Note from Admin: This is a great article, especially for all of us East Coasters or people experiencing some brutally cold weather.  Here is another excellent and informative guest article written by Fuji X Series user, Jed Orme.  He discusses his reasons why he chose to bring only primes on his recent trip to the South Pacific and includes some fantastic photos (look at that photo above; it’s perfect!).  If you would like to see more of Jed’s photos, please view his Flickr page!  Enjoy!

South Pacific Sojourn – To Zoom or Not To Zoom (Part 1 of 2 Parts)

This is the first part of a two-part article about photography on a thirty day cruise, & related photo gear considerations as well as image capture experiences.

Not quite two months ago, while checking email on my computer, I received an incredible offer from our travel agent to take a last minute cruise from San Diego to Hawaii & then to seven islands in French Polynesia.  Places with far away names like Bora Bora, Raiatea, Tahiti, Moorea, Rangiroa & Nuku Hiva conjured up images for me that are a photographer’s dream come true.  So my wife & I jumped at this opportunity.  This led to my next question of whether to take the most basic photo gear or a more capable but also more complex setup.  In my case, the former would be my Fuji X-E2 with its outstanding XF18-55mm zoom lens; the latter would be a selection of some or all of my prime lenses for this camera, with or without the zoom.  For me this is the XF-14mm, the XF-35mm, a Zeiss Planar 50mm, & finally a Leica Tele-Elmarit 90mm.  I provided a prior write up on this blog of my experiences in adapting these last two Leica M mount lenses to my Fuji X-E2 using the M adapter made by Fuji (see my two-part article on this blog titled “A Tale Of Two Lenses”).  [continue reading…]

Expert Shield Screen Protectors Customer Service:

This is just a short post about my experience with Expert Shield’s great customer service:

A couple of years ago, Expert Shield contacted me and asked if I wanted to to review their product (you can check out my review).  I took them up on their offer, and they were kind enough to send me a few screen protectors for my cameras and even my iPhone.  Overall, I was completely happy with their product; it’s reasonably priced, it works great, it’s clear, and it really does protect the screen.  So when I purchased my new iPhone 6 Plus a couple of months ago, I bought an Expert Shield screen protector for it (I really do use a lot of the products I recommend 🙂 ) because my numerous fishing trips definitely took a toll on my old phone’s screen. [continue reading…]

Deep Cut Orchid Society’s 18th Annual Orchid Show:

It has been ridiculously cold out in New York City.  On Thursday, I went to meet a friend for a photo walk downtown, and even with gloves on, we couldn’t feel our hands.  We went to a tea place to get warm, and she actually spilled some tea on her hands by accident, and she told me she didn’t even feel it because her hands were so cold.  I love the winter but even I’m getting a little tired of this!  So, on Friday I decided to go somewhere a little less cold…a place with a nice, warm greenhouse :).  I went to the Deep Cut Orchid Society’s 18th Annual Orchid Show in New Jersey.  It is hosted by the Dearborn Market.  Besides photography, my other love is orchids.  I went to college in Upstate New York and during the winters, it was kind of gloomy at times.  My mom has been growing these beautiful flowers for years, and she gave me a few to liven up my dorm room.  It turned out that I was better at growing these plants than I thought because after a few months, my dorm room looked like an Amazon rainforest.  Ever since then, I’ve been hooked. [continue reading…]

Expanded Area of the High Line:

The weather’s been brutal lately in New York City as you can see from the photo above of a fountain in Bryant Park.  The snow storm we had last week wasn’t as big as we all thought it would be but it’s been very cold and windy.  For example, according to my weather app, this coming Thursday’s low will be 9 degrees.  In fact, another winter storm is occurring right now as I’m typing.  Maybe I should be thinking about moving to an area like Southern California :).  But the weather has not stopped me from going out with the Leica Noctilux F1 that Bob from Bergen County Camera was kind enough to loan me.  I’ve been getting images for my review, and just having a blast with it.  This is such a cool lens to use.  The way this lens renders is truly unique.  Since I’m going to return the Noctilux this coming week, I went out today to shoot with it thinking that I may not get a chance in the next couple of days if the weather is truly going to be bad. [continue reading…]