FUJIFILM X-T1 (50mm, f/9, 1/80 sec, ISO500)

Sometimes it is hard to find a good picture. Sometimes it is right outside your window.

The last couple of years my main vacations led me to the South West of the USA and my business trips to the big metropols of South East Asia. In the deserts of the South West the sky usually is deep blue, occasionally with some white clouds. In the big cities of Asia you don’t see a lot of sky and if you do there is a high chance that it is grayish white from smog.

When you look at the paintings of the old masters you will find spectacular skies. Skies full of clouds and colors. It’s very rare to find a painting with a featureless blue or white sky. But in real life it does’t happen a lot to have a beautiful sky. A sky that’s good enough to be the main subject in the shot. That’s why I rushed for a camera when I saw that evening.

FUJIFILM X-T1 (63.2mm, f/8, 1/80 sec, ISO400)
FUJIFILM X-T1 (90mm, f/5.4, 1/180 sec, ISO200)

Without a second thought I crabbed my Fuji X-T1 and attached the cheap Fuji XC 50-230. I don’t know why. I don’t know why I didn’t take my Canon 6D plus Canon EF 70-200/2.8 IS II but I think it says a lot about the quality of the Fuji X-T1 and one of their cheapest lenses. I think its quality is good enough that I don’t have to worry about its output. Especially at f8 it really doesn’t matter a lot. I’m not saying that the output is the same but the difference is really small.

And that’s amazing. This Fuji combo is hardly heavier than some superzoom cameras but it provides images that come close to a full frame DSLR with one of the best zoom lenses money can buy. Truly impressive!

FUJIFILM X-T1 (59.6mm, f/8, 1/80 sec, ISO320)
SONY ILCE-6000 (114mm, f/8, 1/200 sec, ISO250)
SONY ILCE-6000 (88mm, f/8, 1/160 sec, ISO250)

Talking about impressive: Half an hour later I went outside again. This time with the even smaller, cheaper and lighter Sony A6000 plus the Sony 18-200 OSS LE travel zoom. A small camera that surpasses my Canon 6D in resolution and even more so in dynamic range. It also provides better focus tracking and it can shoot at 11 frames per second compared to the 4fps of my much bigger Canon.

Why I’m writing all this? I just want to share my excitement about how digital cameras have developed within the last decade. Today a rather cheap compact system camera and a travel zoom can give you results like i.e.: the shot below. Shot handheld with the zoom on its longest setting. Not a bad result for the sloppy technique.

On camera forums there are complaints about waxy skin in a portraits shot at ISO6.400 ISO with the camera on its standard JPEG settings or artifacts in an image that has been pushed 6 stops. Maybe it is time to relax, to think of what we had 15 years ago and simple enjoy to take pictures.

SONY ILCE-6000 (200mm, f/8, 1/320 sec, ISO500)