Mirrorless Pics: Neighborhood people with the Fuji X-E1

Some shots of the crew at Fat Dan's Chicago-Style Deli at 54th & College, using the Fujifilm X-E1 and the lovely little Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 lens.

Being a roughly 50mm equivalent focal length, it's about as short of a lens as I'll ever use for portraiture, and its fast maximum aperture is good for making the subject stand out against a softly-blurred background. At the same time, f/1.8 and an APS-C size sensor is less likely to wind you up in those "Oops, I only had enough depth of field to get one eye in focus" situations than, say, f/1.4 on a full-frame.

Two Slots, Two Shots

So, when I have a camera capable of shooting in RAW format, I’ll set it up so that it records both a RAW file and a high-res monochrome JPEG with each shot.

I have the JPEG set to monochrome because that way it displays in B&W in the image review on the rear screen after each shot, and that helps me with the whole “light and shadow and shape and texture” part of photography. I mean, I can see the colors with my own eyes without even needing the camera.

I used to do the thing where I’d save the smaller JPEG on the slower slot in the camera (the SD slot, if the camera had both SD and Compact Flash slots), but now? Now I save JPEG+RAW to both slots, because I’m more worried about a card going toes-up than I am about ensuring maximum burst rate or whatever.

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