More Big Changes

As we are entering the colder months of the year, it's a great time to reflect and bring you guys up to speed on the current developments as I finally have some time to write some thoughts down.

Moved into to my very first rental apartment

My wife and I are now living in a gorgeous spot in the Mont Royal Plateau neighbourhood of Montreal. Moving and settling down has taken a lot of my time and energy. It's been quite heaven since and I can't quite describe the enhanced level of happiness I am experiencing on a day to day basis. Gym and grocery are less than 5 minutes walk from my place, close friends less than 10 and 5 bus lines to get to work. I eat better, I'm happier. What else can I say but to be grateful for all this luck falling onto me. It's been a few months now, most of our settlement time is over. We're missing a few decorative pieces there and there but I feel the daily life can finally resume as we both work hard towards higher ambitions (thus me writing blog articles again)

Iridient X-Transformer and Fuji X-Pro2 win over the Leica Q for best lifestyle system

Yes, at the very end of the battle for the next camera, I decided to fully commit to learning how to use Iridient X-Transformer for working on the XPro2 files and the effort paid off. I can't say the output is equivalent, it's slightly inferior (by 10% or less). However, the interchangeable lens flexibility helped the Fuji wins over the Leica. As such, I'll slowly be adding the Fuji X-Pro2 system to my lifestyle equipment next to my Sony Rx100ii and my Nikon professional system.

More on how I view lifestyle camera system later.

Sold off 16 lenses and moved towards compromises

In professional photography, the lenses that bring home money are usually the best lenses overall. While I would like to take the time to appreciate the little improvements and subtleties of a lens' ability to display 3d pop, there's no denying that most of them come with dealbreakers. I spoke about them in the AF-S G prime article but a lot has to do with fringing and chromatic aberration rendition as well as strong distracting bokeh outlining. Also, many of them were of manual focus (yes, my zeiss 85mm 1.4 is gone...) and while I'd love to find myself a lovely fullframe mirrorless camera to adapt them on it for some sheer fun, life just doesn't give me that time to spend on such interests. I also feel much lighter doing so since it's easier to decide what goes in the bag when you narrow down the choices.

I've decided to go back to my work requirements and found modern lenses that displayed the best balance of correction and 3d pop. I've since bought 3 Tamron lenses. While they aren't the last word in depth rendition, they do a better job than the AF-S lenses of their respective focal length. No regrets.

The work versatility vs X-factor discussion. 

Revising my lens criterias, I've made the decision to seek the lenses that walk the line of balance better than those that just deliver 3d pop. I've realized that those that render a cleaner image tend to be very versatile across various shooting envelope. However, that neatness much sacrifice the least amount of microcontrast. I call such lenses the "versatile work lenses".

I also found that the 3d pop lenses that lean towards neatness but not enough to render a commercially clean image display a good amount of interesting properties: weither it is their behavior wide open or their color transmission levels that classify them as 3d pop lenses while still being neat, these lenses develop what I'd call to be X-Factor. They aren't perfect but I feel infatuated by the way they look at the world.

I'll try to elaborate more on that later on.

Portfolio update

While I feel some of the work I showcase here has some staying power, it's about time I refresh some portfolio images. I know I'll have to put some energy aside for this but it should help document the evolution of my style throughout the exploration of lenses I've done two years ago.

All caught up

Yeah okay, I still have tons of stuff to discuss and display, but I should be able to find more time to write again. It's been quite the struggle.