A New Camera (Fujifilm X100VI)

I recently purchased a Fujifilm X100VI. I’m not a photography nerd, but I can tell that the photos that come out of a dedicated camera turn out much nicer looking than one from a smartphone camera.

Here are some photos that I took this past week, as well as some of my own thoughts and feedback.

This is a photo of Amos playing with his trains, shot at f/2. I like the bokeh on this, it definitely looks a lot more natural than the ones made on my iPhone. The film recipe used here was Reggie’s Portra, which I think works much better indoors when compared to Kodak Gold 200 (which turns everything yellow). The lighting is nice and even. However, the background is kind of messy.

Here is Amos riding his bike at the park (he just learned last week). This was shot using the Kodak Gold 200 film simulation, with an exposure compensation of 2/3. The film simulations are a big part of why I bought this camera. I don’t really want to spend my time editing photos in lightroom. The colors look a little bit yellow, but I remember looking up after taking this photo and thinking that the colors were actually pretty true to reality. I just wish I had stepped a little to the left to get the sidewalk more centered.

This is a picture of the Ferris wheel at Irvine Spectrum, also shot on Kodak Gold 200. I love how the colors turned out here – it really does give that summer vibe, especially with the sun just out of shot. I had trouble getting a good composition with this picture. I walked around the Ferris wheel a couple of times, but the view was constantly being obscured by trees and poles. This was the best I could get, and I actually quite like it. The palm trees frame the Ferris wheel nicely, and the center is placed pretty close to where the left 1/3 and the bottom 1/3 intersect.

Here is Amos climbing on the play structure, again shot on Kodak Gold 200. I love the slight desaturation of colors here. Not sure how I feel about that big yellow platform eating up the bottom left side of the picture though.

This was also shot on Kodak Gold 200. I had the same problem with the Ferris wheel where I couldn’t find a good angle of the flag because of the trees and the light poles. I settled for this one. Even though the background wasn’t clean, the red, white, and blue of the American flag really stood out against the beige Irvine Company buildings.