The art of photography since 1994
Mar 12
by Luigi Barbano in BlogUpdates, Fujifilm, News, Uncategorized 0 comments tags: digital camera, dream camera, Fuji, Fujifilm, photography, X-Pro, X-Pro3

Dear Fujifilm, will you make me happy?

Dear Fujifilm, I think you are one of the best manufacturers of cameras and lenses. The quality of the products in one reason, the other is that you listen to the users when you update your products. So, the question is, dear Fujifilm, will you make me happy with the XPro-3? Some years ago, after I started using the X-Pro1, I wrote an article saying you were one step away from my dream camera. Partially you satisfied me with the firmware options of the X-Pro2 but still something is missing for me. I am satisfied, I sold all my Canon and I have no regrets but a tilt and shift wide angle. But something is missing from my ideal small format camera, not in the quality of the images produced but in the handling. So here my hopes for the X-Pro3 to make it the perfect camera for me and I’m sure a lot of other users. The most important is the last, so keep reading. First of all, keep the hybrid viewfinder. It is the essence of the X-Pro series and I really don’t get why people happy just with the EVF don’t buy the X-E or the X-T… […]
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Feb 21
by Luigi Barbano in BlogUpdates, CaptureOne, Film photography, Fujifilm, News, Uncategorized 10 comments tags: Acros, analogue camera, digital camera, film photography, film versus digital, Fujifilm, Hasselblad, photogrpahy, XPro-2

Fuji Acros Digital vs Fuji Acros Film

Digital or Film? Fuji Acros Digital on a XPro-2 compared to Fuji Acros 100 Film on Hasselblad 6×6… who will be the winner? Few weeks ago I did a non scientific comparison between black and white digital and film, using my beloved Fuji XPro-2 and a Pentax 67 with Ilford FP4. The article got a lot of interest and was also published on Fuji X Passion magazine. I decided to improve the test and use Fujifilm Neopan Acros 100 film, instead of Ilford FP4 and Hasselblad instead of Pentax. The use of actual Acros film instead of Ilford is obvious and needed for a less casual comparison. Hasselblad instead of Pentax is because I suspected some lack of sharpness was caused by the lenses, and since I have used Hasselblad all my life and I’m sure were the best analogue medium format camera and optics, I simply wanted to eliminate every variable related to the lens. As I said before: I know that, scanning the negative, part of the process is still digital so is not perfect I do not intend to give all the answers I did this just for fun and to understand myself a little better   […]
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Jul 09
by Luigi Barbano in BlogUpdates, Film photography, Fujifilm, Uncategorized 0 comments tags: Acros, Black and White, film photography, Fujifilm, ols potographs, swissinfo

Old pictures, dynamic range and Acros…

I was reading on  Swissinfo.ch, the article The breathtaking photos that showed Switzerland to the world by Marguerite Meyer (Writer), Ester Unterfinger (Photo editor) I was impressed by this picture:     The picture in itself is just a good documentary photograph but what I noticed is the dynamic range (or latitude of exposure as we called it before we were trendy…). We can easily see details in the dark areas inside the gallery and we can see the details in the panorama toward the arches. Some burning was made in the darkroom and the effect is visible, but all the details were in the original plate. This was for sure a large format plate made before the industrialization by Kodak, so there was no need to save on the quantity of silver in the emulsion. You can see the same latitude of exposure in almost all the old professional pictures well exposed and developed. If you are in Italy there are some good places to watch the impressive quality and dynamic range of old films the Alinari Archive is one of the best and has a lot of publications. The rule in film was to expose for the shadows […]
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Dec 11
by Luigi Barbano in BlogUpdates, News, Uncategorized 10 comments tags: electronic viewfinder, EVF, Fuji, Fujifilm, Hybrid Viewfinder, Luigi Barbano, optical viewfinder, OVF, OVF vs EVF, photography, viewfinder, XPro

OVF vs EVF… a philosophical difference

OVF vs EVF! Let’s the bloody war begin 😉   The world is divided in two… always, that is why there is people making a lot of money selling t-shirts for opposite points of view! The users of mirrorless camera are not different, photographers loving the optical viewfinder and photographers loving the electronic viewfinder and hating each other.   Since Fujifilm introduced the hybrid viewfinder with the X100 and the XPro we can have the best of both worlds and decide what to use for every picture. It is surprising for me to see, on various blog posts and comments, Fuji users hoping to have a future release of those cameras without one or the other option when Fuji made the most intelligent move leaving the choice to us. But this is not the point of this article, here I want to concentrate on what I think is the philosophical difference between the OVF and EVF. Personally, on my Fuji XPro1 I use both but mostly the OVF. When we look at an EVF we look at the camera representation of the subject on a display, when we use the OVF we look at the framed reality. Basically people that […]
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Aug 21
by Luigi Barbano in BlogUpdates, CaptureOne, IR Photography, Uncategorized 4 comments tags: Fuji, Fujifilm, Infrared photography, Luigi Barbano, photography, X Pro 1

InfraRED Fujifilm X Pro 1

  I always enjoyed infrared photography, starting with the Kodak Infrared film I always had great satisfaction exploring the infrared part of the spectrum. When I switched to digital photography I forgot infrared for a while until I got my Canon 5D converted to infrared by LifePixel. The conversion was great, the support was perfect but when the camera was sent back to Italy the italian customs asked me to pay the taxes not only on the modification but also on the value of the camera. At the end of the game I had to spend around 700 Euros for a conversion that costs usually $300. I decided to convert a Fujifilm X Pro 1 to infrared and this time I decided to try to do it myself buying the filter directly in Italy from Adriano Lolli Costruzioni Ottiche Meccaniche and avoiding all the import costs.   The choice of the X Pro 1 was very simple. I had bought a new X Pro 1 with the 18mm when the new model came around, I did it because was really a great deal (450 Euros included an extra battery, a memory card and the leather bag, since than the price […]
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