Photography Gear - A Personal Story; Or How I Mistakenly Sold All My Landscape Gear

While walking on the beach today, practising some mindfulness, I was reminded how beautiful this part of the world is (northern NSW, Australia). And it occurred to me that I don't do as much photography around here as I used to. Why is that? Well, the answer for me is, at least partly, because of the current gear I own. See, about 6 months ago I sold all my landscape gear and replaced it with the Fuji X system, which is geared more towards street photography.

Why did you do that, revo, particularly given you are predominantly a landscape photographer? That's a good question. About 6 months ago, while having my annual existential crisis, I decided I was going to sell everything I owned and head to India for a year or more of street photography. I gave this decision at least a week or two's thought, so by my standards, that was pretty well planned.

I sold all my landscape gear (Nikon D810, Nikkor 14-24mm f2.8 and 24-70mm f2.8) and bought a Fuji XPro2 and X100T and some flash and other accessories. Of course, within a few weeks of doing that, I realised the folly of selling my house and car and moving to India, and called off the entire trip.

Now, I've been to India a couple of times before, and on my last trip a few years ago I took a Fuji X100, as well as about 48 kilos of Nikon gear. Of course, the Nikon gear got hardly any use, and was basically just dead weight in my pack and constant stress that $6000 of gear was going to get stolen any minute. But I absolutely fell in love with the Fuji X system. An absolutely stunning camera to use for street photography. Small, light, well built, old school looking, great fixed focal length lens... it barely stood out on the streets - as opposed to a gigantic Nikon DSLR with a 1 kilo lens bolted on to the front of it. So this time around, I upgraded to a newer version, and got the XPro2 as well for a mix of street in India and to still be able to get high quality landscape images while back here in Australia.

^{Raja the camel approves of the small and light Fuji X100}

But here's the thing. The difference in using a Nikon D810, with its big bright through the lens viewfinder, and the XPro2 with its smaller electronic viewfinder (which is stunning for what it is) can't be understated enough. At least in terms of my personal experience. Without having done any landscape photography before with the Fuji X system, I was unprepared for how much of a lesser experience it is looking at a landscape scene through the viewfinder when compared to something like the Nikon (or even the Canon 5D I had before that).

Long story short, I don't feel inspired to pick up my Fuji for landscape work the same way I was constantly inspired by the Nikon. The Nikon had a bazillion clean and detailed megapixels, with phenomenal high ISO ability... and did I mention it had a big bright viewfinder? For me, a lot of photography is loosely identifying a shot with my eye, and then looking through the viewfinder to see whether I think it will transfer to the flat 2D medium of photography. And this is where the difference between a DSLR, where you are viewing the actual light of the scene through the lens and viewfinder, and a mirrorless camera like the Fuji X where you are viewing an (albeit very high quality) electronic lcd image of the scene, becomes most apparent. For me, there is no comparison between the two in terms of my photography style. I find looking at the electronic viewfinder in the Fuji X uninspiring, flat and lifeless.

Interestingly, this isn't something that I experienced using a Fuji for street photography. I think the difference lies in the subject matter. The "scene" in a street photograph in my personal style is largely the person who I am photographing. Of course, aligning elements around them can be important, and can really make a street photograph. But for me the primary focus is the person. There's less arranging of elements and depth of field and focal length etc like there is for a landscape shot.

^{Goat Herder, Rajasthan, India. Fuji X100}

^{Holi Boy, India. Nikon D810, 24-70mm}

^{Old Weathered Dude, India. Fuji X100}

Perhaps it's in the viewing as well. A photograph of a person automatically captures a viewer's attention, as we automatically begin to relate in whatever way possible with the subject. But a landscape image doesn't have that automatic sensation. With landscape photography you have to use the elements in the scene (as well as depth of field and focal length) to draw the viewer's attention to the point of maximum interest in the image.

^{Fungi, Tweed Range Rainforest. One of my last ever shots with the Nikon D810}

Despite all the hurdles that I perceive between me and my Fuji and an inspiring landscape shot, I did manage to capture a couple of nice images on the sole landscape shoot I have done with the XPro2. In this case, the inspiration was a some awesome looking weather - a big storm passing through with the afternoon sun illuminating it from a clear sky behind the storm. On this afternoon, I grabbed my camera gear and headed to the local headland where I expected to get some good light. Rushing from the carpark through the coastal walking track to the headland, I was desperately trying to remember how to operate the Xpro2 - I'd only shot some test shots in the house to familiarise myself with the controls. As I exited the forest and appeared on the headland, the scene blew me away and I quickly set up the camera and tripod and fumbled like crazy trying to find settings and whatnot. Thankfully, I got enough right to capture the following:

^{Lighthouse, Fingal, Australia. Fuji XPro2 and Samyang 12mm}

Moving along the headland I headed towards what's known as the Giant's Causeway (not to be confused with the real deal in Ireland) to see if I could get some lighting strikes over it. Alas, I was actually too late to capture any, as the storm via that perspective had moved well offshore. But I still managed to get some nice shots there. Although, if you look at the following image, you might agree with me that I could have used a few extra mm's of wider angle that my Nikkor 14-24mm had to get a bit more width and get a bit closer to the edge while squeezing in a little more of the foreground.

^{Giant's Causeway, Fingal, Australia. Fuji XPro2 and Samyang 12mm}

Somehow I need to regain some inspiration for landscape photography. This time of year is good, as it's storm season, and storms and the coast make wonderful partners. But this time, I definitely need to revise the settings on the Fuji. I haven't picked it up for a few months now, and the layout wasn't familiar to me even back then.

Stay tuned to see if I can manage to drag myself out of the house and flick the right buttons to capture something inspirational this summer!