X100V

I have been on a patient hunt for a new every day camera for what feels like forever now. At first I had all but settled on a Sony a7II with a manual Voigtlander lens attached but upon reading more about the latest in the Fuji X100 lineup I was curious if maybe this was a better option for me so I rented it for a week to see if it fit my shooting style. I wont get into all of the details of the camera here, there are plenty of places to get that, this is more a dive into my personal feelings using it.

My attraction to the Sony was of course its full frame sensor in a smallish body, you can pick up the a7II for somewhere around $750 in decent shape. I was also lured by the fast Voigtlander glass available for it. But along came Fuji, stealing my attention away from the Sony by offering an X100 with a re-designed lens, which was what always kept me from loving the older models of the camera, they were far too soft wide open.

I was happy to discover the newly designed lens is pretty remarkable. I love its crisp but smooth rendering and was pleasantly surprised at the depth I could get from it wide open despite it being “only” f/2 and attached to a cropped sensor body.

When I consider the difference between the Fuji and other camera systems, one of the biggest distinctions is its in-body film simulations, the catch of this being that the resulting images are rendered in JPG format and I have no qualms with that fact. While shooting RAW is handy and some see the format as essential in their editing process by utilizing it to dramatically improve and embellish images in post processing, it has never been that important to my approach. The allure of capturing images which are more or less ready to share and enjoy with little to no editing is a huge plus in my book and is a space where the Fuji systems really shine.

Through the week I had with the X100V I slowly started to experiment more and more with what I could accomplish in body and was happy to discover a rich selection of options. Combining these tools with the way they react to the chosen exposure felt natural, charming, and distinct. I loved experimenting with over and under exposing images combined with different simulations and wish that I had more time to really dig deep into the possibilities here. The results have genuine, filmic quality about them.  As a reference for those reading this, I decided not to do any post work to the photos shared here today, everything here was pulled straight from the camera and shared here.

So, where do I stand after this week with the Fuji? I am genuinely in love with the beautifully compact body and lens as well as its ability to mitigate some of my post processing work which is important to me. Time is incredibly valuable to me as of late so I’ll take every second I can spare. Its ability to capture some of the essence of what I love about film photography in digital form is lovely and made using the camera a real joy. The lens, while it doesn’t offer the range of focus that I would prefer, I believe it is enough to use without sacrificing too much of my voice and style.

The only thing tripping me up a little in going all in with the X100V is the allure of the giant depth and rich character of a super fast Voigtlander lens paired with a full frame sensor. It would suit my self defined style of digital shooting using wide apertures as a means of simplifying composition and adding a distinct, sometimes flawed, character to my images which is why I had been looking at it as a solution. I like the idea of having that flexibility in my shooting and fear the Fuji may frustrate me at times when I am unable to get that kind of rendering with subjects further away from the camera.

The tradeoff for achieving this depth is a less inspiring and somewhat larger camera body. The Sonys are nice and all in their utility but they sure feel boring somehow. I want to have a camera that will inspire me to want to keep it out and use it. I don’t want to need a camera bag or case to take care of it. I want it to be there by my side to grab when I need it and the size of the X100V gives me that in spades. I have also glanced at the Leica Q or Q2 but I just can’t see myself raising the money for such a camera and even entertaining it as a viable option feels like a tease.

Since I started sharing photography online, the art form has become mainstream and is full of countless trends and opinions yet my philosophy and approach has long remained the same; Simplify my toolset and seek out ways to get the camera out of my way so I can enjoy the moments I am capturing. The Fuji X100V sure seems like a perfect solution for that mentality.

What do you think? I know some of you reading have followed along for years now, feel free to chime in. I don’t think this will be the last digital camera I ever pick up but with a tighter budget at this stage in my life, most signs are pointing to this being a logical happy medium.

I’ve dumped a few more photos from my short time with the camera below. I ended up having a busy work week so I had even less time than I had hoped to play with it but I think I had it long enough to get a pretty good idea of what I could expect from life with one by my side.

4.20

Back with another monthly release! I will admit this one is a little self indulgent. I was inspired by some of my favorite ambient music releases which feature intimate soundscapes layered by found sound, improvisation, and honesty. What feel like imperfections are often intentional and each sound was either knowingly recorded or gently manipulated with a minimal hand.

This month has been a strange one, we can all admit that right? I chose to take advantage of all the time spent out in the sun with my daughter Milla and started to pull out the voice recorder app on my iPhone to record stretches of time spent with her. Once I noticed how nice it was to collect moments this way I started bringing out musical instruments here and there to include in our outings. One day it was the Pocket Piano, another day Milla chose a harmonica, and one afternoon in the back yard I brought out the OP-Z to control my Roland JP-08 and Pocket Piano.

During that last recording the JP-08 battery died while I had a nice little loop running as Milla and I relaxed in the shade so later on that night I pulled out a cassette tape 4 track and made another variant to the looping rhythm I had made earlier that day using the built in delay on the JP-08 and again controlling it with the OP-Z. The cassette added a nice texture to the loop and I layered this under further recording of that afternoon as the spring breeze made its way through the treetops.

I have fallen asleep to this recording a number of times since finishing it. I love the way it turned out and may explore this idea more down the line, recording little live improvisations in different environments and seeing where they lead me. It’s such a relaxing thing to do as long as Milla’s patience manages to hold strong.

Thanks again for tuning in, I hope some of you enjoy it. As a bonus I have included a desktop of the album art photo. You can’t quite make out the toy watch face in the photo but it reads, “IT IS NOT TOO LATE”. Something we picked up in Seoul years back.

Bandcamp Link here.

See you again next time.

50ft Japan Wallpaper Pack +Zine

The time has finally come to let this out into the world. It only took me six years! Back in 2014 I took a trip to Japan with YoungDoo and while I did share a few of the photos here through the years since, I had never committed to put together the big set of digital wallpapers I had wanted to release.

I’m here today to rectify that. I have a new pack from the trip available containing 62 photographs. I chose to offer it up for sale with full HD versions in an effort to raise money for a couple of 50ft related projects that I have been trying to get up off the ground for what feels like forever. The cost starts at $1 and if your not able to contribute at all but are in need of some fresh wallpapers just let me know.

Your support would mean the world to me and I would be endlessly thankful if you would consider sharing the news through your social hangouts to help me spread the word.

Also! I have decided to make a limited run of printed zines containing all of the photos from the pack!

I go into much more detail about everything on the page that I have set up over on Gumroad so rather than keep you here, why not hop on over and have a look? I have thumbnails of all of the images there as well for your browsing pleasure. Link Below:

The 50ft Japan Wallpaper Pack

(Or, my gumroad profile here)

Calm Spring

Has anyone else noticed how quiet nights are lately? I was wondering if it was just here in my area or if universally around the world nights are as dead silent as they feel here. Waking up in the dead of night feels strange when there the world is totally still, for a split moment here or there my mind goes to dark places before I can shake it off so I’ve been letting ambient music take the edge off.

Yet you know what? As weird and disorienting as everything is, I have been connecting with part of my mind that I have not had a chance to visit in ages. I dug out a Nikon to Canon adapter and mounted YoungDoos Nikon 50mm f/1.2 lens on her 5DII and have started to shoot with it. It’s a classic lens that has a soft and dreamy vibe to it. The gentle feeling of the photos it captures is lovely and calming, just what I could use right now.

So when Milla and I head off to a field and stream nearby I brought it along but more on those photos later. The photo here today is from my backyard. All of the spring flowers are just past their peak bloom now but it’s still a sight for anxious eyes to see. I’ve cropped them on down and prepped them for your digital wallpapering needs. HD versions for big screens are in the members library (along with another new wallpaper pack that you will hear more about soon).

iPad link is for all mobile devices BTW, I still need to get around to tweaking my site code for this.

Things I Am Thankful For No. 1

I’ve been thinking and slowly making a list of simple things I have felt thankful for these past few weeks as the world collectively slips into an unpredictable future. I have wanted to spend more time writing, gathering photos for wallpapers to share, and creating things but life with a 4 year old is proving to be a near insurmountable obstacle to achieve such goals. Tonight, somehow she fell asleep a full hour earlier than usual so I slipped out and decided to write.

Where to start, looking at my list here it’s hard to decide. I have had a lot to be thankful for lately but let’s start with something simple. Let’s start with a book. Just as news started to indicate that things were getting heavy here in the states I decided to make a trip to a book store and find a couple of new books that I could enjoy with Milla (said 4 year old) and spent too long considering options. She loves picture books and she loves to imagine so I took a chance on something new to her, a graphic novel.

I knew I would have to point to the panels of the book as I read them and I would also need to invent story and dialogue to help her follow the plot and sort out what was happening within panels without dialogue but that seemed perfect to me, a chance to be creative with her and connect in a new way.

I stared at shelves full of options for several minutes knowing full well I shouldn’t be hanging around browsing books for long and one lonely yet stout book jumped out at me high up on the shelf. A book called The Adventures of Anders, written and illustrated by Gregory Mackay (series website). The simple illustration of a cat with a bug on its back as it flew through the sky seemed somehow perfect. I glanced through its pages to discover a charming world of friends new and old paired with mild adventure and I followed my instinct and bought it without hesitation.

Over the course of a week before bedtime we worked our way through the three stories and many chapters of the book and came out on the other end with one of Milla’s new favorites. It’s a truly wonderful book and I have genuinely loved reading through it with her. There is a charming balance of humor, adventure, wit, knowledge, and life lessons hiding among these pages. I love the way tension or conflict may get introduced from time to time along the way but these tensions dissolve into joy at every turn. The authors ability to explore trust and friendship is heartwarming.

Each of the three stories play off of each other and slowly introduce new characters into the fold. Now, Milla knows all of the key characters names and has favorites she chooses to pretend to be while we’re out in the back yard having our own time to explore.

I would love to go into more specifics but I’d hate to spoil it for anyone. I have a feeling this book would be great for kids of all ages as it explores friendship in such a wholesome and fun way and leaves plenty of room for imagination and curiosity. It’s been nice to have this to share with her and I wanted to take a few minutes and share it with anyone else here that maybe could use a light hearted graphic novel as well.

I’ll be back again to make my way through this list of modest things to be thankful for, sometimes products, sometimes moments in life, because I hope to maybe inspire someone else to consider the things they have been thankful for even when life is a bit on the messy side. Hang in there, stay healthy, be kind, and I’ll see you again soon.

Monthly Music

There is a lot that has snuck under the radar here on 50ft this year. Mainly because I have not had time to focus on fixing a few issues I have had in the backend. What little social media posting I do is all I have been doing to connect with the world at large and while traffic here is pale in comparison to where it once was I know there are many of you who still come by regularly and I love you for it. So, let’s catch up, starting with music, original music that is.

You may remember a year or two ago I released some original music on cassette tape. Most of the music I make at home or while out and about is made for me, experiments in sound, texture, or rhythm. It’s relaxing. Oddly enough, sharing music makes me feel quite anxious though. It feels personal in a way thats tough to explain, but on the other side of the coin it feels important to push myself to share some of my creative output in light of not having a daily shooter for digital photography around at the moment.

I have decided to see if I can release new music once a month this year, sometimes ambient, sometimes upbeat, but always something monthly. So far so good, I have two releases up to share on bandcamp, I’ve chosen to make them “pay what you want” to be fair in regards to the nature of the project. Money that is raised I will set aside for printing a small zine I have been working on to be released with a full length album that I have been sitting on for at least a year now and feel its time to release to the world at large.

I have been and will continue to release them on bandcamp, the best place to support independent music online. There are descriptions of each release over there. If you’re interested, here is a link, enjoy!

This Day

(Originally tried to post this earlier this year but have had an issue with permissions lingering that I’m starting to wrap my head around so finally here we go. Once I get things working again, I plan on starting to post more. This place feels like a home away from home and I long for it.)

This day we set off to explore. There was a vague idea to find somewhere in the mountains and find a spot Milla would enjoy. A few hours later we ended up at a tourist hot spot where there was a naturally formed rock slide in a mountain stream and a nice swimming hole at the bottom of it. Not particularly our seen, but we were there so we decided to press on, upstream for a ways. Then after hiking beyond what seemed to be a well worn trail we came across a perfect little section of the mountain stream. Just enough for Milla to wander about on her own and explore. We splashed about, made little rock towers, played in the mud, you know, outdoor stuff.

YoungDoo offered up the 5dIII for the day which was a lot of fun and left me with this shot that I knew would make a lovely desktop wallpaper image. There are two versions, one I stepped in a bit closer for because I liked all the little details there in the tower or rocks. More often than not these days I frame subjects cautiously when I know it will be used for wallpaper use. Devices are so varied! How does a photographer frame a photograph for BOTH portrait and landscape viewing?

Yeah, welcome to my world. iPhone wallpaper 101. I still have a soft spot for shooting everything horizontally. The cinematic feel is what I connect with so I do my best to either center a subject or make sure there is some way to crop the image for use on a mobile device. So, at any rate, links are below and I hope to see you again sooner than later. Hope all is well with everyone.

Everorange

It’s been nearly 10 years since this photo was taken. Shot on my trusty old 5D which has since been stolen out of the back of my car. I was digging through old photos for a project I have been trying to finish for something like two years now I think. The kind of project that I can never quite settle on the final answer for anything, so it hovers around above me when I decide to feel anxious about unfinished projects and ideas.

I don’t think I have shared it here before but it’s been so long now, who knows. In my digging around the archives I was thankful Apples Aperture still opens up (I think there’s a hack to keep it working in Catalina by the way.)

It was taken while traveling by car out west with YoungDoo in 2010. Sitting there in the huge library of images from that trip without a star or edit to its name. All it needed was a bit of contrast and it burst into life. This little forgotten piece of a golden Utah sunset waited all this time to be shared. I’m happy to bring these dusty pixels back to life and share something “new”. Enjoy!

(P.S – iPad link is for all mobile devices.)

Two AM

When I wake up at 2am I get to hear traffic slowly crawl into an audible hum, distant in the city streets. Nothing can get my mind back to rest. Time goes from late to early as morning birds start asking for the sun. Weary eyes, cold feathers, gentle calls. Giving up I leave for work, an early job today. Driving feels automatic, as if the road is a river simply pulling me along in its current. Starbucks preps for its first few customers. Grey hair and smoking old pickup trucks wait in the lot outside.

I can’t tell if I’m awake, I can assume consciousness but I’m not sure I can embody it this morning. At least my vocabulary seems in check. Writing feels as natural as my cautiously weary body feels tired and this conference room is still empty enough to focus for a few short minutes.

Sharing to share, side loading a post into an otherwise frustrating start to the day, wait. Theres an echo in here, a few words common and evergreen; enjoy the photo, from Korea long ago, links below, see you again soon?

(P.S – iPad link is for all mobile devices.)