What a year it has been. So many photographs; memories captured.  This year, I've shot more professionally than any year so far. I hope 2012 continues this upward trend. With all the images captured, this one above of my daughter has continued to wow me. I pondered for awhile but I kept coming back to this one. So, I present my favorite capture of 2011 :)

I'm excited to be inspired by your images from 2011 and your future images in 2012! I'm going to be putting more time to G+ and 500px this year. Hope to meet and be wowed by some great photographers out there.

Keep shooting and sharing!

Shot this wonderful family back in September. We had great weather and a nice south Jersey park setting. Balloons are always a big hit and my trusty Target balloons definitely got a workout ;)

5D II | 85mm 1.8

Had a blast in NY a couple weeks ago shooting portraits for filmaker Cinque Northern. Most of the shoot was shot with my 85mm 1.8 but I threw on my 50mm for the park shots. Even took a couple with my new NEX-5n (working on a review).

5D II | 50mm 1.4

Prime Time!

A day of leasure with no deadlines or schedules of any kind. My kids were visiting their friends and I was armed with a fast 50mm. The 50mm is definitely my 'trapped on an island' lens ;) On a full frame camera it's photographic nirvana for me. What's even better? f/1.2 :) Can't wait to put this to test on a paid gig but honestly, a day like this is as challenging as it gets. Fast moving and unpredictable children that generally won't pose, or pose for very long.

A bit on the 50L. I've tried to get this thing to miss-focus. Of course, I get OOF shots like anyone else but I'm referring to the well known focus-shift issue. I already prepared myself for this possibility but after shooting for a few days I've yet to see it, and believe me I've tried :) Lucky? Maybe.

The color and contrast are excellent as is the added sharpness wide-open. Not quite the optical equivalent of the 80L, but close; close enough for me and my usage. The focus speed is definitely enough to keep up but a bit slower than the 50mm f/1.4. If you are skilled at focus you will have no issues.

I am a prime shooter for the most part. The zooms I go for are super wides and 70-200's. The latter is used primarily for weddings and events. You just can't beat the extra optical quality from a quality prime. I've tried the mid-range zooms but for me, they can stay in the bag ;)  Too heavy and too boring. Do they have there place for some? Of course. Not my thing though.

Automator

This tip comes from Andy Ihnatko:

If you’re running Snow Leopard, you’re doomed to a dull life of unmet expectations. At best, you’re at the mercy of third-party developers and their infernal expectation to actually be paid for the apps they write.

In Lion? It’s DIY all the way. Automator — that singularly-awesome utility and infrastructure for automating damned-near any task — has a new feature that allows you to open any webpage inside a popup window.

Automator has proven useful in my workflow before, and now it seems to be even more powerful.

Window Resizing

I discovered this one last night after doing some work in Photoshop. Free Transform is a utility I use a bunch in my designing and photo editing; I thought, "Wouldn't it be cool if you could do that with finder / app windows in the OS? Maybe Apple thought of that...", Yup, they did! :)

Just drag a window corner and hold option for all corners and/or option + shift for all corners while keeping aspect. So cool.

Lion Fresh Installs

I'm a big fan of upgrading over the current OS when it makes sense to... but I also think that most of the time a fresh install is actually better due to the way most people use their machines (installing a large number of apps, files, files and more files... etc...). With the download only option for Lion I was immediately looking for a way to clean install when I chose to do so...

From Appstorm:

In order to purchase your copy of OS X Lion today, you do indeed need to be running Snow Leopard, at least to initially get your hands on Lion. But, crucially, once you have your purchased copy of Lion downloaded, there’s no reason why you can’t then burn the image to DVD, upgrading any other Macs which meet the required hardware minimum specifications too...

Read on for the full details. It also goes into more than just a DVD but also external hard drive and USB stick options.

As I find more interesting bits I'll be sure to add them here!

A few minutes after the last upload, Rachel was playing with water.  I of course feared for my D7000's life so I went in and decided to shoot through our dirty glass :)

I purposefully had her slightly out-of-focus here to add more emphasis on the glass; hopefully that comes across well.

Everything seemed to align for this one: Rachel was in a 'take my picture' mood, which is rare, and the light was awesome (natural light; a bit of reflector from my house bouncing late-day light).

Manasquan Reservoir. 50mm on a crop-body cam. Great low-angle light on this leaf; it was lit up like a bulb.My daughter's idea of a nature walk evidently includes barbies

Well this took longer than I thought it would.  I've been working on this post forever it seems. Trying to accumlate enough decent captures at this time of year for me proved difficult. I finally feel like I have enough time behind the camera to give my thoughts; and hopefully convey just how awesome this cam is - or could be.

More than just a pretty face

We'll just get this part out of the way... this is one sexy camera. While out shooting, I've been asked more than once if this was a film camera. It's got classic looks; very refined and purposeful. Fuji definitely borrowed all the right design choices from Leica and others from the past; this thing just begs to be picked up and used. Does all of that matter? No, not really. What DOES matter is this thing really performs. Image quality is what ultimately counts and this camera certainly acheives there.

The macro capabilities are fun and effective

Quibbles

Nothing is perfect and the X100 certainly isn't. To be fair, much of what I didn't like about the camera was fixed with the latest firmware.

Not everything was fixed however. Manual focusing, for macro and when focusing becomes difficult (more on that later), is just about pointless. Focus-by-wire can be a discounected experience as it is, but when it's geared like this it becomes unusable. Hoping the next firmware update corrects this.

AF is very good in adaquete light; 'ok' in dim light. Did I expect more? No, of course not, not with contrast-detect focus. What makes it worse is the manual focusing issue. If the light is dim, manual focus would be the answer; especially with live-view shooting. In general, AF is about the same as with my GF1 & 20mm lens... maybe just a touch slower.

The Lens

If you are ok with the fixed prime lens experience, and you enjoy the 35mm focal length, then you are in for a real treat with this fujinon 23mm prime (With the crop sensor it becomes a 35mm equivalent). Very sharp with great color and contrast. The fast f/2 max aperture is handy when light gets dim and for creative control with shallow depth shooting (just be careful at macro distance as it gets a bit 'dreamy' wide-open). Bokeh is great with a 9 blade aperture.

Focus speed good enough to keep up with a 2 year old indoors :)

Leaf Shutter, Flash & Flash Sync

The leaf shutter in the X100 provides some awesome flash capabilities. I've successfully captured at 1/4000 of a second with my Canon Flash (580 EXII). This was shot 'wired' to the flash but I've seen reports online of wireless triggering, using various popular products at that speed (I would try my Radiopoppers but the trigger doesn't fit on the hotshoe due to the trigger's antenna location - and there is no PC jack on the X100. Cybersyncs & Pocketwizards supposedly work well with it). The built in flash also has this capability (max 1/2000 I believe) and does an excellent job for it's size and power.

Another point about the shutter; it's QUIET. In a crowded street it's innaudible. I'd say even in a quiet church you'd be hard pressed to hear it. You can turn off all the dumb sounds as well (menus, focus acquisition, etc...). All this combines to make this one of the stealthiest cameras I've ever used.  Other than it looking awesome it won't bring attention to you if that's what you're after.

The Hybrid Viewfinder

One of the most enjoyable aspects of the X100 is the new Hybrid Viewfinder. Fuji has developed a viewfinder that combines optical and electronic views, which in use works wonderfully. Personally I use the OVF more, but when the light is dim, or when i'm shooting macro, I use the EVF (The latest firmware update improves the OVF; now it more accurately displays the frame lines; an issue before due to parrallax).

Is the X100 Worth the Hype?

This is a personal decision, but for me, it's an emphatic yes. Since owning the Panasonic GF1 I'd grown accustomed to a small 'take everywhere' camera with big image quality. The Fuji X100 is the pinnacle of that for me (so far). Awesome image quality, a great and versitile prime lens, super quiet operation and shutter & the small size to take anywhere. Can it be improved? Sure. I'd love a version with a full-frame sensor and interchangeable lens option (or the next time a 50mm focal length). There's a ton of room for manual focus improvements as well. Having said all that, this is the real deal that will be embraced by many photographers looking for this type of camera. The price is a bit steep but remember, this is not a point-and-shoot; this is lens & image quality you get from a $1200-$1800 DSLR (hence the price).

Unfortunately, I haven't had the opportunity to use this on a pro shoot yet but I plan to. Looking forward to using it for wide 'enviro' portraits and macro work (rings and detail shots).