With my last purchase being the GFX camera back in January, it was obviously time for me to spend some more money and apparently, rushes of blood to the head (or purse) are like buses; 2 come along in short succession.
The first was a purchase I have been considering for a while.
For many years I have preferred a tablet over a mouse when editing but increasingly I house found it more difficult to make the fine adjustments to the Lightroom sliders that are sometimes necessary.
Additionally, using a tablet on Southern Rail trains has always been tricky and the (increasingly) unstable movement of the trains has worsened the accuracy of using a mouse or track-pad.
These factors led to the first rush of blood – a Tourbox. My thinking being that the stationary device with haptic controls would provide a level of granularity to the adjustment that I have just not been able to achieve recently.
So far this has proven to be the case; the dials and knows are really lovely to use when making adjustments to values such as Exposure.
I am continually adjusting my configuration with button combinations to access the adjustments that I use often, gradually building my muscle memory.
I will write a full review at the end of the month, once I have had a couple of weeks using it in anger.
The second rush of blood was exactly that. A purchase that had never entered my consciousness before (damn you Instagram!)
A Polar Pro Everyday filter (Shortstache filter). This filter is a combination of a 1/4black mist and a circular polariser.
I colleague of mine was telling me how he used a black mist filter on his X100 a few years ago and to be honest, I never really got the idea of softening the image in this way. However there must have been something in the images in the advert that I liked; not so much the colours but the way the sunlight was rendered when shooting directly into the sun (something that I like to do a lot).
So, 24 hours later there was a filter attached to the front of my X100VI.
X100VI ISO 320 1/2000 sec at f 5.0 = Filter
Everyday? No. I think the effect can really be overused (like everything) but I have to say to do like the day the light is rendered in these images from a morning earlier this week. (Shot on the X100 with a Easy Ace recipe).
X100V ISO 320 1/1800 sec at f5.0
I kind of also like the filmic quality of the following two images, shot on a less contrasty day (may bank holiday) into the sun which is off to the left.
X100VI ISO 320 1/3000 sec at f5.0
Well that is it for this (unusual) Saturday post; I was as the computer putting together all the paperwork I need for the next 2 weeks (I am particularly busy with a few client shoots before heading to Cannes Film Festival). Add to that the lack of posts for the previous week and a half and I thought I ought to write a brief post.
Look out for a couple of galleries over the next few weeks from Cannes, plus an update of how it’s all going.
J
Julie Edwards-X 
