Im Frühjahr hatte ich die Chance, einen beruflichen Aufenthalt in San Francisco privat über das Wochenende zu verlängern. Natürlich wollte ich die wenigen Stunden in der Stadt nutzen, um ein paar schöne Stimmungen fotografisch einzufangen. Es war mir klar, dass es unmöglich sein wird, San Francsico an nur einem Wochenende zu erkunden - deswegen habe ich von vorne herein einige Schwerpunkte gesetzt. So habe ich eine "Sonnenaufgangs-Phototour" gebucht, was eine gute Entscheidung war. Es ging kurz vor fünf in der Früh los und wir besuchten zunächst den ein oder anderen interessanten Photo-Spot in der noch nächtlichen Stadt. Den Schwerpunkt der Tour bildete natürlich der Sonnenaufgang an der Golden Gate Bridge - auf die Marin Headlands hätte ich es mit öffentlichen Verkehrsmitteln zu der frühen Stunde sicher nicht geschafft. 

Sunrise at Golden Gate II

In March I had the chance to extend a business trip to San Francisco for the weekend on a private basis. My intention of course has been to use the few hours in the city for spotting some worthwhile places to take photos. As it is simply not possible to get a complete picture of San Francisco in such a short time I concentrated on some places I definitely would like to see. I decided to book a "sunrise photo tour", which turned out to be a very good decision. We started around 5 a.m., which gave us the chance to shoot some night scenes of the city. The focus and highlight of the tour of course has been the sunrise at Golden Gate Bridge - and as Marin Headlands is difficult to reach with public transport this time of the day, it really has been a great tour.

Palace of Fine Arts b/w

First, in the gallery Arcen you'll find 3 images taken with the X-T2 and the Fujifilm XF 16mm f/1.4. For me the 16mm has the potential to be my "standard" lens, when I want (or can) carry only one lens with me. OK, I like wide angle lenses in general, but this one produces not only a brilliant image quality: the fast aperture also makes it a perfect lens for available light photography - especially as it still has a reasonable depth of field even used with faster apertures. Three image examples you'll find in the gallery - all of them at ISO 200 and f/8, as the sunset allowed stopping down...

Second, in the gallery Tierpark Haag (a small zoo very close to where I live in Austria) the combination tested is the X-T2 with the tele-zoom lens Fujifilm XF 50-140 mm F/2.8. A zoo usually provides good test surroundings for tele-lenses, even in winter and with cloudy conditions as I had it. The images are taken with quite fast apertures, all between f/2.8 and f/4.0. This allows to get an impression of the bokeh this lens produces - and I'm really satisfied with what I see. The image quality is brilliant, especially the sharpness is outstanding if you look at them in the 100% crop (what you can't do in Zenfolio, as the upload image quality  is limited - but believe me: it's really great...).     

How did it all begin? And where did it come to an end - so far?

I started photography already as teenager using Minolta equipment (X500 and X700 - which I still own but don't use anymore). In 2001 I switched to the digital world - which also included a switch to CANON.  The Powershot G1 with it's for time very good 3 megapixels has been my first investment in the digitalization of photography. But used to high quality equipment I soon changed back to the DSLR world. To make a long story short: it ended up with a complete Canon equipment with several L-lenses and a full frame DSLR Canon 5D Mark II as main camera plus a 60D as second body.

For the "easier handling" I started a few years ago to also use some FUJIFILM equipment with an X-E2 and it's kit lens XF 18-55 mm - and I found out that the quality of both the FUJI X-TRANS CMOS sensors and the FUJINON XF lenses is so extraordinary that the Canon equipment most of the time remained untouched. And I started buying more FUJINON lenses. What I found out was, that the XF 10-24 mm f/4 especially in the corners makes a much better job than the Canon EF-L 16-35 mm USM II f/2.8. As I mainly do landscape photography the wide and ultra wide lenses are the ones I use most often. So that has been another reason I preferred FUJI to CANON.

Now I did what has been unthinkable for me for a long time, but rationally has been overdue: I sold all of my CANON stuff and switched completely to FUJIFILM after they published there new flagship system camera, the X-T2 a few months ago. The new autofocus system and especially the next generation of the X-TRANS sensor turned the balance - it promises to finally close the gap to the full frame sensor I loved so much. What I also didn't expect to appreciate so much is the electronic viewfinder and it's ability to show depth of fields and the histogram, which allows me to adjust aperture or exposure in a way to avoid clipping. This helps me to ensure the best RAW-basis for the post-processing in Lightroom. And in terms of speed and brightness the newest versions especially in the X-T2 are on the level of what your are used to in an DSLR.

So finally I ended up with the following FUJIFILM equipment - so far ;-)

Fujifilm X-T2
Fujifilm X-E2
Fujifilm XF 18-55 mm f/2.8-4 R LM OIS
Fujifilm XF 27 mm f/2.8
Fujifilm XF 10-24 mm f/4 R OIS
Fujifilm XF 50-140 mm f/2.8 R LM OIS WR
Fujifilm XF 16 mm f/1.4 R WR

The very first photos with the new X-T2 will come up soon as I just got it a few days ago and the XF 16 mm hasn't arrived yet ...

On my "wishlist" are still some other lenses, as the XF 18-55 f/2.8 which is water resistant and equipped with a better maximum aperture or the XF 56 mm f/1.2 (what a fast aperture - it must be a tremendous portrait lens) ...