Seasons
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When Venus meets the Moon
Taken handheld early in the morning with an X-T5 at full res, this picture pushes the XF 150-600 to its limits. The moon is decently exposed and captured with enough details. Venus, by contrast, is but a glitch in the sky.
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Serva padrona @ Teatro Marrucino
LED banding is a major problem when using electronic shutters, and the Fuji X-T4 and X-T5 are no exception. In the specific conditions of this piece, I found that setting the shutter speed below 1/100s tamed the problem. However, there is one major drawback: the number of ruined shots increases. This is particularly true of the moments when the actors are waving their limbs or moving randomly. In this case, the slower parts of the body remain in focus, while the peripheral parts do not. Unfortunately, there is still no post-production technique that can eliminate this problem, which makes it difficult to achieve usable results. Of course, using a mechanical…
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On Composition. Or: the eye sees what the mind is prepared to comprehend
This shot, taken during the Italian Road Running National Championships, is a fair application of the French philosopher Henri Bergson aphorism to composition: the eye sees what the mind is prepared to comprehend. In fact, although there is not a direct, cause-and-effect relationship between this image and renaissance painting, the learned observer may find some connection with works such as, for instance, Michelangelo’s Battaglia di Cascina. The connection between present and past may be loose, but this does not affect the principle. When I framed the shot I something ‘clicked’ in my mind and I instinctively decided to press the button. Photography (at least in all its variations, such as…
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The Expired Film Series – Episode 4 – Ferrania Solaris 100 – Dec. 2006 shot in August 2023
This is the fourth episode in a series documenting the use of expired film in various contexts. Episode 4 features a Ferrania Solaris 100 shot with a Voigtländer Vitoret DR and a Color Lanthar 50/2,8 in the vicinity of the sea of the city of Pescara (Abruzzi) .The film was overexposed by one stop as it is customary with expired film to allow more light to impress it.The results are just subpar, however the pictures have some sort of ‘individual’ trait.
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Red Moon at the end of August
Shot handheld (no tripod) with an X-T5 and a Fuji XF 150-600. Image stabilisation worked very well.
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HeadButt
Sometimes the difference between a pleasant result and just a plain wrong, missed photo may be challenging to tell.I took this picture years ago, during an MMA fight and, to be honest, I can not even remember framing and setting the camera accordingly for this shot. In other words, it happened almost by accident.The outcome is blurry and shaky, however, the overall result has a ‘painterly’ feel, almost like an ink sketch.
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From Waltham to Boston
‘From Waltham to Boston’, an offshoot of a bigger project on documenting Boston’s pulse, is now available on Amazon as a Kindle e-book.
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UnortORTOdox (Ferrania)
This is an unorthodox use of an orthochromatic film (namely, Ferrania Orto.) It is not supposed to be the first choice for reportage or travel photography, but rules are made to be broken, aren’t they? As per the photo, it was taken in North End, Boston’s Little Italy.
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Content Creators
There are many reasons for the lack of details in this image.The main one is that this roll of Kodak BW400CN expired about 15 years ago. Secondly, the Nikon 35TI used for the shot was set to ‘P’ mode, which does not allow ISO to be changed, and exposure compensation is broken: this made it impossible to use longer exposure times, as it would have been necessary.
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Coffee at Caffè Nero
On the technical side, this photo was a test of the X-T5 capability to handle scenes with both strong highlights and shadows without increasing the standard dynamic range. As per the quality, despite the similarity of the name, definitely no, it has nothing ado with the ‘Nero’ one can taste in Trieste which —unbeknownst to many — is the Italian capital of coffee.
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A Maserati GranTurismo
Another piece of Italy in Boston…
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A Ferrari 812 GTS
In a sea of wannaby italians, the original shines.
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Justice measured as the distance between Words and Facts
This photo, in itself, is nothing special. Bur it carries an implicit message about law and rights: the level of democracy in a country is measured by the distance between bold statements and the daily courtroom’s reality.
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A Cornhole Board – Independence Day Edition
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Elishéva live@Faneuil Hall
Boston is an incredibly vibrant city and hosts many live events in theatres and outdoor venues. At Boston’s Faneuil Hall, I took some pictures of Elishéva, a soulful jazz singer, while she was rehearsing.
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Tesla Coils@Boston Science Museum
Not a great photo, taken on the fly at Boston’s Science Museum. Nevertheless, Tesla Coils hold a special place in the hearts of early Command & Conquer players, so I had to take it.
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Guarding Democracy
Maybe it is just me, but I couldn’t get the best out of the Ilford XP2 Super 400.
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Abstract
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Niccolò Fabi – Meno Per Meno Tour 2023 – Live@Teatro Massimo, Pescara
Covering Niccolò Fabi’s concert for Rockol, gave me the opportunity to test an X-T4 with an XF 150-600. The image quality is on a par with the X-T3. This was to be expected. However, I have some reservations about the autofocus. The lens also needs to be examined in more detail before I can form an informed opinion.
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Partner in Glam
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Tell me something I do not know…!
This hip shot is the result of a complicated process. It was taken with an expired Ilford XP2 Super 400, a Voigtländer Bessa R2 and a Voigtländer Nokton 35mm f/1.4. Focus was at infinity. There was no time to frame it properly, so in post it was necessary to rearrange the composition with a generous crop.Digitising the film with my homemade rig required 2 stops of underexposure with plus or minus 1 stop of bracketing.The DNG was first processed through DXO Pure Raw, then adjusted and cropped in Affinity Photo, and finally adjusted for simmetry in DXO Viewpoint.
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Coats
Getting rid of film noise is a recurring necessity when shooting film at (relatively) high ISO.In this photo the negative was digitised using a Pentax K-1 Mark I and a Pentax FA 100/2,8 Macro. Then, before inverting the curves to make a positive, it was fed into DxO PureRaw3 (by the way, it properly recognized the camera and lens). Finally, in Affinity Photo Develop Persona’s Details tab, once the curves were inverted, it was necessary to tweak the Noise Reduction options by setting Luminance to 50% and Luminance Details to 0.
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Powermeters
This photo was taken with an Ilford XP2 Super 400, a Voigtländer Bessa R2 and a Voigtländer 35mm f/1.4 II lens. The film was digitised using a Pentax K-1 and a Pentax FA 100/2.8 Marco mounted on a custom-built rig. The resulting raw was processed in Affinity Photo. In Develop Persona, first the image was turned in black and white, then the master curve was intverted and finally exposure, contrast and other parameters were tweaked.
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Editing a photo taken with a Carl Zeiss Jena 135/4 Sonnar and a Fuji X-T3
A vintage Carl Zeiss Jena 135/4 Sonnar whose RF mount has been replaced with a Fuji X mount by Adriano Lolli (https://www.adrianololli.com).Coupled with a Fuji X-T3, it delivers pleasant results. Post production is highly subjective, so the final outcome might no be ‘acceptable’ to some taste. Still, the lens is very good.
