Nightskies with the Fuji X-Pro2

Pearly Beach Skies 1 - Fuji X-Pro2 + 16mm f/1.4, 32x8sec, f/1.4, ISO 3200

Thanks to Hein Hough from Fujifilm South Africa, I was recently able to borrow the new Fuji X-Pro2, together with the 18-55mm, f/2.8-4 and 16mm f/1.4 lenses. What a lot of fun I had!

Come join me in Namibia!

God's Window - Canon 40D + Tokina 11-16, 0.6sec + 1/6 + 1/25, F/16, HDR

Here is the big news I alluded to last time: I'm going to the Aus Photography workshop, held at Klein Aus Vista in Southern Namibia, 5 - 11 June 2016. This time, I'll be going as an instructor, specifically to teach night photography under the leadership of Wicus Leeuwner and JJ van Heerden. Read on to see what you can expect at the workshop.

Do Not Go Gentle...

...into that good night

Rage, rage against the dying of the light - Canon 40D + Canon 70-200 F4 IS, 1/30, F/11, ISO 100

Don't worry, the light isn't really dying. I just have a new baby at home, and my time behind the lens and at the blogging keyboard is seriously curtailed at the moment. I have managed a few good shots in the past months, I think, which you'll find below the fold. I also have some very exciting news, which I will post in the next week or so.

Holidays!

Boulders and Clouds - Canon 40D, Canon 17-55mm, 1/60, f/5.6, ISO 100

Here is just a quick post to mention that I'm off on a road trip tomorrow morning that will take us to the Addo Elephant Park, the Drakensberg and Ithala Game Reserve. I'm really looking forward to this, and will hopefully get some nice landscape and wildlife shots.

Print orders

I will probably have sporadic internet access in the next three weeks, so I cannot promise that I will be able to process print orders in time for Christmas. I will be back on 5 January, however.

My New Toy: The Fuji X100s

My new toy

This is not a gear review site - I have neither the time nor the money to test every new gadget that comes along. However, after weeks of deliberation and reading of such sites, I decided to buy myself a Fuji X100s, and in this post I'll share my impressions of this lovely little camera as well as some pictures I took with it in Moscow and Paternoster.

A reverse telephoto adapter?

Metabones has just announced its Speed Booster^TM mount adapter.

This interesting gadget lets you mount a full-frame lens on a mirrorless camera with APS-C or smaller sensor. It then acts as a sort of reverse teleconverter, reducing the focal length of the lens, while increasing the size of the aperture.

There seems to be some confusion on the forums about this, but it's nothing magical - all it does is reduce the full-frame image produced by the lens by a factor of about 0.71, so the new, smaller image circle still covers the smaller sensor, but with (ideally) no cropping. Thus the lens with adapter behaves like a shorter (by a factor of 0.71) lens for crop-factor sensors. The total amount of light transmitted is still the same, but concentrated on an area that is 0.71² = 0.5 times the original area, thus the light intensity is doubled, giving you an extra stop of light hitting each pixel. Very cool! I wish I had thought of (and patented) this!