Wind

Au revoir

Took this on the Eurostar en route to Paris. The old couple had just ploughed their way through some really stinky cheese and were sleeping it off. We’de just entered the tunnel from Dover at this point I believe…

New ‘street’ group for Fuji owners over on Flickr

I have started a new group over on Flickr for Fuji using Street Photographers. Doesn’t matter which camera as long as it's Fuji, although the current ‘X’ series is gaining a bit of momentum inthe SP arena of late. The group is designed to try and maintain a level of quality and a forum where people can learn from their piers. So far it's a 6/day posting limit while things (hopefully) get going, but I may rethink that further down the line:

So , please come and see what life’s like on Fuji Street

X-Pro1 & X100 focusing - OK, I'm sure this has been covered before, but...

This is a story about focusing my cameras, just some waffle about the Olympics to set the scene at the beginning...

For those not in the know, the Olympic Games are coming soon over here in the UK (well, “London 2012” would suggest that the rest of the country just pays for it but has nothing to do with it) – anyhow, to keep the rest of the country at ease with it all the Olympic Flame has been doing the rounds.

My wife’s school had one of the torches for a day so that the children could have their photos taken with it. They're an infant school (age 5, 6, and 7) so probably a bigger deal for the parents than the kids I would imagine.

Premium Leather Case for the Fuji X100

I've just purchased a "Premium Leather Case" for the Fuji X100. It's the official one and I bought it from Amazon the other day.

All arrived fine and on time as I have come to expect from Amazon and all looked well. However, when I tried to fit the camera in the case, the strap lugs didn't line up properly, neither did the cut-out for the shooting mode slider.

Having attached the strap to see if it would settle in a bit, or just force itself into position somehow, I noticed that one of the small leather loops that hold the fasteners had started to tear. After just a few minutes of use!

To help explain here's a picture:

So, I called Amazon and they were very helpful. The following day I had a brand new leather case on my desk at work and commenced with the unpacking. The new case looked fine and it fitted my camera perfectly. Nice!

But why did this one fit and the other not? Upon closer examination, I noticed some subtle differences between the cases. It was as though, whilst both official releases, they were from different batches or manufacturers - I assume Fuji employ third parties to make these and don't produce them in-house?

The key differences are:

1. The case is very fractionally smaller, and the first case closed with the adaptor ring and a UV filter attached, which was nice, but the new one doesn't!!
2. The inside suede lining is a different colour. Also, the original showed a load of stitching (which I think cause the problem in the first place as it was too tight a fit and the stitching seemed to raise the base slightly) and the replacement doesn't
3. The outer stitching on the replacement is more orangey than the original which had stitching colour identical to the leather
4. The strap on the replacement is slightly wider and shows Fujifilm and X100 embossed writing

Some more pictures to help explain:

So there you go. All is good now, but just in case you are thinking of buying one of these, and they're not inexpensive, don't accept that a mis-fitting one cannot be replaced by one that does fit.

Steve

Some good websites and other web finds.

It's been a while since I have posted anything here - poor show me! Anyway, I have been collecting some useful website links and other snippets from the web over the last few months and thought they would be appreciated by others...

First off, a lot of this might be Fuji X series related as that is what I am now using: a Fuji X100 and a Fuji X-Pro1 with 35mm/f1.4 lens. Also, there will be a definite slant towards street and art photography.

And so in no particular order...

First up is 'White Sea Black Sea' by Jens Olof Lasthein:

http://photoslaves.com/jens-olof-lasthein/

Next we have In-Public. It's a website started up in 2000 as a place for street photographers to hang out. They have a manifesto to promote street photography - read it on their site here:

http://www.in-public.com/

Amercian Suburb X has a load of esseys about photographers from all over the world. Quite an arty site, with plenty of good stuff to keep your creative mind satisfied:

http://www.americansuburbx.com/

Came across LPV magazine recently. It is a site promotong its own electronic magazines, but there are numerous free issues worth downloading for a peruse:

http://lpvmagazine.com/

Another online magazine with some free downloadable PDF's - some good stuff too:

http://www.f8mag.com/

Someone on Flickr linked me to this PDF. It's a book called "On being a photographer" by David Hurn and it's essentially a conversation with Bill Jay. I haven't read it at time of writing this, but it looks promising:

http://leegrantphotography.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/on-being-a-photographer-3rd-edition-cd-version.pdf

A blog I follow called 'Dirty Blog'. Different and good - some good street stuff going on in here:

http://dirtyharrry.blogspot.co.uk/

There are many more and I will keep this post updated as and when I can...