The Online Photographer

My Old Fuji

Okay, last post on real estate photography—y'all are used to how I sometimes chew a subject to death, right?

Here's my second project. Really nice people—the woman is a voice artist and audiobook narrator, and has a giant soundproof booth in her office, which also has black walls (we didn't picture that room). I tried to take the advice y'all gave me after the first project: correct the verticals in every case, show where the furniture meets the floor (mostly did that, with a lower camera position on the tripod), and give the shots a little more color and clarity for some "pizzazz" as John McMillan said.

A few reactions to all the comments last time: some suggestions were not possible. When you shoot a project like this you're always shooting around things that are in the way, trying to get a clear unobstructed view; for instance, in this week's house, the yellow VW was not a prop. It's not operational, so that's just where it lives. Also, you're always trying to show the good features of the house, in this case the full sunlight it gets from the south-facing front windows, which, helped by the fact that the house is on a hill, would make this house friendly in the winters when the sun is low in the sky. Also the elliptical and circular archways in the openings between rooms. I even managed to get the archway in the bathtub alcove, which was the only iPhone shot in this bunch—to get it, I put the iPhone on its widest setting and wedged myself into the corner and crouched as far down as I could, struggling to keep my knee out of the shot. Then there were Photoshop heroics I had to go through to make it look like it does. So someone might say, "you should have moved more to your left," but no, I couldn't, unless I could move the toilet. The bathtub picture looks okay, but it looks great considering the constraints of working in that space!

This is fun work. I enjoy it. I do the corrections one picture at a time, but I want that freedom, and I enjoy doing the work—I even enjoy the fact that it, like the photography, can be pretty fast and loose. I'm not a perfectionist with pictures. And don't even tend to like fastidiously perfected pictures. Not for nothing do I have a whole mini-collection of books of old snapshots.

I have to say it's almost a relief to be doing a job again. Being useful to others who appreciate it.

Fuji X-T1 next to an old Olympus OM-2n

'Tell a dream, lose a reader'
I actually had a dream about a camera last night. My brain constructed a detailed and tactile phantasm of a camera that never existed. Regarding a real camera, though, may I just say that I still love the Fuji X-T1's files—they look better to me than my X-H1 files ever did. Possibly because of lack of experience with the X-H1. And they look better now than they used to—I'm impressed with the improvements that I'm seeing in Photoshop since the last time I did a lot of work with Fuji files, pre-COVID. Or rather, not Photoshop, but ACR (Adobe Camera Raw), since I use ACR for 95% of my post-processing. They've made a lot of improvements in the way the software operates, and its effectiveness. You can now apply a lot of HDR before it starts looking "HDR-ish," for one thing. It would make sense to go back and rework raw files from six, eight, and ten years ago.

I really do very much like ACR. I believe it's integral in Adobe Lightroom too. (I've never used Lightroom, although I own it.)

Rather than look for a new camera, I think I might simply buy a used X-T1 as a backup. They're cheap, and I don't feel like I need anything more.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Stan B.: "If you continue to make this a permanent gig (realize that may not be entirely in your control) you might consider adding a 10–18mm Sigma to your kit. Strange I should be recommending a lens I'm returning, but I've made the decision to go for every bit of quality I can squeeze from my aging X-T[x]'s, Q, and GR. In most cases, you'd be hard pressed to distinguish results from the 14mm Fujinon and it gives you the ability to go even wider should you need to—all in one affordable, tiny beast that sits quite handsomely on any X-T[x]!"

Chris Kern: "I’ve owned all the Fujifilm X-T[x] cameras: when I acquire a new generational model, I keep the previous body as a back-up and sell the oldest one. If you decide to acquire a second Fuji as a back-up to your X-T1, I would recommend that you pop for an X-T2. The reputable used equipment outlets aren’t listing much of a price difference between the two models, and the X-T2 has a much more capable sensor and processor than its predecessor, as well as a more flexible LCD mount—you can tilt it sideways for vertical shots—as well as a second card slot.

"With respect to processing in ACR as opposed to Lightroom, the controls are essentially the same, but you might want to give Lightroom a try since you already have a license for it. In addition to providing a capable asset-management system for storing and retrieving your files, I think the user agent [? This is a computer term I don't understand even after reading definitions —Ed.] is both cleaner and simpler than working with ACR and then editing pixels within Photoshop. I find functions like perspective correction easier to perform quickly in Lightroom—and while Photoshop (i.e., Photoshop proper, not ACR) has more powerful facilities for making substantial image modifications, if you just need to remove an occasional distraction, Lightroom’s non-destructive AI tools do a remarkably capable job."

Adam Isler: "Re: 'Rather than look for a new camera, I think I might simply buy a used X-T1 as a backup. They're cheap, and I don't feel like I need anything more.' Funnily enough, I feel the same way about my X-T4. I dread the idea of moving to 40MB raw files (from 26) and filling my hard drives that much faster. And I love shooting with the screen hidden, so I spend less time chimping, not available on the X-T5. I know one of these days the old (4 1/2 years is old?) beauty’s going to 'obsolesce' so I started checking on the availability of new X-T4s in preference to the latest and best."

Roger Bradbury: "I used to take photos for Airbnb some years ago. Nearly all the shots were taken with a 12–24mm (18–24mm equivalent) zoom on my now elderly DSLR. I mostly shot from the room corners as it made wide angle distortion far less obvious. More than once I had to get in the bath or shower tray to get the shot. Before going to the house I'd look at it on Google Maps, to see when I could get a shot of the front with some sun on it. If I couldn't, I'd at least try for sun on an adjacent wall. I set the ambient exposure so that my highlight alert wasn't going off, and mostly I wouldn't need to adjust it unless the light outside changed dramatically. But my on-camera bounced-off-the-ceiling fill flash would need adjusting for every room.

"The only thing I'd do differently now would be to bring a second flashgun on a stand, in case there was an open arch to a room beyond where my flash couldn't reach."

The Leica D-Lux 7 and D-Lux 8

Comments are all moderated at 12:18 p.m. Sunday

This isn't a review. Just my chatty impression after trying a D-Lux 7 a few times. (Note the new Category, which you can see in the footer.) I took it to the local Art Fair weekend, where I met this guy. He was selling steampunk clocks made out of all sorts of bits and pieces of all sorts of things, and most of them incorporated old junk-shop cameras. The women I was with, Mary Kay and Chris, were moving on, so I didn't dally to take pictures of his clocks. A pity.

But I like that T-shirt.

Szarkowskian positivity
Negative reviews are too easy. You make a straw man of some product—a "straw man" is when you set something up just to knock it down—and then you can be entertainingly snarky and insulting. Some people get off on that. It makes them feel powerful or something. John Szarkowski, one of my writer-heroes in photography, had a simple policy about that: he didn't write about work he didn't like. He felt it was much harder to be clear about why he did like something than to wax acerbic about stuff he didn't. It's a good policy. Most of my best camera reviews came from getting very enthusiastic about something, learning all about it, and then sharing all that in detail.

That's not going to be the case here.

How this all came about is that my main camera has a 24x36mm B&W-only sensor (I'll be putting up some new work soon), and I started thinking about getting a color camera that's a little better and more versatile than my iPhone, but doesn't require me to carry my Fuji kit along.

A month or two back, Leica had just released the next-gen D-Lux 8, but they weren't shipping yet, so I figured I'd try a D-Lux 7 just to see what I thought of the form factor. Also, Leicaphiles are very hostile when you criticize anything about a current Leica product, whereas you are allowed to point out shortcomings in older versions. Think I'm kidding? It's absolutely a thing. I've watched it for 30 years or more. You can get around it by reviewing the last-generation version of anything.

The last-gen version of the D-Lux, the 7. The current
version is the semi-unobtainable 8.

I enjoyed my week with the D-Lux 7, which was kindly provided for us (for you) by Lensrentals. I like taking pictures, and I can enjoy almost any camera. Even if I don't get out with the big camera very often, I take pictures with the iPhone virtually every day. But the D-Lux 7, which is more or less identical to the now-discontinued Panasonic LX100 II that sold for several hundred dollars less, has one big problem.

It's not a bad camera at all, and I don't mean to dismiss anyone who loves it. It has a 4/3 sensor, and I particularly love the image quality of 4/3 sensors—they have sort of a crispy, sharp look. Although they're maybe a little coarse, without the fine detail or very subtle gradations you get out of larger sensors. (Note that the blog software softens pictures somewhat, so you can't get a real look at how sharp these illustrations are.) It has 17 megapixels, which is plenty. The zoom is effectively a 24–75mm, which is fine. The Leica raw files are nicely correctable—you can bring highlights back down pretty well and open shadows effectively, although, again, this tends to be even better on larger sensors. I might not get excited about the image quality, exactly, but I could live with it.

Friendly young art-fair goers I met at the Blue Heron
Bakery. We had a nice conversation.

The camera is small and light and easy to carry. And it looks nice. It drew attention several times, including from the young people pictured above. They all said they liked photography, and the first question they asked was, "is that a film camera?" I can't remember if I suggested the group portrait of if they did.

I've always tended to like arty people. It's my tribe.

I'm feeling sheepish about this next bit—and it violates yet another reviewing rule of mine, which is never to write about a camera except when you have it in front of you—but I can't remember what I thought about the viewfinder. That's a pretty serious lapse, since I have a long history of caring a lot about viewfinders. I don't recall a bad impression, so I think it's fine. But I don't really know. Can't recall now. (Gets red in face, tugs at collar, clears throat.)

But here's the bottom line, and the reason I lost interest in getting one for myself right away...it's a point-and-shoot. Now, there's nothing wrong with point and shoots, and I don't want to diss anyone who owns or uses one, and I certainly don't disagree with anyone who likes one of these LX100/D-Lux variants. You do you, and power to you. All cameras are good for someone. I'm camera-tolerant.

But, much as I love the idea of point-and-shoots, I've never found one that I've really been satisfied with. And—because I like the idea of them so much—I've used a great many of them over the years. Including some exotics like the Nikon 35Ti and the Contax T2, along with famous mainstream ones that everyone loved like the Olympus XA. I've used many digital ones too. And I've never found one that doesn't have weaknesses that become intrusive over time.

The D-Lux 7 is just...too...slow. Or rather, it's not too slow...but it lacks that wonderful feeling of immediate responsiveness that I love in cameras. The sense that you can raise it quickly to your eye and take a picture as fast as you can. There comes a point when slow AF, slow adjustments (in this case the power zoom—I have never, ever met a power zoom I liked), and shutter lag conspire together and that feeling or razor sharp responsiveness just goes bye-bye. Mind you, a camera doesn't have to be fast by the measurements...but that feeling of responsiveness, of it doing your bidding just as soon as you ask it to...well, that's something that really ratchets up the enjoyment of picturetaking if you ask me. It's worth a lot. It's worth having, and it's worth chasing.

And the one problem of the Leica D-Lux 8, which is the only surviving variant of this whole long line of Panasonic cameras and their Leica counterparts? (Aside from the fact that it's being released in fits and starts in limited quantities?) It's that the value proposition is in the toilet. It's terrible. Leica wants $1,600 for a D-Lux 8. That, in my opinion, is just too darn much for a point-and-shoot—even one with a nice sensor and a nice zoom range and that looks swell. $1,000 was too much for the Panasonic LX100 II. $1,600 for an LX100 II with Leica customizing is lighting a cigar with a $100 bill, just throwing money away.

I'd rather see people put those 16 $100 bills in the pages of a book* and keep adding more from time to time until they'd saved enough for a Q3. Or a used Q2. Or a nice Sony. Or something else.

As for me, I mean to wean myself of the allure of point-and-shoots. I should have learned my lesson eons ago. No more point-and-shoots from here on out, Mike! You know that territory, and you've investigated more than enough to have learned your lesson. No. More. Got it? Good.

That's my camera impression of the D-Lux 7. Note that I don't know about the D-Lux 8, which is probably much better. (Wink.)

Mike
(Thanks again to Lensrentals for the loan of the test camera.)

*I knew a camera dealer back in Chicago who had a tiny hole-in-the-wall shop—I think the street address ended in "1/2"—and that was how he saved for cameras he wanted for himself. He'd just take a hundred dollar bill or a fifty dollar bill from time to time and put it in a book until he had enough there for whatever he was saving for. Why a book? Because a thief would never know what book the cash was in and would never have enough time, or any reason, to look through all the pages of hundreds of books.

So what did I do? To make a start at saving, I took a $50 bill, put it in the pages of a book, forgot all about it, and then, later, donated the book, along with many others, to a local coffeshop/bookstore where a young couple were trying to make a go of a small business of their own. Months later, they called me—they, or someone, had found my $50 bill—and they remembered where the book had come from, and they returned the money to me!

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Grant: "I’ve been using a Panasonic LX100 since 2018. I have a lot of chatty impressions too, but I will try and keep this brief.

"I agree with a number of your observations. I bought a store demo LX100, with a very low shutter count and a full warranty, for $550 Canadian. The D-Lux 8 is selling for $2,200 Canadian. Ouch! I can buy a large supply of red sticky dots at the dollar store for a lot less.

"The zoom, which can be controlled by both a lever around the shutter button and by the control ring on the lens, takes a bit of getting used to. I’m used to it now.

"The focus is slower than cameras from Canon and Nikon but not unbearably slow. Should you need focusing assistance, it’s available.

"Moving on to where our impressions diverge. Yes it’s a point-and-shoot. So is your phone; get over it. Any camera is a point-and-shoot if you set the dial to P. The beauty of the LX100/D-Lux 7 and 8, is that they can quickly go from P, to A, to S, to M, with a turn of the shutter dial or the aperture ring. That’s a feature that sets this camera apart from all the other point-and-shoot cameras that force you to dig into menus, tap a button, or turn an unmarked dial. Glance down at the top of the camera and all your settings can be read instantly. I find this is a huge bonus when shooting quickly or in low light.

"To help refresh your memory, the viewfinder is good. It has all the shooting information and focusing aids that are on the LCD screen. I usually use the viewfinder before I use the screen.

"I have no complaints about image quality. The lens shines. The results please me. It’s hard to tell the difference between the LX100 files and files from my APS-C cameras. Gallery quality prints are not on my agenda so I don’t know how far the files can be stretched.

"Overall this is a full-featured camera in a small package. I keep the camera, plus the flash and two spare batteries, in a very small shoulder bag. It rides shotgun everywhere I go. When I walk about and don’t want to use the bag, the camera hangs on a wrist strap or slips in a jacket pocket. Yes, I know my phone is with me too, but I can’t get no respect when I pull out a phone, the way I can get respect when I pull out a real camera.

"Dear editor, you may edit this comment for reasons of punctuation, spelling and grammar, but please do not remove the parts where I call you rude names and insult your intelligence for not being hopelessly smitten with this fine camera."

Bernard: "I think that your Leica observation has flipped around. You'll hear and read lots of criticisms of current models, but previous models are revered. The M11 and SL3 are suffering the brunt of criticism right now, while the M10 and SL2 are considered to be their best recent interchangeable-lens models. We'll need to wait for the M12 to come out before the M11 becomes the best digital M. It may have something to do with Leica owners of course. Many of us can only afford (or justify owning) the previous model, so we are only now discovering what those cameras can do."

Mike replies: Thanks for your insight. It's entirely possible I'm behind the times.

Rick in CO: "As a Leica user (M10R & CL) I agree completely with your review. I was hoping that Leica would come out with a new compact camera to replace my CL, which, with the 18–56 zoom lens, is not exactly pocketable. As it is they just re-hashed the old design, although I understand the EVF is a notable upgrade. I can only think there was a leftover supply of parts in China that had to be made use of due to previous contractual arrangements. There is some feedback from 7 users that the 8 has lost a few of the features they previously enjoyed (step-zoom in particular). My CL will have to trundle along as my knockabout/backup camera."

Thom Hogan: "There are probably two primary changes in the D-Lux 8, which I have, from the D-Lux 7/LX100 II, which I used to have. No. 1 is a very improved viewfinder. It's now OLED. No. 2 is a pretty simplified and more direct approach (Leica Q3) to setting things. Do those justify the now substantively higher price? No, but it does make an already competent compact a better experience. Note that not everyone will like the near menuless approach. To enjoy it, you have to embrace what Leica did. Button, tap, maybe another tap, done."

Omer: "My experience with the 7 is somewhat better than what you've described and I am content with it. But it is just a camera so I'll leave it at that. I have it only because it has the famous red dot which has some power over me. The 7 and a 6—yes, 'platinum blondes' both—are enough to satisfy my Leica craving."