Thanks Ian. I was at f2 using the center and recomposing. Moving the focus point around helped a great deal. I guess its mostly all about learning the camera. I have an A7R and a bunch of manual rangefinder lenses. I thought I would carry that around with me. Its a lot smaller then my Canon SLR but its still too big. So thats why I added this camera. It won't be a hassle to have it with me most of the time and the quality is there. At least in your hands.
I really like that your 1x1 up close and personal b&w photo's. I guess my next purchase will be a large soft box. Maybe some day Ill be able to nail it like you.
Yes focus and recompose will often put the focus point behind the subject by a surprising distance. No big deal at f8 but no good at f2.
The x100s is a fantastic camera. It (or the earlier x100) has been the only camera I have travelled with for the last few years. Slips easily into a coat pocket but produces amazing shots.
Regarding a softbox - a north facing window does a great job too. It's just that at the moment it's very dark here and I only get to shoot in the evenings.
And thank you for the compliment but I very often don't nail it - I just bin most of my shots!
Ian, I love the fact we can see your reflection in the image. Shows how close you have to get to your subject (something I have been wondering about). How are you handling distortion in the image?
kwoodard wrote:
Ian, I love the fact we can see your reflection in the image. Shows how close you have to get to your subject (something I have been wondering about). How are you handling distortion in the image?
Keep in mind that he is shooting into a mirror, so you have to take into account the distance to the mirror and back, so it's still the equivalent of shooting 5 or 6 feet away sans mirror.
No Worries, Savas, we can move on. I'm no drama fan...
So, the reason I have been frequenting this thread (other than the wonderful images posted, of course!) is to see how those of you with the X100 are getting on with it. I have one (it actually came from someone on this board!) that I find my self just not using. It is really small and light (compared to my Leica setup) and sometimes I want to take it instead of the heavy gear; but find myself just not liking the experience. It JUST WONT FOCUS for me.
Do you think that because I am a manual focus only kinda gal, that this autofocus is just something I need to get used to again? Or could there be something else? I mean, it takes a couple depressions of the shutter for me to get it to focus usually. I have been using it at school functions lately, with moving kids and crappy lighting, so these are not optimal situations for easy fast focus; but I expect better than what I'm getting. Should I attempt to just manual focus? I have yet to use the focus peaking part; as I prefer to use the optical finder.
Advice? Thoughts?
Here's a recent shot from the classroom. I am in charge of the 6th grade graduation slide show in May, so I need to grab candids all year of the kiddos...
For close shots, I do enable macro mode; which unfortunately can only be done with the electronic viewfinder. In the classroom, I was probably shooting at f2, but only because of the bad lighting. You suggest f2.8 or f4?
F4 is perfectly sharp and even f2.8 is a lot better than f2, which is a known issue in close shots.
I'm not really talking about macro but the OVF will display 2 aiming boxes, one for close shots like this and one for infinity. You can set that up in the menu. If you just have the infinity box (solid) and not the dashed close focus box then you'll be aiming the camera's AF at the wrong place in close up shots.
Lastly, moving the AF point (which you can do in the OVF as well) is much more accurate than focus and recompose.
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