In the blink of an eye

The train station at Wavre I am doing a series on the surroundings of the train station in Wavre. That means walking around, wandering the streets, looking, observing, taking a picture from time to time. I usually carry two camera's on these occasions, the X100s and the X-Pro 1with a fixed prime (I don't use zoom lenses, I don't even own any) and I change lenses when needed. With fixed primes you get to know what a lens will do, what angle of view to expect, how it will render a scene. That is really important for me. I usually see a photo coming before it's there, and I find that very difficult using a zoom. With a zoom, I react, but with a fixed prime, I can anticipate, huge difference. I find myself using the EV on both camera's most of the time, but I would not like to be without the OV (these are the two finder types you can select on these camera's as part of the hybrid viewfinder). The EV makes your exposure setting very easy, the image y...

This is at the train station in Leuven. The technical approach was exactly the same as in the  Le Royal  picture. I selected ISO 1600 so I could expose using 2.0 and 1/60. Camera's like these can be hand-held at much slower shutter speeds, but I find that, for really sharp results, you need a faster speed, so I went for this combination. I would have preferred 1/125, but I did not want to go for ISO 3200 for his kind of pictures.

Walking around in Leuven, I always seem to be drawn to the train station and it's square in front. The light was difficult, not much of it, and very uneven, like here, where the cafe inside is reasonably well lit, but the outside is virtually black. Difficult light, not easy to see things anyway, so I used the 'easy' camera, the X100s, with it's 35-equivalent lens, which I know by hart. The 14mm on the X-Pro 1 might have given some great results, but that is not an easy lens to use, the (very) wide angle of view tends to distort the subject easily, you need to concentrate, and I had enough to think of with this very difficult light. The 35mm standard is too narrow for me for these kind of pictures, my new 18mm would probably have been ok, but I chose the safer option, so the Pro stayed in the bag. At night, when it is not that easy to predict a situation or to observe people, I prefer to have only one camera visible if possible. I find that using auto-expos...

Another Dark one. Nathalie and I went for a trip by car, just the two of us, very nice. We needed a destination, so I decided on Ronquieres , guessing that it might be a possible location for some nice photos. I am always interested in Factory buildings and Industrial architecture in general, like this giant .. well, no idea what to call it, actually. Anyway, it is used to allow ships to be lifted to another level, replacing 14 locks. I have traveled it twice myself, years ago. The weather was rather grey, with a little drizzle. I did some shots of the construction that houses the winches and other mechanics that operate the lock gates, which did work out nice. Then I looked at these tracks that support the huge caissons and their counter-weights. What struck me here was the light on the rails and the clouds. It would have been even better if there would have been an actual ship moving, but that would have taken at least another hour, and it was too cold. Weak, I know,...

This one was more-or-less casual, taken while we went shopping. I just got myself a new 18 mm for the X-Pro 1, and I wanted to familiarise myself with it as much as possible, so I selected that combination to take with me. (I just sold all Nikon DSLR and Nikon glass). While sitting in the passenger seat of the car, I noticed the slightly fogged side window and the blurred scenery and I realised that this would be a nice photo. I focussed on the image in the mirror, to enhance the blurred background but also because I wanted to emphasize  the reflection. Focus and exposure are all manual. However reliable your light meter, I think you should be in the driving seat, not your camera. In my world, auto-focus definitely has a place, but I prefer manual focus. Generations of excellent Photographers created terrific images without auto-focus, it is really possible, and not even difficult. You may need a little practice, that's all. And the X camera's (and most camera...