Should you buy a Sony full frame, wait for Canon / Nikon, or forget full frame and go with Fujifilm APS-C. And is the Sony FF system just a lot of hoopla?

Here are my thoughts, I have no brand loyalty, you will probably disagree with me on some points, but I’m loaded up on coffee right now so here we go!

I do this thing here in Japan I’m calling biking photography. It’s a huge pain in the ass, but very fun at the same time. I actually started doing this in L.A. a few years back but sort of stopped when it became infested with homeless who cover the sidewalks in human excrement – and the Mayer thinks he’s going to run for president. 🙂

Anyway, biking is great because it combines two things I love doing into one, riding bikes and shooting photography.

It’s summer time in Japan, it’s hot, it’s humid and the cicadas are loud as hell, sandwich all that between one typhoon after the next and you’re having yourself a good time. 

Last night was the local summer festival. Nothing really special about the festival, just imagine (for all you Mericans) a redneck BBQ where there is line dancing, BBQ, cotton candy and kids running around way to high on sugar, yeah, it’s just the Japanese version of that.

The 7Artisans 55mm f1.4 is a fast, compact APS-C lens that is excellent for all types of shooting conditions, especially available light. It features 6 elements in five groups that give nice color and contrast, great flare resistance and low distortion. With a 14 bladed rounded aperture, bokeh is smooth across all focal ranges.

Overall, the 7Artisans 55mm f1.4 is an incredible value and a fantastic starter portrait lens or compact prime.

There has been a lot of talk and speculation about the Nikon full frame mirrorless system. Some people have some interesting thoughts, some are too focused on specs.

Here are my thoughts on this new Nikon Full Frame System.

It’s been a rough month with a hurricane then a tropical storm, then a new baby, then my daughter having a crazy fever for five days, a heat wave and now I’m sick. Needless to say, I haven’t had too many chances to go out and actually shoot with the Fujifilm X-T100, but I have shot with it enough to have a very strong opinion about it.

Here are my thoughts.

Epic, monumental life changing events, like a new baby being born, always begs that really big question, “what camera should I bring?”

During the delivery and for the few days while my wife was recovering, I brought along several cameras, but only used a few.

Don’t worry, I’m not sharing any gross newborn baby photos. 🙂

We were lucky. The rivers all around us were on the brink of overflowing and many of the neighbor towns had to evacuate. We live in a giant apartment complex that could probably withstand a tsunami so we didn’t have too much to worry about, but as the rivers all around us started filling up and our phones continued beeping with alerts about evacuations for areas near us, we were still a bit nervous. It never let up from relentless pouring rain.

If you live in a humid climate, you know how quickly mold and fungus can consume everything. The same is true of your lenses and camera gear. 

Humidity is a killer, feeding any mold spores that have made their way into lenses, creating fuzzy spots that will ruin your glass. I’ve even had it happen to one of my lenses when living in Los Angeles and it’s not even that humid there.

Here are some really cool and inexpensive tricks to protect your lenses from humidity.

The 7Artisans 35mm f1.2 is a compact APS-C lens designed for mirrorless cameras. It’s built with an all metal housing and a 9-blade rounded aperture with only 6 elements. I wouldn’t consider this a pancake but it’s very short.

Performance according to specs isn’t great, but the lens has some very beautiful character, especially wide open. So far, this is my favorite 7Artisans lens and it’s a lot of fun to use!

If you haven’t yet heard, the mid year update to AuroraHDR just dropped. Version 1.2.0. What’s it about? Two things really, performance and performance.

If you have no idea what AuroraHDR is, I’ve tossed in a few sample photos I took last night from my bike ride around town. I shot these with the Fujifilm X-T2, Fujinon 14mm and 7Artisans 35mm f1.2. Processed with AuroraHDR + Luminar + Lightroom. This will give you a general idea of some of the looks you can achieve using this combination of software.

With cheap manual lenses from China and Korea growing in popularity, many people are wonder if they are worth it, or which to buy. 

In this test, I compare the 7Artisans 55mm f1.4 to the KamLan 50mm f1.1. I also threw in a more expensive lens, the Rokinon 50mm f1.2, and the even more expensive Fujinon 56mm f1.2 as a control. Since Fujifilm is legend when it comes to lens design, it will be interesting to see how they compare.