Words & images by Stephanie Rebello.

I have recently taken up photography as a hobby, stress relief and hopefully in some way a career in the future. My photographic journey started with Fuji and here is a little bit about why I went for the the Fuji X-T1 as my first proper camera. Here are some shots I have taken in the first few days of Joel and Maja, at the bottom of the blog I have put some street images and landscape images.

 Joel Hicks – 16-55mmMaja – 56mm APD

 What makes the Fuji system special ?

Fujifilm’s new generation X-Trans CMOS II is the second of its kind. The first X-Trans sensor made an appearance in 2012 in the X-Pro1 which was a ground breaking innovation. Designed to replicate silver halide film, the industry had seen nothing like it before. However, Fujifilm didn’t stop there, they could see room for improvement and so they released the X-Trans CMOS II sensor in 2014 in the X-series camera the X-T1. When the team at Fuji went back to the drawing board they decided they would aim for three goals, to Increase the overall sensitivity, increase the dynamic range and reduce the interference.

[Check out our FUJIFILM home page for more Fuji info, tips and tricks]

Me shooting with the 50-140mm

Let me slow this down a bit, so what is the X-Trans CMOS II? For those who aren’t familiar with the technical side, the X-Trans CMOS II is a camera sensor. A camera sensor is a component within your camera that captures light and then digitally translates this light into an image. So as you can imagine, a sensor is a huge part of the camera . A sensor is usually its most expensive component and this means cameras with larger sensors tend to be significantly more expensive than cameras with smaller sensors.

Sensors are made up of pixels, these pixels come in three colours, green, red and blue. The X-Trans sensor has a random arrangement of these pixels. Due to randomization images captured using the X-Trans sensor have a film like quality. This is one of the things that set this sensor and the X-series cameras apart from anything else on the market today.

The X-Trans sensor has a pixel arrangement of 6×6, this is where it differs to Fujifilm’s other CMOS sensors used in their bridge cameras and point and shoot range. Other sensors tend to use a 2×2 pixel arrangement which means their colour accuracy isn’t always perfect and it also creates a moiré effect. Moire occurs when two regular patterns overlap and interfere with each other creating a pattern that does not exist in reality. Other sensors would have to use a low pass filter otherwise known as a anti ailising filter. The trouble with using a low pass filter is that detail is often lost in the process as the effect is like blurring the fine detail in these patterns.

With Fujifilm’s X-Trans sensor a low pass filter is not needed. This is due to the 6×6 pixel arrangement. In a conventional 2×2 pixel arrangement the red green and blue pixels do not appear in any horizontal or vertical line together, instead they come in twos, red, green, red, green, or green, blue, green, blue. With the X-Trans sensor red green and blue pixels are present together in each horizontal and vertical line with green as a more dominant colour. This means accurate tones with no moiré effect.

Another benefit of using the X-Trans sensor is its low light capabilities. For me this is a huge benefit as I am a keen event photographer and fond of street photography at night or in the evening time when the more interesting characters head out for the night. The X-Trans sensor is very sensitive helping it capture incredibly sharp images in low light conditions which allows me to bump up the ISO without worrying about grainy images.

One of the things I adore about the X-T1 is its retro look, it is certainly a camera I want to show off and thoroughly enjoy using. As a newbie photographer I found it so easy to navigate as I can change the ISO, shutter speed and aperture without having to go into any menus which means I can set the camera up without even having to turn it on. If you have ever heard of ”the exposure triangle” you’ll notice that when you look at the Fuji XT1 and its dials they form the same triangle which was one of the small things that massively helped me understand how to navigate a camera. Fujifilm has an appreciation for the beautiful. Not only are their cameras ascetically beautiful and easy to use but the technology behind them works beautifully as well.

 

Indica Campbell (Live music)Live art at the Bulls head in Birmingham (56mm APD)

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