X100T Comes Through Again

"Trusty Camera" Cedar Park 2016
Photo info: SONY SLT-A77V, 35mm, f/2.4, 1/10 sec, ISO800
“Trusty Camera” Cedar Park 2016

こんばんは!

It’s my second day back from vacation and I am back in the swing of things. I’ve also been going through my vacation photos and having fun picking out my favorites and editing them.

505 photos made it back to my hard drive, and maybe 10 of those were joke photos when my brother hijacked my camera as I took an afternoon nap. At first I thought that was a lot of photos for a vacation, but then I figured that there were a few events where I was taking lots of photos that I knew are bound for our family’s Facebook page. It was more like I was doing event photography rather than travel photography! Fun stuff. 😃

When I am taking photos, I will do a lot of culling in-camera. In a series of photos of a scene, there is going to be one that is the best. I’ll find that one, and delete the rest. Sometimes I may keep the two best ones, but I try to keep it down to one. I don’t like having all the duplicates!

I have to say, my Fujifilm X100T proves itself to me each time I use it. It is so versatile. At the events, it was discreet, quiet, and quick. At the beach, the Velvia film simulation made the colors pop. And I got several comments about how cool-looking a camera it is. Lots of people thought it was an old film camera. And a few even wanted to try taking photos with it! I never got those kinds of comments while using a dSLR.

And of course, the HUGE benefit of the X100-series cameras is their size/weight. It is small and light enough that I was able to hit the dance floor with the shoulder-strap across my body! 💃

Anyways, if you already have one of these amazing cameras, well, I’m preaching to the choir, aren’t I? But if you are curious at all about the X100-series cameras, rush down to the camera shop and try one out!

Dark Sky

"Moody Skies" Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/4, 1/950 sec, ISO400
“Moody Skies” Cedar Park, 2016

こんばんは!Hi all, how’s it going today?

Tonight’s photo is of the sunset taken from the window at home.

I wasn’t happy with the color that was captured, but I did like the shapes of the clouds, so I decided I would make it into a black and white image. I used Nik Silver Efex Pro to create it, and applied one of the fantastic presets that they have available (I think this one is “Film Noir 2”). I then tweaked the vignette a bit and voila!

Have a nice evening!

おやすみなさい!

– バロン Barron Fujimoto

New Insta

"Evening" Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/4, 1/2000 sec, ISO200
“Evening” Cedar Park, 2016

こんばんは!Hello, how’s it going?

Well, it’s been a while since I have posted anything to Instagram. I wonder if it is that I just needed a break, or because I am adjusting to my summer bachelor life? Probably a bit of both. But I have been keeping up with my 366-daily-photo project which I post over on Flickr. Still going strong! 😃

I think I spend more time editing my Instagram images than I do my Flickr images, which hasn’t always been the case. I think the spirit of Instagram was originally “instant” and everyday snapshots, and I used to treat it like that. But now Flickr is that way for me. It’s funny how things change.

Below is another photo of that cloud formation, but after just a few minutes. Clouds change shapes so quickly, but it is hard to notice in real-time.

"Shopping Cloud" Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/4, 1/2000 sec, ISO200
“Shopping Cloud” Cedar Park, 2016

See you tomorrow!

おやすみなさい!

– B Barron Fujimoto

Retro gaming

"Pinball Wizard" Austin, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/8, 1/50 sec, ISO6400
“Pinball Wizard” Austin, 2016

こんばんは!How’s it going? Happy we made it to Friday?

This evening after dinner, we went to an arcade called Pinballz to play some games. This arcade is really cool because they have dozens of pinball machines, from very old classics to some relatively new ones. It was so nostalgic to see all these machines from my childhood memories! Isn’t it cool when you can awaken those memories that haven’t seen the light of day for many years? The human brain is amazing… memories that have been buried for so long can somehow reappear!

Pinballz also has old video games as well, many of them I haven’t played for 30 years or so, including Zaxxon and Wizard of Wor. I had a lot of fun playing those games with my brother back at the mall in our hometown. A wonderful period of my life, the ’80s!

Besides all the fun games, Pinballz Lakeline also serves food and beer. Mariko and I shared a nice draft brew while we played pinball with the kids. I was so much fun… I’m looking forward to visiting again in the future.

Today’s photo is of my son showing off his skills. For the post-processing of this indoor shot, I first used Perfect Exposure, which is a free plugin for Lightroom. It can quickly fix poorly exposed photos, like the ones I took in the dark arcade, which has lots of different types of lighting. Next, I adjusted the vibrance and saturation in Lightroom, added a little bit of grain, and voila! All done.

I hope you all had a great Friday as well!

おやすみなさい!

– B Barron Fujimoto

Birthday Sushi

"Birthday Sushi" Austin, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/90 sec, ISO6400
“Birthday Sushi” Austin, 2016

こんばんは!Hello, how’s it going?

As you can see from today’s photo, we had sushi! It’s my son’s 15th birthday today, so we went to his favorite restaurant to dine on delicious Japanese food. Our friend prepared this amazing selection of sushi, which included some beef! It was all so yummy, I could have eaten all night.

I’m so happy that our kids are relatively open-minded about food. My wife and I love to try so many different kinds of cuisines, so Bay and Koa are used to giving new foods a try. Of course they have certain foods that they really don’t like, for instance Bay cannot stand mushrooms, and Koa doesn’t like sushi rice (although he likes the fish). I am pretty sure that in time, they will grow to enjoy these foods as well! 😄

The photo below is from the box of uni (sea urchin) that we enjoyed. It was from Japan and was super delicious! I wish I could eat it every day. 🍣

"Japanese Uni" Austin, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/110 sec, ISO6400
“Japanese Uni” Austin, 2016

Tonight’s photos were taken at a relatively high ISO of 6400, but the Fujifilm X-Trans II sensor handles it amazingly well. I don’t mind shooting at 6400 at all with my X100T, in fact, I have the Auto ISO range from 200-6400 which is something I would use only in extreme situations on my dslr. I think it is fantastic that cameras keep getting better at high-ISO. It’s the area where I think we can benefit the most.

I used the Fujifilm standard Provia film simulation for both of these photos, and in Lightroom I adjusted the white balance a tiny bit, deepened the blacks, brought back some shadows, and bumped up the vibrance a little. I then added a slight vignette and a some of grain, which is pretty much my standard look these days.

I hope you had a great Thursday. We’ve almost made it to the weekend!

おやすみなさい!

– B Barron Fujimoto