Photo Reportage with the 7Artisans 50mm f1.2 on the Fujifilm X-T30III
To test the 7Artisans 50mm f1.2 lens and the Fujifilm X-T30III in a reportage session, I have been taking some pictures during last Thursday evening at a Fujifilm X-DEN event. Renata Jaworska and Marcus Schwier presented their last project as a combination of paintings by Renata and Photography of Marcus. In Marcus pictures, a fusion between street and architectural photography, Renata has been many times his model.
Before and after the presentation, the visitors have been discussing art, techniques, the right gear, and other inspiring topics with the artists and other professional photographers as Martin Hülle and Raffaele Horstmann. I used that moment to shoot some portraits of the people in interaction with the 7Artisans 50mm f1.2. For me this is classical reportage style of photography.
By choosing aperture f1.2 – f1.4 I used the small field of depth of this lens to focus on one dedicated person and have the others in front and behind drifting into a smooth un sharpness.
The Fujifilm X-T30III, from many only seen as a camera for beginners, is a great combination with this manual lens. It´s wonderful small but still fits well into my big hands. Such a small camera is getting ignored during spontaneous shooting of people.
All pictures in this story are SOOC with the natural lightning in the X-DEN. I like the smooth yellow LED lights mounted in the sealing above the counter. They give the people a warm color even it´s a bit too yellow. That´s reportage style, no correction to the existing light. The people and interactions are on in focus, small un perfection is elevating the spontaneous character and storytelling of the pictures.
I love the discussions with younger photographers, if they see that I am using a manual lens they explain me they are never able to take pictures that way. “Too slow, too complicated and disturbing from the composition process”, are their arguments. Yes, I am not shooting 100+ pictures to expect to have one perfect shoot. I am shooting 5 pictures at the same time and all five are good but with different focus and aperture settings. I am producing an image in my brain before I press the release button. Manual focusing is supporting me in that creative process. Back to the roots when I started to photograph in 1979 with my Yashica TL Electro and the Yashinon 50mm f1.7 lens.
Please leave me your comment or mail what your experience with manual focusing is.
