Subverting Expectations with the Ricoh GrIIIx

I have been consistently using the Ricoh GR IIIx now for about six months, doing a bit of everything, from food to intermittent studio work. I feel now that I can wholeheartedly give it a double thumbs-up. I pair it frequently with the new mini TTartisan Gn12 speedlight and trigger for on the go work which with the leaf shutter in the Ricoh give you access to plenty of light to work with for some light food blogging work.

I have also been using it for street portraits with great effect. The 43mm equivalent lens is excellent for creating portraits with depth and a good bit of environment. It’s sharp, and the color rendition is excellent. The best part is that because of its compact size, it's always handy.

The place the camera truly astonished me was in the studio. When paired with a Godox Pentax trigger, you can take control of powerful studio lights to create some amazing portraits with such a small camera.

Overall, I can't recommend this camera enough for how much joy it has brought me and how easy it is to have on you for important or interesting moments.

Real life with the Ricoh Gr IIIx, First impressions.

I am terrible at blogging when I really shouldn’t be. I love to talk. I love photography. I love talking to people about photography. So why is it so goddamned hard to sit down and write about it? I think over the past few years I let it become a chore, and there is nothing like consistency to kill creativity even if it isn’t bad. There has also been a few life events that kept me busy some terrible, some mundane, but honestly I am happy, which doesn’t make it easy to create when my original goal for my art was anger, depression, and whole host of other negative emotions I was looking to share in an aesthetic manner. Recently things have begun to change for the better though. I realized that i relied too heavily on others to help me create art, ie models, artist, and fellow creators. I was so disappointed and disheartened when I couldn’t wrangle those elements into what I needed. So what’s the solution? Find beauty in real life, not posed and forced creativity. Enter the Ricoh Gr IIIx.

I purchased it on a whim, after reading some glowing reviews online and on Reddit about how it was the perfect amalgamation of portability and power. After just a few short days, I get it. I really do, the camera is not without its flaws but honestly they’re easy to overlook when it fits on my sling in a small pouch with 3 batteries and a compact wireless flash system. I recently read a great statement for all photographers “f8 and be there“ and that resonated with me, be so often I get stuck in the mentality of chasing perfection when in reality that meant I wasn’t experiencing the opportunities life was placing before me. I was living from behind the lens. Don’t get me wrong I love my Gfx-100ii and it without a doubt is my workhorse. But its not dissimilar from using an rpg to go rabbit hunting, by the time you’re ready to fire the moments has passed, and sure maybe you’ll get lucky and make content but there’s not much left after the fact. The Ricoh is small unobtrusive and very capable. It’s always with me, when the moment strikes it’s precise, quick, and gets the job done without a fuss. I’m sure all this has been said before of the camera as it has been out for quite a while but I’m saying it again. While I haven’t spent a huge amount of time without it, I am understanding why its a mainstay of the street photography community, and it 100% deserves to be.

Here is the very first image I took with the GrIIIx a quick snapshot that otherwise would have gone unmemorialized, a small moment between two men, who despite being generations apart have managed to become friends.

• These shots are just things I notice have their own simplistic beauty. I’m totally plagiarizing Secret life of Walter Mitty, but something’s don’t ask for attention but they’re beautiful none the less. The colors, the birds wheeling over head, the light hitting the right things to create color cast. Life is just intoxicating when you let it be and just experience it.

Another huge reason I was specifically interested in the GrIIIx in particular was the 40mm lens. It seems perfect for capturing food photography especially with its macro capabilities. Obviously it’s not gfx100ii quality but the colors are great and it’s with me. Food is art especially when you decide to invest in better quality restaurants and its a shame that more often than not the quality and colors literally turn to shit with nothing more than a passing appreciation of the flavor. Cell phones are often used to capture food photos but for me I find it to be a distraction and just a good enough method to capture those moments. There is something about having a camera in hand, albeit a petite one, that helps to drive me to create something I can appreciate later and that I feel comfortable sharing with others.

So this wasn’t a review, or was it. All I know is I’m happy to be able to have something that I feel comfortable with and that helps me create again. There’s always the right tool for the job. Thanks Ricoh for making this one. Also this little TTartisan Flash is bitching.

Grow or die.

I haven’t updated this blog in several years, not because I didn’t want to but because life kept happening.

The past 3 years have been a crazy roller coaster of happiness and disaster. It seems like every mountain top climbed came with a valley low. But such is life; no use complaining about it when it’s done with, and I survived. But I would like to explain everything that has happened. Firstly, in 2022 I found out I had double testicular torsion, which is such a weird thing to be talking about on the internet, but seeing as men's health is stigmatized and men tend to suffer in silence, I figured what the hell. It required an emergency surgery, which left me with permanent nerve damage and hormonal issues that require medication, as well as giving my blood every few months to prevent thickening of the blood and the cardiac issues that can cause. Just as I felt I had balanced out and was starting to get back to normal in 2023, I ended up back in the hospital, but this time with a heart rate of 275, which is obviously suboptimal. After 4 shots of adenosine, they informed me I would need a cardiac ablation immediately. Unfortunately, the doctor was unable to perform a successful ablation and woke me up mid-surgery to inform me he couldn’t continue because, on top of the initial issue, which was something called Wolf Parkinson’s white syndrome, I had an extra AV node in my heart sitting directly on top of the main AV node. This prevented them from accessing the portion of my heart they initially identified as the problem. He stated that at best he would damage my heart and that I would need a pacemaker and at worst I would die. So obviously they put me on a slew of medication and sent me home to wait on an appointment with the head of electrophysiology at the McGovern Medical College in Houston, Texas. I ended up in Houston on an unrelated work trip a few months later and kept feeling really sick and faint, and a friend rushed me to the hospital in time for them to see me in SVT, which is an extremely high heart rate. I then spent 24 hours in a hallway waiting to get a room and have my heart operated on. Luckily, soon after I was in a room, I was able to get into surgery. Which was temporarily successful. I had about 2 months of being ok, but then started having issues again with excessive heart rate. Finally, I was taken again to Houston for another consult, and they decided to keep me and perform another, more aggressive surgery. I was on the table semiconscious for about 9 hours. It was not a comfortable experience. But the surgery was finally successful, albeit with a small bit of permanent heart damage. But nothing that couldn’t be overcome with a better lifestyle. This whole ordeal lasted through most of 2023. Luckily I made it through 2024 without any more major health issues, but I did get in an accident that totaled my vehicle. But that is the end of me complaining onto the positive things now.

Being an individual without being an asshole.

We all want to be different, if not special. We want to stand out from the crowd and shine so that others can see us. In a effort to attain that individualality some turn to the arts, religion, and education. Some others think that to be an individual you must eschew community. It seems paradoxical and oxymoronic that a individual would be deeply tied to a community. But the strongest of individuals are always members of strong communities.

To put this whole conversation into a very personal sense and explain the meaning of the title as a youth I didn't have alot of positive role models that I connected with. It wasn’t untill I started to educate myself both academically and religiously that I started to form a idea of what a strong individual should be. Before all this though I equated being a individual with being alone. Lonely people arent usually happy. I know I wasn’t.

While I think being comfortable with solitude is a important part of individualality, being lonely isn’t the same thing. Loneliness breeds unhappiness and unhappiness breeds insecurity and misplaced aggression. When your idea of individualality involves being alone it breeds the same problems. You become aggressive without a aggressor and passionate for nothing of true value. Being rooted in a community gives you a strong foundation on which to build yourself. When you are part of a community its because you share beliefs or morals. It's essential to find people who help you be better. No man is a island has never been truer or more easily provable then in todays pandemic.

People are Isolated and removed from the support structures that they had been accustomed to. Even things like jobs or church gathers have been affected. The amount of human to human interaction has drastically decreased. People are depressed, record numbers of suicides point to the importance that being near to others plays in our mental health. But what does this have to do with being a individual? It ties back into community and how a community supports you while you support it. It’s alot easier to survive these days when you have friends alongside you. Especially a intellectually diverse friend group.

Communities should be built with multiple tyoes of people. The irregularity of people helps to build a diverse group of people capable of withstanding trial and tribulation. But it also makes it easier to make friends and build strong relationships within the community. That gives you a foot up on learning about the world. Different people have different perspectives and world views that further diversify your own. A more diverse outlook makes more opportunities appear. Especially where you may have felt there were none.

There is strength in numbers, but when you're better the group is stronger as well. Its a mutually beneficial relationship. To be a individual who has strng ties with community.

Till next time.

My Home

Creation and violence.

Seemingly two things at great odds. But to me one and the same. From talking to a lot of people about their passions and their talents even their creation it seems that a lot of artist or creators create for a sense of peace or in pursuit of happiness. I tried it, as I mentioned in my previous post I tried to create to fit in. Which was my simple way of looking for peace and a sense of belonging. But peace and calm never felt very close to my heart. I grew up rougher than some and better than others. But always there was conflict whether real or imagined, it was definitely ever present in my life.

Peace means something different for me, its not a be-quieted sea or a breeze filled field of flowers. It’s the thundering and wind stricken shores. The howling mountains and the storm raging through trees threatening to tear them up. I’m filled with a deep calm then, and a very real sense of the present. I don’t mean to feel tumultuous or to overthink certain aspects of my life but I do. So in those moments of chaos that is not of my own making I feel free to live in the moment. To experience the infinite peace of the present and the now. That’s where I think art fits into my life.

I am struck by the sincerity of Ben Todd’s lyrics when he talks about a lovers pictures of him “some of them are shining and some of them are blue because one day I’m a sweetheart and the next I’m a brute.” For me that feels like the truth I am a amalgamation of two very different personalities one kind sweet and romantic and relentlessly optimistic. The other lives up to title of ogre and brute, sarcastic and vain muddled with a kind of ever loving desire for conflict and violence, not in the physical sense that I go looking for fights but somehow they find me. That brings me to where I feel my desire to create comes from. I have no great wars to fight, no unexplored continents to conquer. I feel this strangely deep desire for a legacy still though. That’s where I found art and poetry. It gave me a outlet for both sides of me, the happy go lucky kid who desires to fit in, and the man who desire to never see another soul again. One face is acceptable the other is not. But still both are part of me and to give up one side for the sake of simplicity felt like dying. I was always impressed at this grandiose expressions of art, paints in all their terrible splendor, symphonies in their relentless calculated highs and lows, dancers exploding in passion under bright lights. I love watching people create. The passion and exertion plainly evident on their faces as if in the throws of love or death. To me that was the closest I was ever going to get to glory. So I threw myself whole heartedly into art. Some it was photography, painting, sketching, steel working and poetry. They allow for this violent creation without my hands ever really being dirtied by misdeeds. Though in retrospect there has been plenty of missteps. But as with all creation I think it comes in steps and plateaus. Some days you have these lighting blitzkriegs of inspiration and learning the next is a dry cloudless desert sky. But together I think they paint a picture as beautiful as one of those set down by the hands of the old masters. My life will be interest regardless of how hard I have to struggle for it.

That’s why I create, why do you? What will you leave behind when your bones have long gone? Will it be family, scars or art. Tell me about it I am eager to learn about you.

Creation and absence.

I have been gone for quite a while not because I truly stopped caring but because I let life get in the way of my stubborn pursuit of legacy. I’ve been run through the ringer so to speak this year. But it has had one benefit. Clarity. Like all trying time there is a sense of cleansing whether it be owning up to your misdeeds or acknowledging the need for self improvement. I’ve been trying to look at the last year like a fire and me as a impure kind of iron. It certainly has been hot, and I’ve been trying to find the correct elements to add to myself to become steel. So far it has been a altruistic journey seemed in large part to be benefiting others rather than myself, and while that was helpful you cant truly grow if you never save any time or energy for yourself.

The first thing I did was be honest even when it was embarrassing and the consequence dire. I gave my word to live by a set of rules and I failed at upholding them. The punishment that followed was at first painiful, necessary but most definitely painful and not just for me. I’ve been striving to heal that part of me and its rapidly grown into a cathartic experience. Not just because of the quiet but also too because of the unlimited potential for growth. It’s certainly been a sink or swim kind of thing.

I’ve also thrown myself into research trying to build knowledge around me in a sort of metaphorical armor. It’s been both helpful and detrimental to my personal friendships and associations. Not everyone believes in creation of legacy or painful self-improvement. A lot of people take things at snails pace. Consoling themselves in morsel sized bites of improvement. To me that seems to take a lifetime. Not to say there is anything wrong with that, but its not for me. On the same hand I refuse to apologize for doing things in a way that is a bit breakneck and archaic. I can’t keep compiromising for the sake of social benefit. I did for a while to fit into the art scene locally and honestly I wasn’t benefitting myself or growing. I wasn’t even enjoying time spent with people. It was stymied by a constant parlor of just good enough,

For me art is about excellence, challenging norms, legacy and lasting beauty. I guess I share different views than a lot of people. I probably go about it in a very aggressive way too. But once again I’m done apologizing for not agreeing with pc art culture and the constant blind self gratification that follows it. I don’t have to appreciate art I find distasteful, I don’t have to support artist who have negative sometimes dangerous habits just because they’re artist. Talent isn’t a excuse to misbehave or take advantage of people. If I’m in this battle alone so be it. I don’t care if I’m liked if only I can be respected for my honest and morals.

As to my art I’m trying to define what I want to see in my art. I got very distracted by others expectations for a while. That’s done now. Whether it be philosophy, science or God that inspires my art next is yet to be seen. But I assure you this it will be me and it will be interesting. Maybe even beautiful occasionally.

Here is some sample work from my time away from here. Mostly shot on my almost recently acquired Fuji GFX-50r. More on that later.

The beginning of the iPad blogging era

Well I sold out and bought a iPad and a accompanying Bluetooth keyboard. Definitely not the smart key board cause that thing is a ripoff if I ever saw one. So here it to the future of this blog and to me actually having a compact system on which to blog on. Love the Lenovo yoga for editing and big task but you cant beat a 11inch laptop for getting the basics done with temeraity. So if your just reading the blog and haven’t really been keeping up with the ig you wouldn’t know that I recently was able to purchase a Fujifilm Gfx 50r, this has been a huge boon, and such a amazing system to start learning. While my style won't change, my ability to maximize the equipment will definitely need some brushing up on. My first few portrait session with this beast have mostly been positive it the camera has some quirks that I was not expecting coming from the Sigma and Sony setup of yore. With the Sigma it basically a full manual camera with autofocus, you have to meter and set everything yourself and nail it or risk having a terrible shot, the Sony is more intuitive and able to guess things for me, I still shoot manual of course but everything is far more easily accessible than the Sigma. I don’t mean to harp on the Sigma I am definitely keeping it as part of my ever growing collection of equipment and as a speciality camera or for when I’m feeling masochistic. The Gfx is strange in-between of the both of them, it has a lot of intuitive controls manual controls thanks to its rangefinder heritage and also a lot of good intuitive controls. Plus the actual customization of the buttons is par none one of the best, you can customize anything and everything. Just a few shots from the gfx edited on the iPad version of Lightroom mobile ! Till next time. Bird out

Fuji Gfx with Mitakon Speedmaster 85mm f1.2

Fuji Gfx with Mitakon Speedmaster 85 1.2

Sigma Sd Quattro H and Mamiya 645 80mm f1.9.

I did it. There was no helping for the lack of the adapatablity to the Sa mount. So I bought a Mamiya 645 to Pentax K adapter. Pentax K and sigma share a same mount in regards to manual glass. The only difference is the film plane registration distance. But this just means it focuses slightly past infinity and doesn't focus as close as it could. Since we are starting at the basepoint of the Sdqh which is already ornery system to work with I figured why not make the experience even more difficult and manual focus with a dumb adapter and very old glass. But if life exist in balance it paid off with this combo. As difficult as it is, it makes beautiful images in droves. 

It really is a big funky setup, but it's like Jazz, you kinda hate it at first and it doesn't make sense but once you get to the finale it makes perfect beautiful sense. 

X3f monochromatic with the Sdqh

X3f monochrome

I mainly shoot in B&W on the Sdqh just for the ease of focus when paired with peaking and focus magnification. Sometimes I change the color profile in Sigma photo pro but I really like the monochrome. Especially as older lenses are prone to chromatic aberration. The Foveon is especially punishing but provides beautiful results when you nail everything.

Color capture with the 80mm sekor

This was just some basic testing to see if the concept works. No scientific data or mumbo jumbo. That's not what I'm about. The only issue is the focus to infinity. It focuses slightly past. No big deal. 

Carl Zeiss Jena 180mm on the Sigma Sd Quattro H

While I love Sigma and their relentless pursuit of image fidelity and quality they slightly have shot themselves in the foot with their choice of mount on their new cameras. The cameras themselves are excellently built, rugged and capable studio and location shoot tools. Sigma capture pro is coming along nicely and allows for tethered .x3f and .dng shooting though I wish Sigma would allow for scaling the program for users with 4k screens. This brings me back to mount choice,the SA mount is very similar to Pentax K and has only a bayonet difference and it has the same registry distance as canon ef (44mm) . The problem lies in that only Sigma makes glass and while they have a rather fleshed out lineup I find myself wanting more specialized glass ie ultra fast apertures, trioplan style, more artist focused lenses. If they were to copy the Sony-FE mount or make something with a short flange distance the ability to adapt glass from various other mounts would make the system a whole hell of alot more viable to the average photographer. But there is one mount that is adaptable quiet easily M42. From m42 you adapt a few different style of lens like Pentacon and 6x6 lens. For the purpose of this review I used a Carl Zeiss Jena 180mm f2.8 lens paired with a unknown pentacon to m42 adaptor, then with a Kipon M42 to SA adaptor. The lens is obviously manual focus and with the focus peaking available by default with the Sdqh it is not terrible to use. I do recommend good lighting or the use of flash because the liveview of the sdqh becomes quite mushy and grainy without good light. 

First shot with Zeiss Jena, Godox ad360

As you can see in tbe above photo the Carl Zeiss Jena 180mm really leans towards the green spectra in terms of color, it also has a high amount of chromatic aberration when paired with the foveon x3, but renders quite a bit sharper then what I was expecting from a very old lens. 

Low light night photography

Now the real question is, how's the bokeh? It's Tony the Tiger levels of great to be honest. Bokeh balls are round and soapy, compression is fantastic and dof is 3d-ish.

I'm truly happy with this lens particularly and with how it pairs onto the Sigma.  

Down to some specs, 

Aperture: f/ 2,8 - f/ 32

Weight (gr): 1350

Length (mm): 120

Filter Ø (mm.): 86

Aperture blades: 9

Min. focus distance (m.): 1.7

It has a super smooth focusing ring and very audible and noticeable clicks on the aperture ring. 

Paired with the SDQH

f2.8, 1/800th Iso-100 with ad360

Since the SDQH already isn't fantastic in low light even when paired with 1.4 primes it obviously is gonna need artificial lighting frequently to which I pair the Sigma ef-630 flash and the Godox Ad360 it has tons less abberations then when only paired with natural light.

f2.8, 1/1250th sec, Iso-100

As you can see in the above picture the way it renders is very  3D-ish with alot of compression and a very sharp fall-off it renders reds, greens and blues very beautiful but over saturates purples, but thats just my opinion. The bokeh... is friggin fantastic. Its very round and very soapy which I really like. It can be a tad busy on occasion but It's one of those things thats a matter of taste. Also remembering that the sdqh is utilizing a aps-h sensor (26.7 x 17.9mm) while the lense is made for 6x6 film which is 56 x 56mm so you are basically only using the center of already high quality lense which is normally the sharpest part of a lense.

f2.8, 1/800th sec, Iso-100

Iso-200, 1/320s, f2.8

So in all I think the journey of adapted lenes will be a beautiful path to travel down.

Sony A7iii vs. FujiFilm X-H1 (Opinion/Spec Review)

In the past month two different beast but relatively affordable beast have been announced. We have Fuji's Hybrid video/photo X-H1 coming out on March 1st and Sony's affordable full frame offering the A7iii. Both are capable photographic and videography tools. The X-H1 shoots 24mp stills with the apsc X-trans III processor, the Sony A7iii is shooting a full frame Exmor R BSI 24mp sensor. Both are capable of 4k 30p, 24p while the sony over samples 6k to produce 4k while the X-H1 over samples from a 1.17% crop of its sensor. The X-H1 is capable of 200 bit 4:2:0 output with a internal f-log. The Sony was just announced today and is capable of 100 bit output. In a recent test on the internal IBIS of the A7riii and Fuji X-H1 by the Pro Shooters yt channel, the Fuji proved to be much more effective though I note that it was still quite jittery. This is not unexpected as the sensor size of the A7riii is vastly greater then the Fuji and the bigger the sensor the less effective the IBIS as the sensor has less room to move around. The slog vs flog comparison was relatively similar while the flog has slight edge in the shadows this is just my my opinion though. In regards to the photographic arena both cameras shoot similar resolutions but with different sized sensors. Both have a slue of color profiles, personally I prefer Fuji's color science over the Sony's though I do enjoy the variable strength and dynamic range of the Sony's files. The Fuji shoots 14 bit raw and the Sony shoots 15 bit raw. The dilemma that arises is that they are basically at very very similar price points, so it becomes a cutting teeth issue of which to choose. If you are looking for more of a hybrid camera I suggest the X-H1 for its higher quality video output, If you are looking for a more photo orientated camera that still shoots quality video the A7iii is the way to go. For a wedding shooter or enthusiast both are highly viable options. Both have adaptability with canon lenses for a wide range of options and huge collections of legacy glass. (Techart, Steelsring, Metabones and Sigma all offer different but good options.) I personally own alot of Fuji glass which I currently pair with my X-pro 2, but also a good amount of Sigma Art lens that I currently pair with my SD Quattro H. So both the Fuji and Sony are great options for me. Which to choose...... Why not both?

I'm back. Blog #1

It's been a while blog o'mine. I've missed you but sometimes I dont know how to tell you. I've got so many plans in the works and just not the words to know how to say it all somedays. But I need to work on it. I have been using the Sigma Sd Quattro H alot almost to the point of never breaking the Xpro 2 out. When I did I only used the Speedmaster 85mm on it. Its hard to not love such a fantastic lens. I may be trying out the new Samyang 85mm f1.2 and 50mm f1.2 along with a new speedbooster but not for sure. Also I am starting to play with Medium format and m42 glass that can be adapted to the Sigma. I have on order a Carl Ziess Jena 180mm f2.8 for Pentacon that can be adapted to m42 then to Sigma SA. I managed to snag it for 300 dollars and change with perfect glass. So if this experiment has a happy endings might be purchasing more legacy glass for the SDQH. Added benefit is that I have a speedbooster for M42 to Fuji X-mount. Also recently I have made friends with a wonderful if albeit dorky creative director who I'm hoping takes my studio/location skills to the next level and have had quite a few new people working on with me as assistants which has been a nice experience. 

SIGMA Sd Quattro H/ 50mm Art. Katie Kidd

My super cool Creative Director friend. Sigma Sd Quattro H/ 50mm Art

Also since the last blog I've done my first official wedding and it was a total sucess. The photos were beautiful, the bride loved em, I loved them and I was paid. So whats not to love? 

Beautiful bride getting ready. Fuji Xpro 2/ Fujinon 50-140mm f2.8

Mother and Father of the bride having a silly moment. Fuji Xpro 2, Fujinon 50-140

All in all been a decent past few months. I'm really going to try to turn up the hustle the next couple of month and expand into social media marketing as well. Never know if you dont try. Also going to try really hard to put out some reveiws that I've promised for a long time. Have a wonderful day friends!

Compression and Bokeh Fuji 90mm f2 vs. Mitakon Speedmaster 85. Prt.1 of two

Over the next couple of days I'm going to be testing the Fuji 90mm vs the Mitakon 85 sm, though the price may seem initially different the mitakon requires a speedbooster to adapt to fuji cameras bringing it up to just about the same cost of the 90mm which is 900 dollars at the time of writing. So now that they are in the same price bracket one would assume that they are only 5mm difference in focal length whats the point in testing them? Well one is a ff equivalent in otherwords it is truly a 85mm f.95 whereas the other is 90mm but in apsc terms this equates to a 135mm lense. Another big difference is sharpness and the use of autofocus. I had initially conducted a test with both lenses but I did not do a particularly good job of it. I was moving, changing the apertures and iso. To conduct a fair test i will do the test indoors at same distance, on a tripod with a shutter release with a static model. This post is rather a declaration of intent. Below is a few samples from each lense.

Speedmaster 85mm

Fuji 90mm f2

Speedmaster 85mm

Fuji 90mm f2

Fuji Xp2 Crops

Short post about resolving power of the X-Trans III. In the studio I decided to go for a more detailed approach with the Xpro2 then a artsy one and decided to stop the lens down to f2 ( Mitakon Speedmaster 85mm) and keep the Iso relatively low. When you combine these things with DR setting pumped to 200% you get magic... And quite a bit of resolving power. 

Full quality image.  

The picture above was taken at Iso 320, f2 and 1/550th of a second. The lighting used was a Fotodiox Flapjack Studio Xl. The lens used was a Mitakon Speedmaster 85mm with a Canon ef to Fuji x Speedbooster.

Huge crop in with lots of usable detail ! 

Not so daily blog #9

It has been a while and a busy couple of months. I have been learning alot of new techniques and working on pushing myself out of box to try new styles of shooting. I have done quite a few shoots in a studio environment with the Sigma Sd Quattro H and really tried to push its limits. I have also found new love with the Fuji Xpro2 when paired with ultra fast manual glass. 

When I first started shooting I thought best gear meant I could get the best shots. But then I would goto flickr and look what some talented people were doing great things with the same equipment I had or even less then. Thats when I realized I needed to start pushing myself and my equipment harder. So I made sure I had the basics which to me are a decent set of primes, a speed light and a led light. I also have two vastly different camera systems. The Sigma Sdqh and the Fuji Xpro2, both have great image quality but specialize in very different things. The Sigma offers unyieldingly wonderful image quality if you work for it, and the Fuji has very good quality and a good autofocus system when paired with native glass. 

Sigma Sd Quattro H

Fuji Xpro 2

As you can see the coloring is very different from the Sigma to the Fuji but both are beautiful in their own way ! 

The Ferocious Foveon

Over the past 6 months I have shot extensively with the Sigma Sd Quattro and H model and my conclusion is that it may be my favorite system to pull amazings shots with. It has its struggles one of which I have found to be microblurring but that is more a fault of my own then of the camera. It needs a tripod and or a steady steady hand. Usually I am able to provide a steady hand but when walking around with gear and a 4 camera setup it starts to get to you. 

It's purpose was never street or urban portraits but I have pushed it successfully many times and when I do things right it delivers like a medium format camera. 

I have used it quite abit in the portrait realm and for slow steady shootings it's really a beast. It has taken quite a few shots alot of people have really loved and with the Sigma's largest yet apsh sized sensor, the bokeh and depth of field have both been radically improved.

Sigma Sd Quattro H Review- MegaPixel Monster or Mess

After a solid month of shooting with the Sigma Sd Quattro H which for the purpose of my sanity I will abbreviate to SDQH for this article, I can talk with with some useful knowledge about the pro's and con's of this camera.

Specs-

Lens Mount- Sigma SA

Camera Format- APS-H (1.3x Crop Factor)

Pixels Actual: 45 Megapixel
Effective: 44.8 Megapixel

Max Resolution- 25.5 MP: 6192 x 4128

Aspect Ratio- 3:2

Sensor Type / Size- CMOS, 26.6 x 17.9 mm

File Formats- Still images: JPEG, RAW

Bit Depth- 14-bit

Memory Card- TypeSD, SDHC, SDXC

Image Stabilization- None

Iso Range- 100-6400

Shutter Type/ Speed- Electric or Mechanical, 1/4000th of a sec

Flash Sync Speed- 1/180th of a sec

Size: 5.8 x 3.7 x 3.6 in. (147 x 95 x 91 mm)

Review-

Using this camera for mainly portraiture so I will review it as portrait camera, so far I haven't been able to use this camera for landscapes which I know it will succeed in that form as well.  This camera has been used for two professional shoots, one during a quite rainy day which to be honest terrified me, but with the sealing on this camera and the 85mm Art it held up quite well. That leads me to the issue of durability and build quality.

The camera itself is build like a tank especially considering it is only $1200 hundred dollars at time of writing. The fit and finish is top notch, the camera is made from a magnesium alloy and covered in a leather-est type of plastic that has a very pleasing feel. The camera itself is surprisingly light considering it's size, but that pleasant fact is negated quite quickly by the length and weight of the Art Series of lenses by Sigma. The camera is also very well sealed against the elements in the form of a seal around the lens mount and sealed ports as well as the battery compartment which I have heard described as a submarine door, it is a twist lock and seal which has very quality feel to it. The buttons have very solid feel to them and in my opinion is that they won't wear out easily. The dials have very definite clicks and are very well implemented on the body and are easy to reach. As to whether the body is comfortable to hold I had my doubts if it would be comfortable but i was pleasantly surprised as it was very comfortable to hold and shoot even after a relatively long shoot. 

Sigma Sd Quattro H with Pg-41 power grip by Sigma.

Sigma Sd Quattro without grip and front view, Body has same specs as the H model

The next thing i will address it the image quality of the SDQH, I'm not going to get into crazy specifics because I am trying to show the average person what the camera can do not specific bit quality or pixel size or the debate between foveon and bayer. To put it simply the SDQH is a megapixel monster of that is no doubt. You can zoom in well past 100% and still have remarkable detail, even under less then favorable light. The prints you can achieve with this camera are basically on par with the Pentax 645z for detail but the 3-d effect you achieve with a larger then 35mm format sensor isn't here though sadly. But for 5 thousand dollars and some change less can you really complain? I can't and won't. For the portrait sessions I have used this camera on I really haven't wanted to put it away and use my other cameras. It is good, and the files are scary sharp. If you shoot in mostly jpegs like I do ( I know I'm a fool don't have to tell me ) the bnw files come out to be around 20-25 mb's and the color files can run 25-35 mb. If you choose to shoot in .dng or .x3f the files are ridiculous. The ones i have seen have been in the 100 mb range and more. A simple snap of a scotch bottle in my room was a 141 mb .dng and that was not a well lit photo that would push the dynamic range of the file. Here are a few websized images from a few shoots I have done with the SDQH.

Bre by the Sea

As you can see the camera makes awesomely sharp files and the bokeh from the Art series of lenses is quite pleasing to my eyes, it may not be to some bokeh-philes but for my purposes and to the average consumers it is quite fantastic. Now this brings me to the purpose of bringing up the lenses. They are central to this camera as are any lenses to any format or ecosystem of cameras, but for Sigma they are something special something a little bit above. The lens wasn't built to compliment the body, the body was built to compliment the lens. The lens are fantastically sharp and manage to create very pleasing images in terms of color reproduction and bokeh. 

Cons-

I promised to always be fair and unbiased in my reviews and as much to pains me to do this to a camera I love... I have to be true to you my reader. The auto-focus is accurate, but slow, and when I say slow I mean you can fall in love with your model, start a relationship, start a family and watch the grand kids play in the front yard before this thing focuses. That is my biggest complaint with the system, the high iso performance isn't great but that's expected with a foveon system because of the sensor architecture. The foveon is built in three layers of color instead of a mosaic patterned sensor. This means the light and color is more accurately reproduced but at the loss of low light performance. That was a trade off I was willing to make. That's also a choice you have to make if you want to experience foveon magic. Also a word to the wise have fun learning the off camera flash game with this camera. It has made me a better man that's all I will say.

Conclusion and Final Opinion-

The Camera is a MegaPixel monster as well as a hot mess, but that's ok with me. I like to think I am a fairly technical photographer and I like to shoot and re-shoot till I have a image I'm happy with and the SDQH is really great if you want a camera that challenges you but creates a fantastic image if you're patient. The system isn't a upcoming system as foveon and Sigma have been producing camera's since 2002, you would hope that they would have more complete ecosystem and it is fairly deep in regards to lenses and flashes, but I wish they would make off camera flash more universal so that wireless HSS and TTL were available. But all in all I really enjoyed the camera and its quite fun to pixel peep, if you're into that kind of thing. But then again who isn't. Overall rating 9/10. 

Sincerely, The Bird

Not so daily Blog #8

This has been a very interesting week it started in Houston and with me on a 72 hour work trip. On that trip I slept maybe 3 or 4 hours. But it gave me opportunity to take some city landscape photos of a big city during a lightning storm. 

City light and the sky Fight  

I also am in the pipeline to review Sigma's nw 135mm Art along with reviewing their full portrait lineup 50mm Art and 85mm Art. 

I had also setup a shoot at a local fire festival but it unfortunately fell apart, on the bright side I made new friends with a radom family that was kind enough to let me borrow their wife and mother to use as a model. We did a cross themed shoot on the local sea wall and I believe it turned out beautifully!  

Not so Daily Blog #7

My life has been amazingly hectic the past few days and I have been mulling over expanding my hobbies quite significantly. I have always loved cooking and meal prep and after having some inspiration I have decided to take up cooking again.

Not so Daily Blog #6

Had a wonderful portrait session this morning with a good friend, we were testing the sigma lens on the Fuji body there is wonderful bokeh due to the super bright f1.4 aperture but it unfortunately is not terribly sharp at center is a rather prone to mis-focus but that may be a user error more then a testament to the lens. The Fuji 90mm f2 is rapidly becoming a favourite for me in the tight headshot category. 

Sigma 85mm f/1.4 on Fuji Xpro2

I also broke out the 50mm Art on the Sigma Sd Quattro H and had some wonderful results ! 

Daily blog #5

For the past 2 days I have been trying out adapted Sigma Art lens on the Fuji X-Pro 2 with a adapter from Pixco. It has been a interesting experience. Will update with a full review and testing. For now is some sample images. Ps it is manual focus only and a fixed aperture.