Rekindling the fire.

This is a story probably echoed the world over. About falling out of love with photography and falling back in love with it. I’m no professional photographer, but if you were to label me, I suppose you could lump me in as an advanced amateur or even to push to the label of “aspiring” pro, but with still a long way to go. So the story goes, Person A buys a camera – a dSLR and the love affair of photography begins – capturing everything that is out in the world.

Starting with the provided kit lens and learning the ins and outs of what it can (or can’t achieve) the desire grows to build a kit and get to lenses to try and to see what can be done there and see what photos we can take. Lenses come and go, and then SLR bodies come and go.

You then become the guy/gal with the good quality camera who will be able to take photos at some events. You eventually figure out that you may have some skills after all and you could make a few pennies on the side taking photos. You then pick up some paid gigs and you are now stuck behind the computer doing post in your software of choice – tweaking contrast/exposure/noise (you know you gotta reduce that noise!).

The love affair dwindles a bit, and the initial honeymoon period when you took your camera EVERYWHERE with you stops, and the bag gets pushed into the cupboard and only comes out when there is an event or a favour is asked of you. The photography flame is dwindling and dwindling quick.

But why?

• Could it be the 5-8kg backpack that carries all your gear is becoming a burden?
• Could it be the fact that you don’t want to sit in front of a screen again?
• Could it be that the camera is just utilitarian and the personal satisfaction is now low?

For me, it was a combination of that and the world of photography is now full of people flooding their social networks and online space with pretty darn good photos. And how am I to compete? So the backpack full of gear came out only for special requests or holidays.

Now rewind to 2013 – and raised the eyes away from the allure of Canon and set my eyes elsewhere. In fact it was to actually get a present for my wife’s birthday. She was using my old Canon 350D (which was my first dSLR) and I think it was fair that she had a new rig as she had learned a lot with that great little camera. She’s a bit of a fashionista and wanted form + function as well as something that looks great. This is where Fuji comes in, after reading as much as I possibly could online to quell my concerns about Mirrorless cameras (prior to this my experience was with an old Samsung MLC) I pulled the trigger on an x-e2 + 35 1.4 setup for the first foray into Fuji.

Oh boy, was I jealous – the Fuji rendered colours and pictures that knocked my 40D out of the park. It couldn’t hold up to the autofocus speed of the Canon, but everything else… Wowee – the sparks flew. Now fast forward to 2015, my birthday, my wife returned the favour and now I have the x100t in my possession (after long yearning for the x100s).

The fire is back – it was as large as the time when I picked up my 350D a long time ago – this little x100t has soul, the tactile controls, and the colour rendition (in my eyes) is fantastic! The backpack has been replaced by a little super compact, yes there are times I long for additional length or width, but I think to myself – I probably wouldn’t have taken my Canon with me. For example below, here are a few snaps walking to the station after work.

 

 

I’m a bit older, a bit wiser – the need to “compete” isn’t there any more. The joy of photography has returned.

I won’t be doing a review of the x100t – no need, there are a multitude of those out on the inter webs. (I highly recommend – Zack Arias’ First Look for a read)

The Fuji system has put the fire back in the belly, the x100t is a joy and I can live with it as a sole camera to shoot with. And I’ve always got my wife’s x-e2 to play with =).

– CTP