get so impressed with large pixel counts. You can see this image in its full size by clicking on the image.
Chocolate Evening – Fujifilm X-T2 XF 16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR at 44.1mm ISO 3200 F2.8 1/80sec.
There is something oh so nice about having a camera and lens that you can hand hold on a humid Florida night and get a nice shot like this. Here’s too the Fuji X System.
With Google abandoning it’s Nik Software Collection by Google, there are a lot of people trying to duplicate the things they did in Nik in other plugins suites. On1 and MacPhun are two plugin developers that have the ability to do the same image manipulation that the Nik does with varying success.
I’ve purchased and used both suites but have not found that there was much added value to what Nik and especially Color Effects Pro 4.0 did. And if Nik were to continue to be supported (apparently it is already breaking on some hardware and software platforms) I would probably not be looking for a replacement.
As a long time KelbyOne member I just watched a 2 hour class on a new MacPhun product called Luminar Neptune which seems to do some things like the Nik software. This may be because the MacPhun people were involved with developing the original Nik Collection.
I’ve always had a hard time understanding why Nik, MacPhun and ON1 all had separate plugins for different jobs. It gets really confusing when the current products all had different version numbers like Color Effects Pro 4 and Define 2 etc.
Luminar Neptune is a single plugin that combines features of multiple plugins in previous suites. Luminar Neptune can also be run as a stand alone application for developing raw or jpeg images without having to go near Lightroom or Photoshop.
So armed with the recent KelbyOne class and a credit card I purchased Luminar Neptune 1.2.0. If you are a KelbyOne member or a previous owner of other MacPhun software you may be able to get a discount over the current $69 (US) price.
I bought it because it seems like the right time to transition off of the Nik Suite and because the tie in between MacPhun and the Nik Suite before Google. I was hoping that I might be easy to flip over. And it was. Except I went about it in the wrong way.
What I was hoping to do was set up some presets that basically did the same things I was doing on an ongoing basis with Nik. So I started out with a cloud image that I had processed very normally in Lightroom applying the Camera ACROS+R filter for conversion to black and white.
Structure – Fujifilm X-T2 XF 16-55mm f/2.8 R LM WR 16mm 1/2400 sec F8.0 ISO 200. With Lightroom Processing only.
To apply any filters I always import the image into Photoshop as a Smart Object so I can re-manipulate whichever plugins I use if I feel the need (and I usually do). So first I used a action I created to launch Color Effects Pro 4.0 and apply a preset I created based on settings to Pro Contrast and Tonal Contrast that I picked up from a class by Moose Peterson which is also on KelbyOne.
Structure – Fujifilm X-T2 XF 16-55mm f/2.8 R LM WR 16mm 1/2400 sec F8.0 ISO 200. Color Effects Pro 4.0 Pro and Tonal Contrast applied
I then made a virtual copy of the image and again passed to Photoshop as a smart object and this time launched the Luminar Neptune plugin. Now it would just be easy if MacPhun had created a filter called Pro Contrast and one called Tonal Contrast so I could just mimic the settings but 1) That might get a negative reaction out of Google. 2) been no fun at all. So the first thing I tried was to see if I could get Luminar to duplicate what I was doing in Nik. And that, in my opinion, is the wrong thing to do. Instead I went my own way using some suggested filters (thanks to Scott Kelby). I used the filters to make the image look like I wanted it to instead of making the image look like the Nik image. There is a lot more crunch in the image with the Luminar plugin than in the Nik one. In fact I was surprised at how soft the Nik processed image was. Look on the right side of the image at the small dark clouds about 1/3 of the way down. I really like what happens to them with the extra crunch.
Structure – Fujifilm X-T2 XF 16-55mm f/2.8 R LM WR 16mm 1/2400 sec F8.0 ISO 200. Photoshop with the Luminar Neptune plugin
The Nik software needs to be replaced, it’s not going anywhere and will soon be no more than a boat anchor. If you are using image enhancing software you need to try the different Suites and settle on one that makes sense for you. And don’t just try to duplicate things from the old dead plugin, experiment and see what you can do with the latest and greatest. Both MacPhun and ON1 have trial periods so you can test both of them. I liked the Nik plugins and because of the link to MacPhun1 thru common developers I went that path. Your path may be different and don’t get bogged down in how to exactly duplicate old tech, it’s time to experiment and maybe get something a bit more you.
1I still have an issue with company names that are misspellings but that is again a personal issue.
