Blog

First things first a massive congratulations to Nicola and Chris who got married yesterday in Meldrum House. It was a refreshing change to be a guest a wedding rather than the wedding photographer. That duty went to the talented Kirstie Abbey and allowed me to enjoy the day and try out a couple of new toys.

The Canon 5D mark 3 is the long awaited replacement for the 5D mark 2. As great as the 5D2 is the Auto focus is sorely lacking and while fine for portraits it can really struggle in low light and other difficult lighting situations. Despite the fairly minor improvement in the spec sheet the 5D3 feels like a massive improvement in all departments. The AF, taken from the 1DX, is night and day better than the 5D2 and snapped into focus under massively back lit situations and under low light during the reception dancing. The high ISO files are very clean all the way up to 6400 and I’d even use 12800 if I had to. Gone is the red blotching and banding. The view finder, now 100% is a joy to look through and the improved ergonomics and handling made me feel right at home. There is now in camera CA removal which will help remove any of your lens flaws and in camera HDR if thats your kinda thing. It now also has duel cards for backing up jpegs during shoots. In short, its fantastic in low light, is highly customisable, handles like a dream, exceeds all of my expectations and i’ll be buying a second one as soon as I can! Downsides? Well it costs £3k and a its a complicated beast with more menus than there are drunks in Union Terrace Gardens. Lets just say I’m very impressed, so I guess I should show you a few photos.

That leads me the the Fuji X Pro 1, the retro looking CSC with hybrid view finder and interchangeable lenses. I bought it with the 35mm f/1.4 which is nice a sharp wide open and perfect match fo the camera. The fuji allows you to be fairly stealthy as its unimposing and fairly small compared with a DSLR and decent sized lens. The files it produces ar by far the best I’ve seen from any crop sensor body and beat my 550D for noise at higher ISOs. The viewfinder allows you to shoot range finder style or through the lens via the electronic viewfinder. Having used the optional OLED EVF on my sony NEX 5N this one is sadly lacking in comparison with a slower refresh rate, lower resolution and doesn’t have the focus peaking either. All of the current lenses available are focus by wire and lacks any feeling or finesse when it comes to manual focusing. Speaking of focusing the AF is accurate but is pretty slow and disappointing to be honest. The screen also freezes for a short moment when you take a photo and can be off putting. Overall its a very capable camera but like the X-100 before it has many quirks. If can get over them then i’ll be carrying the camera everywhere when a DSLR is too big and heavy or when I need to be stealthy. However Fuji need to listen to their customers and update the poor auto ISO function, poor AF etc via firmware if I’m to keep hold of it. Now for a few photos.