My old buddy and drummer Heine Lennart, wrote and asked if I could record some djent like guitar for a bicycle advert he was making.

He send me a bunch of advanced drum tracks, but my mind weren’t up for complicated stuff, so I involuntarily took a left turn, and picked two bars of one of his tracks, made a midi drum track, that was kind of similar and looped it.

Some days later, I sat down grabbed my 7 string Strandberg and started playing som heavy stuff through my 10 year old Kemper Profiler, with a 5150 profile that me and Tue Madsen from Antfarm Studios, made years ago, when he was curious enough to try out the profiler for himself.

It sounds great out of the box, so all the guitar sounds are straight out of the Kemper, with a set of presets I made for myself.

The synth like sounds are guitars with a bunch of delays on them. There are no keys on this song.

When I decided on the riff with the seven string, I went into the basement and grabbed my 1993 Music Man EVH, that I had neglected since I moved to my new hood. It had fell out the back of a trunk and a chunk of wood had broken off, just where my forearm sits on the body.

I had tried to fix it with some glue and some clear coat lacquer. But sort of gave up, because it doesn’t look good. But since then, the lacquer have hardened and although it ain’t pretty, it doesn’t feel bad any more.

So I went all in, and gave it a lot of love. Dusted it off, cleaned the frets, neck and body with steel wool and then soaked the dry as a desert neck with oil and later when it had dried up, gave it a lot of wax. Then put on new unbreakable 09 – 46 D’Addario NY XL strings and started adjusting the thing.

The neck was totally out, because I used to have 10 – 52’s on it. But the basement definitely also had an impact. But after adjustment of the truss rod and a slight adjustment of the Floyd Rose bridge, it came alive like I had never put it away.

I have a Brownish Sound preset on my Kemper and went down the rabbit hole, playing all the Van Halen songs I can somewhat play. But the sound didn’t fit this song, so I chose a legato like preset, that I made with Allan Holdsworth in mind and then the solo sound was in place.

The Music Man just sings like nothing else. The volume pot was not in a good mood, but after some massage, the crackle and pops, went away, and I could attack the song with the nicest sounding lead, I have had for a long time. Then I added some synth like guitar swells and recorded two cinema like chords, that aren’t the same, but close enough.

And lastly picked up my fretless ESP Jbas tuned the E string to B and played the djent part with a skinny pick, to get something useful out of it. It really isn’t made for this sort of music.

After a quick mix I felt pretty good about this 2.20 minute song, and then went further down the rabbit hole and found some footage from 2019, where I made documentary for Fujifilm and picked some clips, that I felt could work for a video, so I could post it here on youtube.

I hope you like it. I kind of dig it myself, which is somewhat rare. I usually don’t have much control of the songs I make. They often go in a completely different direction than expected. This one did as well, but I’m pretty pleased with the result.

Sincerely Palle Schultz

The amazing side effect Distortion has is that, even though it is noisy like a nightclub, it shuts down before midnight and it goes somewhat quiet, except for the clubs that continues throughout the night.

This is not usually the case when people set up their P.A. bikes from Wednesday to Saturday all through the summer on the bridge close to my apartment, when the weather allows it.  When Distortion is at it, the noise is somewhat regulated and even better – tomorrow the festival will be in another part of town, and Nørrebro where I live, will be very quiet.

That music

Do I sound like an old angry man right now? Well, let me explain. I’m a musician as well as a photographer. I made a living as a professional musician many years ago. I’m deeply in love with music. I love Soul, Jazz, Rock, Classical, Metal, Pop and everything that inspires me. But I have a blank in my musical taste. I really love Drum’n Bass, because of its complex rhythms and its energy, but what I really dislike, is when you replace the drummer or the complex rhythms with a pounding bass drum on every single beat, banging away like a hammer, with no complexity what so ever. Just BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM….. The Distortion Festival is, apart from very few exceptions, just that. Among danish musicians it is referred to as the German Stomp. Because it sounds like marching Nazis.

You can tell that a lot of the music that are played from the different stages, are assembled by DJ’s and many without much musical training. It is not as horrible as it once was, but you regularly hear a song with a vocal hookline that are out of key with the bass and harmonies, if you can call it harmonies… To a musician, that is like dragging your nails across a blackboard.

I know that it is common to explain my dislike towards this techno / electro music, with the generation gap, where every new generation manages to make music that the older generation thinks is shit.

But think of it in another way – where can we possibly go from here? We’ve reached the tribal stage with electronic music. The great electronic musicians have already made incredibly beautiful music, with the likes of Brian Eno and the Godfather of it all: Jean Michelle Jarre.

It started out on another level, but sunk into tribal pounding gimmicks. There is the heavy metal of electronic music with the Skrillex genre, if you can call it that and then there is the clubmusic, with its enormous amount of genres. But even as a trained musician I have a hard time, telling them apart. But again, what can possibly come next? What will make the hardcore EDM lover in some years go: “Damn that young generation makes really shitty music!”? Will it be young DJ’s playing something that resembles a grinder? I don’t know. But I can’t imagine music to go to a simpler stage, because I have a hard time imagining music in a simpler form.

Deconstruction

To me the laptop music at the Distortion festival goes a bit like this: You sort of set the pace with a super short intro, then introduce the pounding bass drum, shift between a handful of samples, and mixes it up a bit.

Then there is the part where you omit the bass drum, then later reintroduces it after a rally up. It is sort of the climax of the tune, called “dropping the bass”. In the most basic version, a really cheap sounding snare drum sample leads up to the reignited bass drum with a quantised snare roll. Some DJ’s let that roll continue for a while to heighten the tension amongst their audience and then drops the bass, meaning reintroducing it, with a couple of more layers on top of it.

So the electro sort of lives off a bit of dynamic tension, and a few samples. I’m sure every person who loves this kind of music or makes it, hates me by now. But hey, I don’t drink alcohol either, so that might be another reason. Play some Meshuggah and I will lighten up like a christmas tree with sheer delight. But a pounding bass drum on all 4 beats, brings me down immediately.

Crowded crowds

Walking about the streets of Distortion can be challenging. There are some bottlenecks around, where you get more or less squashed. Most people don’t stand in the same place for long. There is a steady stream of people wandering about. I’d say 75% of the people are on their way to somewhere else, except for the big stage at Sankt Hans Square, that seemed to be one of the few places, that were actually able to keep a large crowd for more than one 15 minute mix.

The pissing contest

The festival have put up a lot of booths where you can relieve yourself. But they do not seem to attract young guys under 30. For some reason a dude have to piss on something. The ground just doesn’t cut it as a legitimate target. A dude needs a target. So everything you can imagine are used as pissing targets. Fences, doors, doorknobs, staircases or whatever is at groin height or slightly higher. If you are a bit sensitive, you cannot ignore the same people shaking hands, hugging and eating just after they made someone elses property wet, and never got near any sort of disinfection fluid.

The ground is sticky

For some reason people at festivals throw their shit around like a chimpanzee. For some other reason the last quarter of a beer seems undrinkable and therefore are emptied out on the ground, and soon after becomes sticky goo, that everyone else needs to step in. Same goes with trash. I’m aware that it doesn’t take long before trashcans and containers are full. But festival goers do not seem to have even the slightest intention of throwing their litter even near a garbage container. It is as if that they live their daily lives as a moral citizen, and then goes completely bonkers, when they attend a festival, with a strong “fuck everything” attitude.

I have a hard time coping with people who throw their garbage around. At a festival, well okay, people are letting off steam, and needs to make some sort of whimsy rebellious statement, by throwing garbage around. But it isn’t much better when the festival is over. Apart from smokers carpeting the grass areas with cigarette buds, it is unbelievable what people throw into the lake where I live. Swans, ducks and all sorts of animals live in that lake, and still these dirtbags throw all kinds of shit into the lake. I just can’t imagine why?! Why is it so hard to throw your shit into a garbage bin? There are plenty of them all around, and yet the beer bottle and the odd bike, gets thrown into the lake…

I hope that one day the animals collect all the garbage and just throws it into one of the littering douche bags living room, with the words: “Here, we think some of this is yours!” and then just leaves the guy with a livingroom full of garbage. That would be awesome. Reality unfortunately is, that no-one even gets a fine.

The folks

I do not consider myself as a street photographer. I’m too shy. But for some reason, some people jump in front of your camera and want’s you to take their picture. They don’t ask were it ends up, they just pose. I’m really happy that they do so, or else I wouldn’t get pictures like these.

Distortion have been really lucky with the weather this year. Sunny and hot, which is quite unusual, even at this time of the year. It might have caused some people to dehydrate. But all in all, the festival seemed peaceful and the crowd were in a good mood. Drunk, with leaky bladders and throwing garbage around. But at least happy it seemed. Good for them, good for everybody. Tomorrow they have left for Vesterbro, while their garbage will remain for the municipality to clean up, and they will. They are quite effective when it comes to cleaning up the city. Except for the lake… The lake is the largest trashcan in town, and it seldom gets emptied.

It’s been 19 years for a reason

Traveling to New York is something I do not do very often. It’s a long flight, 6 – 7 hours crammed into an airplane seat in monkey class is not good for your blood cirkulation. It feels like getting locked in a phone booth for a whole day. You can’t do much, and if you try, your movement is so restricted to a degree where you become claustrophobic.

If a single passenger chooses to recline his seat, everybody has to do the same, unless the domino effect is interrupted by that single passenger who likes to rest his teeth on the inflight entertainment system. In theory I could have folded down the table and set up my laptop and started writing. I’m not the biggest guy in the world – and not really fat or anything, so I probably would have been able to put it there, but the display would be tilted towards me, and the trackpad would be pushing against my stomach… It just seemed to much of a hassle and it would be like trying to unfold a collapsable baby stroller in the before mentioned phone booth. So I just surrendered to the entertainment system and passed the time by watching four movies in a row.

Last time I was in New York was in 1997. Apart from the inflight entertainment system upgrade, the flight seemed equally long. When you pass Greenland, you think: “We are almost there!”, until you realise that you are only half way there. That transporter thing from Star Trek would be appreciated if it worked. But… Would you really be you and not just a mindless clone, when you come out on the other side?

Airport Security

The airport security personel aren’t as uptight as they were a few years back. Last time I went to the US, travellers were treated like cattle. I were literally expecting to get poked with a taser while getting screamed at by the incredible rude personel in Florida. The questioning were equally weird and would go like: “Where are you going?” “Naples”, “Why not Miami?”, “Because we booked a hotel in Naples?!”, “What’s wrong with Miami?”, “I don’t know, we decided on Naples?!”, “What are you going to do in Naples?”, “Relax, it’s a vacation!?”, “You could relax in Miami!”… And so it would continue, after answering what your occupation was, if you had enough money, how long you’d stay, if you were there for business or pleasure, what color your underwear was…

Newark was way more relaxed. although you’d still go through the interrogation, it was not as lengthy and much less condescending than in Florida. But nothing compares to 1997, where you could small talk and joke around with the security guys, while waiting in line for passport check. Those days are over.

China Town

Chinatown has outgrown Little Italy quite a bit. I stumbled on to quite a few “welcome to Chinatown” signs, stretched out across the road. Maybe they put them up as the area grew and forgot all about them later. It seems weird to welcome visitors in the midst of an area.

We had a day with rain, and went into a couple of Chinese stores to buy umbrellas. We had to visit a few before we had any luck spotting something that resembled an umbrella.

The Chinese stores are weird. It seems that everything on the shelves have the same color scheme which is mostly deep red and gold. But I couldn’t figure out what any of the items were. Everything seemed to maybe have some sort of an ornamental purpose, but I wouldn’t know what it was. It was as if an Alien from outer space visited a toaster shop. He could possibly tell the shape and that it was a mechanical device of sorts, but wouldn’t know what it was for. Same thing in the Chinese Hardware Store or Gift Shop or whatever it was.

We could pick between a smaller umbrella that cost “faa dallar!” or a bigger more sturdy version that cost “faa dollar!”. Maybe it was a “faa dollar!” store – I don’t know. But when we had payed, the woman, who spoke very poorly english, she gesticulated, said something completely incomprehensible and pointed towards the back of the store. So I went there and investigated more red and gold stuff that I couldn’t figure out what was.

A few minutes went by, and a Chinese gentleman appeared as out of nothing – from the basement, right back where we were standing before, holding our umbrellas. The only thing in that shop, that had a purpose was hidden away in the basement, where all the useless red and gold shit were on display, on shelves from floor to ceiling with only narrow passages between them.

The Chinese commanders

Chinatown was also the only place in New York where seemingly normal chinese men, would approach you in the middle of the street and tell you something. I for one didn’t understand one bit. It did not sound like mandarin, but more as some sort of intended english with a very heavy chinese accent. I usually have a good ear for language, but this was completely incomprehensible. It happened a few times. I’m not sure if they were dissatisfied with my camera – I can only guess. But looking at these guys, expecting them to try to communicate otherwise, didn’t lead to anything, they just carried on with the same tone and language, utterly uninterested to have a two way communication. so I just went on my way a bit puzzled.

On the street, they sell what you need

Down town, we found out that the street vendors sell stuff according to the weather. If it rains, they walk around chanting: “Umblellah, Umblellah”, and if it’s sunny, cold and windy, it is scarves and sunglasses that is on sale that day.

Stuff is flimsy

We had rented an apartment in Chinatown. It looked like it did in the pictures. It was a nice place in the midst of noisy Chinatown. But what striked me, was the flimsiness of the decor, doors, locks, doorknobs and what have you. American homes feels quite cardboardish…

It doesn’t give you much confidence to lock yourself inside a restroom behind a cardboard like door, and that tiny little flimsy lock in the center of the doorknob, that unlocks itself when you turn it from the inside. You are not really ever sure, that it is actually locked. This doesn’t really give you the peace of mind and calmness you need for your business in there. I don’t know if I’m particular private in that manner, but I’d like a solid door and a lock that is able to keep a SWAT team from entering the bathroom.

There is also the electrical wall sockets. The european version are two or three cylindrical holes, that can hold any charger you connect. But the american version is two tiny blades, that fall out as easily as you put them in. That is some flimsy stuff right there.

On the other hand, the refrigerators are always a homerun. The americans know how to make refrigerators. They can cool, and there are plenty of space for your 5 ltr water bottles or whatever you like to be cold. European fridges are so environmentally designed, that there isn’t much cooling power and there is not a lot of room for larger containers. A european fridge looks like a minibar compared to its american sibling, much like the cars.

The bad combination of food and incense

Our apartment was located on the 3. floor. The building housed a Chinese restaurant at floor level. So when you entered the building, you were met by a strong odeur of Chinese food, on the first floor, there was a strong smell of incense. And when those mixed at the second floor level, it literally smelled like urine to a degree that made your eyes water. Luckily the smell didn’t climb to the 3. floor, so we only had to hold our breath while climbing 2 stories.

To be continued…

There is a lot going on in China Town. It seems to undergo quite a renovation with road work everywhere. China Town really is China… There is not surprisingly a lot of chinese people here, most signs are in mandarin and those I’ve spoken to so far, hardly speak any english. Yesterday was a day with rain, so we bought a couple of umbrellas in a chinese store that had all kinds of weird chinese bling bling. They had to go to the basement to fetch the only thing that seemed of any use at all in that store, the big “umblerra”…

This gallery is from the day that we arrived. A sunny day at 3° Celcius. 

Touch down New York

Eight and a half hours flight, and a very turbulent landing that got people on the brink of vomiting and then some figuring out what trains to take and how to figure out the direction of the subway. But now we are here, right in the heart of China Town.

Sunday the 3. April

Airport Tax free ain’t cheap

The check in from a computer back home have shown itself to be quite beneficial. It is much less a hassle than it once was.

After the dress and undress rehearsal through the airport security, the tax free stores reveal themselves as Aladdins Cage – so shiny and expensive looking.

The tax free concept puzzles me. Only booze seems cheaper compared to the outside world – and I don’t drink alcohol. Liquor really isn’t my choice of drug.

Rest of the goods for sale in the airport are tax free as well and expensive. I don’t need anything anyways, but it seems weird to advertise goods as tax free, when they are actually more expensive than anywhere else.

We had the opportunity to stay in a SAS lounge. It is sort of luxury with a breakfast buffet, that is as good as in a fairly cheap hotel.

I might sound grumpy, but I’m not. I’m observant and it’s early… Ok, I might be a little bit grumpy.

Lets board that plane.

Saturday the 2. April

Packing light is an art in itself

Well, I have now packed a couple of bags. I wanted to pack light, but fell into the trap and packed more than I planned for. Not much though. I just couldn’t help bringing a couple of vintage lenses. Two Voigtländers to be precise. And old 15mm wide angle and the remake of an old 50 mm. I chose to bring the huge Fujinon 50-140mm as well. If we decide to take a tour on a boat, it will come in handy for an Epic N.Y. Skyline pic. I know it’s a picture every soul who ever visited N.Y. photographs, but hey… If it’s there right in front of you, you better frame it and bring it back home.

I’m getting pretty exited by now. A whole week disconnected from daily issues experiencing New York City all over again.

There might also be a bit of anxiety to add to the tension. I’m not too pleased with flying. Hurling through the atmosphere in an aluminum cigar is something I have to come to terms with every time I do it. I usually let go whenever I’m seated on the plane. When I sit there, nothing is in my control anymore. If we crash, we crash and that’s it. I can’t add or subtract from that – although the statistics are in my favour, I’m still nervous. Until the pilot sets the airplane safely to the ground, it is fate if we live or die – as everything is if we choose to live a normal life.

One thing that really bothers me, is that my ears hurt badly. Although I use every compression and decompression advice I ever got, It just doesn’t help much. It hurts like a mofo. After we have settled on the ground it will take hours or even days, before my ears pop back to normal. Another thing is the many hours of being stuck in a small space on an airplane. I’m not a big guy, but still it is like getting stuck in a wardrobe closet. Where is the Startrek teleportation device when you need it?

I’ll stop complaining for now. I’ll get back to you, when we are on the plane, if they have WiFi. If not, I’ll just spend time cloud gazing.

Friday the 1. April

19 Years later

It has been 19 years since I visited New York. Back then Mayor Rudy Juliani had “cleaned up” the city and it felt pretty safe to walk around by oneself back then. The Twin Towers were still standing and were a sight one doesn’t forget. The size were just unbelievable for a dane who were used to 5 story buildings at the most. Since then, the ambitions for tall buildings has literally grown everywhere.

I’m not sure if I will have accessible wifi where we will stay, but if we will, I will update this post with pictures and write ups about the trip.

I will bring a very compact setup, that totally blows the analog film Pentax I brought with me in 1997 out of the water. I’ve packed the Fujifilm X-Pro2, a 35mm F/2, the 16-55mm F/2.8 and the 14mm f/2.8. If there are any space left, I might bring the 50-140mm F/2.8 But I’m not sure I’ll bring that one. It’s pretty damn heavy and attracts attention.

Bookmark this page if you want to follow me on this trip to the Big Apple.

Among some photographers there is a certain pride in delivering pictures right out of the box – referred to as SOOC, meaning straight out of camera. But for many reasons I think the SOOC concept is quite silly and in my mind, is an illusion.
The most important thing to get right and straight out of your camera is exposure and framing.. (and shutter speed, ISO and aperture).

If you get that right, you have the best possible material to work with because you don’t have to crop your image or push your files too much in the exposure department. If you have the basics nailed, then there is less work to do afterwards.

If you on top of that, have a camera that produces very nice JPG images, that are processed with the cameras internal computer, then you have even lesser work to do. And if your camera have superior image processing and even allows you to edit your pictures in the camera, then you only need a computer to transfer the images to a printer or to post them online.

My point is that, even in analog photography, SOOC is an illusion. There is so much processing going on from choosing film or film simulation to developing, that processing your pictures is an integral part of photography. It just is!

Lets embrace that picture processing or color grading, as it is called in the world of cinema, is a natural part of photography. How should we use color grading and why?

Why color grade?

When we experience a scene in real life, we experience it with all our senses.  As a photographer we make a choice of what to leave out of the scene by framing what the camera and lens allows us to, while the restrictions of the photographic media leaves out anything but a 2 dimensional reproduction of our experience.

As the photographer we have the power to enhance the emotions we had when we were there. If the sky was bright blue, it certainly felt more blue, than we see on the raw file from the camera. So we push the blue colours a bit to make the sky feel as we felt, when we think of the situation. If it was a positive experience, we might enhance the warm colours, the reds and oranges, even if it makes peoples skin way more tanned than they actually were. If it was a gruesome scene, we might go for harsh contrast and maybe even black and white. We use color grading to enhance the emotions we want to communicate. We make the choice of colours support the story.

The LED Nightmare

Quite often you run into situations where whatever you have to shoot, is lid up by first generation LED lights, which is a nightmare. It is possible to land the colours correctly by using a custom white balance when a simple Kelvin setting won’t cut it.

But if you are a videographer and you have a camera that isn’t suited to difficult situations like that, you are basically screwed. Then you REALLY have to rely on your color correction skills.

These pictures are a before and after shoot of a dance performance, where the group was lid up by LED’s that basically made them all look purple. It was shot with a DJI Osmo. Setting the Kelvin on that device just didn’t do anything remotely to help the crappy lighting conditions. It was a worst case of Bad LED’s, horrific colors and not much light at all. It was shot at ISO 1600 at 1/50 SS and F/2.8

So, I had to dig up all the  tricks to make it work. When the footage was corrected I chose to use a LUT (Color Look Up Table), that resembles the Hollywoody teal and orange look, to bring back something that looked a bit like skin color. The end result was much better than I could’ve hoped for.

Without colour grading/correction, it would have been a lost cause…

The different looks

The “natural” look

There are different approaches to image processing. Some photographers prefer to go for a very “natural” look, which means that the picture have to look as non processed as possible. The thing I’ve noticed about that, is that “natural” means with a dynamic range that their camera sees, not what the human eye sees.  So those pictures, that you often see in the sports section of magazines are quite contrasty. The colours are vivid but the darks are way darker than the human eye and brain perceives the image in real life.

The Black and Whites

Choosing black and white is a huge “processing” choice. Not only have we left out anything but a crop framed, 2 dimensional, frozen in time moment. We’ve also chosen to leave out colour. We’ve left out anything that we didn’t want to interfere with our intention with the image.

The hipstermatics

Embracing toy camera faults, faded colors, light streaks and anything “wrong” with photography, you get the very popular look of the internet today. I think that people likes it, because even the most boring picture will get an injection of visual pleasure, when you add a lot of color effects to it. And why not? If it makes you stare at the picture, it has done its job well.

The High Dynamic Range

Used subtly it can enhance landscapes and city skylines greatly, but it is very easily overdone, where the colours ends up looking like coloured LED lights way too saturated and the image becomes flat, because there are no shadows left to shape the objects in the picture.

The FX look

Often seen in advertising and american football. It’s a certain almost cartoonish style. As any look it can be very effective but also very easily overdone.

The Cinematic look

This is quite a broad term. Cinematic look is mostly a ratio thing. Super wide pictures fit for the Cinema screen have muscled its way into many websites as banners and background images.

But it is also a colour thing, where colours are manipulated to be a big part of the story. If you’ve seen the film: “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”, you might have noticed that the colours of the different scenes, directly relates to the lead characters state of mind. When he is in his “dull” working life, the colours and the scenes are quite cold. Mostly cold blue with the shadows tinted towards green. But as his character develops, so does the grading. The colours change and become more vivid and warm to support the story.

The beauty shot

There are so many incredible skilled photographers whose pictures are outstanding. But in my mind there’s a couple of bad habits that I wish publishers and photographers would change.

Skin retouch… There are too many pictures of women and men, with skin that looks like plastic. Skin texture varies and the skin over the eyes are not the same texture as on the chin or on the forehead. In a lot of model shots, the skin texture are the same all over, which makes the model look like an alien.

Check out Fries Before Guys podcast (Danish)

I have nothing against skin retouching. If the model has a mole, you might not want the viewer to stare at that mole, so you might tone it down a bit or completely remove it. But making skin into a single textured entity, looks really weird.

Then there’s the whole body thing, were the model are being made thinner in photoshop. I wish nobody would do that. Learn to pose your model, and you can do a lot that way. Your model might even learn to embrace themselves and their body. But this is another matter and doesn’t really have anything to do with colours.

Happy shooting

Inspired by my own post… (it actually happens) I’ll post a series of heavier graded images, starting with one. Bookmark this page and follow this space for more images to come.

There have been quite a few attempts to explain depth of field and its relation to sensor size. I will try to explain why shooting with different “crop factors” and how it relates to depth of field, framing and background compression, is a different experience on different sensor size cameras.

Depth of field are the same on any camera no matter its sensor size… almost.

Many have the belief that larger sensors also have a shallower depth of field. But that isn’t true. Actually the opposite is true. If you put a 50mm lens with an aperture of F/2 on a MFT, APSC, Full Frame and Medium Format camera, take a picture from the exact same distance. The D.O.F. (depth of field) will be almost exactly the same.

But because of the smaller pixels on the small sensor, the circle of confusion will be smaller, and therefore the D.O.F. will be slightly narrower. But this is not what makes the big difference between shooting crop and full frame.

What affects the D.O.F.?

The short answer is distance. The closer you focus, the narrower the D.O.F. The further you are from your  focusing point, the deeper the depth of field.

You might have tried to shoot macro, and even on F/8 or F/11 the depth of field are so narrow that you have to stack more pictures into one, if you want the whole subject sharp.

If you’ve tried to shoot landscapes and focuses say 5 meters away from you with an F/2.8, everything from about 3 meters and further away, are perfectly sharp.

So if you have a “cheap” kit lens with an F stop above 4 and envy those who have those expensive wide open lenses that goes down to F/1.0. Get closer to your subject, and you will experience the same shallow depth of field. Only thing you will miss, is more light.

There are more ways than one, to alter your D.O.F.

You can move closer by moving your feet and moving in on the subject you want to focus on. You can attach a tele lens which will count as moving closer or you can zoom in, if you have a zoom lens. The closer you get, the longer the zoom, the longer the tele, the narrower the D.O.F. if you use the same F stop value.

If you decrease your F/stop value, the narrower the D.O.F.

The lowest F/stop value is the largest opening through the lens. allowing maximum light to pass on to the sensor.

You can increase the distance from your subject by either physically walking away from your subject or you can choose a lens width a wider field of view, which also counts as making a larger distance between you and your subject. Or you can zoom out, if you have a zoom lens. The further away, the wider the D.O.F. If you increase your f stop value, the wider the D.O.F.

Crop factor

Crop factor is easily explained. It is the size of your frame. If you pick up different sizes of old school frames for paintings and hold them on an arms length and look through them. The largest frame can be compared to a medium format camera. The mid sized frame can be compared to a full frame camera, the smaller frame can be compared to the APSC camera, and the small frame, which is half the size of a full frame, can be compared to the MFT camera.

The larger the frame, the more you can see of the scene, the smaller the frame the less you see of the scene. It is that simple.

The tricky part is when you try to compensate for the framing, by moving further away with the small sensor camera. Then the optical principles are no longer the same and shooting the same scene, framing the same, with different sensor sizes, will be different experiences. And your pictures will not look the same as with the full frame or medium format camera.

The forgotten element

What everyone seems to have forgotten, is the optical compression.

If you want a picture of the moon next to some very large buildings, and want that moon to look very big. You have to make that moon look relatively large in comparison to the buildings. Therefore you will have to physically move away from the buildings, until the buildings look relatively small in comparison to the moon. The moon is so far away, that it will seem the same size to your eye, no matter how far away you are from it (if you are still on this earth). But the buildings that are much closer to you, will quickly appear smaller, the further you move away from them.

When the Moon look large enough in comparison to the buildings, you lift the camera up to your eye, and then you have to do one more thing. You have to mount the longest tele you have, to properly frame the picture. If you use a wide angle lens, the scene with the buildings and the relatively large moon, will seem equally small. But if you zoom in close from the distance, you will get that epic shot of a super moon, that are so large that it dwarfs the buildings.

If you move in close, and shoot the same thing with a wide angle lens, the buildings will appear much larger in comparison to the moon. And that was not what we were looking for at all.

So we’ve established that a long tele, will be able to compress the background, so it looks comparably larger to the foreground, than it would using a wide angle lens. If we frame the same portion of the scene.

Lets say that we did the above exercise with a medium format camera, but now stand in the same spot with an APSC size camera. Now the only difference is, that we will see almost 4 times less in the frame, as if we were looking out of a smaller window. The compression is the same, the relation between the size of the moon and the buildings are the same, but it takes up much more space in the frame. So what do we do? If we move away, the relation between the moon and buildings will change again, but we will be able to fit the same scene as the medium format camera and because we move away again, the buildings will now appear even smaller in comparison to the moon than before. It will make the moon look larger.

We tend to frame the same

If we translate the above exercise to shooting portraits, most photographers tend to frame portraits more or less the same. Using an 85mm lens at F/2 on a full frame is pretty standard for portraits. On an APSC you’d probably use a 5omm lens for the same thing. (Fuji’s 56mm is a good choice) and on a MFT camera you’d use a 42mm for the same sort of framing.

To frame the picture the same, all three cameras would require approximately the same distance. But because of the different focal length, you’d have to compensate to get the same depth of field. You’d do that by using a lower F – stop number. Lets hope that you have one of the great Voigtländer F/0.95 lenses on the MFT camera, else you won’t be able to get the same narrow “only eyes sharp” depth of field. If the full frame guy steps down to 1.4, you are toast on the other sensor sizes.

The medium format guy, wouldn’t care much about it. He’d probably use a 120mm lens, and get the greatest narrow depth of field and softest sharpness to bokeh fall off, using F/4  close to where any lens performs the absolute best.

But now take a look at the background

If you inspect the pictures from the above exercise, you will notice that the background is different. The longer focal length compresses the background more and gets less of it in the frame than the APSC and the MFT. It’s the moon thing – the more tele, the closer the background appears. A tele lens will also distort the subject less than a wide angle lens, no matter what it is attached to.

A 50mm on a medium format and on a MFT sensor camera, will always perform as a 50mm lens. Only difference is how much of the scene you can fit inside the frame.

With the medium format camera, you can get close with a tele, and see more of the scene, while your background appears closer and more blurred out, without you having to take the picture from a mile away, with a tele lens.

Atmospheric disturbance

Being physically closer to your subject also means that the light photons reflected from the skin of your subject will have to travel a lesser distance through the atmosphere. The further the physical distance to your subject, the more stuff will be in between the sensor and what you are photographing. Heatwaves, dust particles, moist, haze and so on, which in some way or the other will affect the light reflected from your subject to your lens. In real life, there won’t be much of a difference, if you are in a studio. But if you are outside and half a mile away with a 600mm lens, there will be quite a difference from being closer with a 50mm lens.

Getting closer means you get less hazy shots, richer colours, brighter pictures, better sharpness and detail, more nuances and so forth. You get more photons to reach your sensor cleanly without being disturbed and diffracted by the atmosphere and the lens itself.

If you combine that with a really good and large sensor, with a great lens, set at the best setting for the least amount of diffraction at around F/4 to F/5.6, in a well lit environment, then everything is perfect.

Embrace what you have and use it

Digital photography has come to a level of quality that is quite incredible. Yes analog film is charming and such, but is no way close to the image quality of modern day sensors.

Analog film prints well but cannot compete against digital sensors, when watched full size on a screen. When we start to down scale and put our pictures on Instagram with its minuscule picture size, anything goes. It is hard to spot the difference between iPhone pics and those taken on a large sensor. But if we need to use our pictures professionally and when we set high demands for how we want the pics to end up, then we need a tool that fits the job.

Shooting with different sensor sizes is a different experience, that is just the way it is. When taking everything into account, it makes no sense to try to mimic anything but what you have in your hand. It only makes sense to capture great pictures.

Stick with what you’ve got and use it to the best of your ability. It is all about passion and having fun.

But then again – if Fujifilm makes a medium format camera, I will lust for it and maybe sell a kidney to get my hands on it.

The Fujifilm X-Pro2 has gotten dual SD slots and have been moved from the battery compartment to the side. The lid is solid and will stay in shape. Slot number 1 is a UHS II read/write, where slot number 2 is  a regular read/write slot. Fuji didn’t have enough space for two UHSII slots. But don’t worry, the X-Pro2 will read and write to your old cards as well. But if you want the camera to be able to unload from the buffer to the card super fast, you should consider buying UHSII cards. Especially if you want to use the X-Pro2 for video as well as stills.

New FN button on the front lever

Yes, you have an extra FN button ingeniously hidden in the OVF/EVF lever. By default it is assigned to showing frame lines in the OVF. But you can set it up for anything the X-Pro2 will allow you to. I use it for “Preview Exposure and White balance in manual mode”, because I often go back and forth between using flash and ambient light.

The frame line review is pretty smart though. If you are in doubt of what prime to use in a given situation, you switch the frame lines on and evaluate your framing and pick the prime lens that fits the bill.

The smartest OVF on any camera

It’s a bold statement, but it is true. Those who knows the OVF from the Fujifilm X100T knows what I’m on about. Apart from having accurate frame lines, that aligns itself depending on how close you focus, you can also add an EVF into the frame. It can show the whole frame or a zoomed view by pushing the data wheel on the back of the camera.

When is a good situation for using OVF?

If you shoot sports, say boxing or dance or any dynamic scene. You’d like to see if you take the picture at exactly the right time. When the boxer connects or the dancer strikes a pose you’d like. If you use the EVF, you know that you might have squeezed the shutter at the right time if you don’t see the pose or the strike. Because cameras go black while it captures light to the sensor. But using the OVF will allow you to watch if the pose or strike lands with the noise of the shutter and you will be able to see if anything or anyone is about to enter the frame, because you have space outside the frame lines.

A few knobs do more than it seems

The ISO wheel is inside the Shutter speed dial. Exactly like the old SLR and Rangefinder cameras. I.E. the Minolta CLE. You lift up the outer ring and choose your ISO value. It is pretty neat and makes the X-Pro2 stick to the look of an old camera.

On the old film cameras, you picked the ISO at most at every 36 pictures When changing film. Using a digital camera, you use that way more often. So it will take som getting used to. I have no complaints, it is pretty easy.

The exposure wheel now goes to five. Well it goes to three, and then you will go to the menu to decide what the C position will be. An exposure compensation wheel is very handy when shooting in aperture or shutter speed priority or in auto mode. If you quickly have to adjust for a wrong exposure metering or if you shoot against the light.

I don’t use it much though. I’ve gotten used to the manual mode, where shutter speed and aperture is king.

Huge improvement in the menu department

Software design has never really been Fuji’s strong point. But they’ve made the X-Pro2’s menusystem a gazillion times better and way more intuitive by using icons.

You can also design your own menu, aptly called “my menu”. It’s only active if you’ve put something in it, and if you have, you will always enter that menu first, when you press the menu button.

A hint: If you want to explore the buttons on a Fujifilm camera, hold them down until something happens. There is a lot of hidden shortcuts on these cameras.

A little praise for the X-Pro2 and Fujifilm

I know that there’s a big chance of you, dear reader, suspecting me of being biased. I am an X Photographer, but I’m not in any way paid for my opinions. I chose to use Fuji’s X cameras in 2011 and haven’t looked back since. I’ve connected to these cameras for many reasons.

Fujifilm cameras are small

So are many other cameras. But the size are combined with old school intuitive and tactile knobs and wheels and very impressive overall picture quality.

They look great

People ask about you camera and become interested. That gives you a lot of opportunities as a photographer. It looks great – if you like the retro looks – and if your camera looks great it commits you not to suck and to live up to the aesthetics of the camera.

A dead giveaway of the infatuation with the Fuji cameras are that you tend to photograph your camera a bit more than owners of other brands. Quite a bit actually – often referred to as “gear porn”. It’s a nerd thing I guess.

They are silent and stealthy

Fujis doesn’t make a lot of noise. When I get a new camera, the first thing i do is set it to dead silent. The focal plane shutter system in the X-Pro2 is very quiet but sounds fantastic. Kind of suppressed, but with a nice chunk. It is beyond me, why Fuji has put in an electronic shutter sound, for when you are using the electronic shutter. It sound like you are stepping on an egg or a tiny nut. If I use the electronic shutter, it is because it has no sound or if I need a superfast shutter.

I’ve heard many stories, where the Fuji guy got to take all the great pics on a film set, because the other guy with the big ass DSLR, just made too much noise.

Unobtrusiveness is the key

Image quality

Fuji have made analog film for years and they know a thing or two about colours and image quality. JPG’s directly out of the camera don’t need much work if any. That’s why I like it for product shoots. I really dislike doing postwork on 1.000 pictures of boring items. Using the JPG’s from my Fuji – I don’t have to.

The new X Trans III sensor in the X-Pro2 is 24MP at 6.000 x 4.000 pixels. And the RAW files are fantastic out of the box. Makes post work so much easier.

Fujinon lenses

Fujifilm are masters of glass. They’ve among others produced lenses for Hasselblad and Zeiss and have a long tradition with broadcast lenses that costs as much as a house. These guys know how to make great glass.

If you’ve ever shot with what Fuji calls a “Kit lens” the XF18 – 55 zoom lens with OIS. You know what I’m on about. That is one very high quality zoom and surpasses any other “kit lens” I’ve ever tried, by far.

I like old analog vintage lenses and uses them quite a bit. These pictures are shot with the X-T1 and a Voigtlander Nokton 50mm F/1.5. I love that lens.

But if you need a modern autofocus glass, Fuji makes some of the best and for a price many times lower, than what you can compare them to.

I know I sound like a fan boy, and I might be. I have a tendency to really like tools that does the job, and also are very pleasing to work with.

I hope you can forgive me for my enthusiasm.

The Fujifilm X-Pro2 is simply put, one hell of a beautiful performer.

The magnificent Cathedral Sagrada Familia, initiated and thought up in the clever mind of Antoni Gaudí, leaves me breathless even thinking about it.

Often religious buildings have a tendency to bring you down with a heavy dark ages feeling. They stand tall and powerful with an architecture that strikes fear into those it is supposed to submit. Sagrada Familia is nothing like that, not at all.

I have yet to experience the feeling from Sagrada Familia in any other cathedral. For the first time in my life i felt truly uplifted when walking around in this incredibly beautiful Cathedral.

It seems so alien like but still very friendly and loving. The principles of Antoni Gaudí are that no pillars in nature are straight, and all lines and patterns are continous. He brought this principle into all his projects and it truly sets him apart from anyone else.

I brought my Fujifilm X-T1 and tried the best to capture this magnificence. If you get anywhere near Barcelona, buy a ticket online and visit Sagrada Familia. You will not be disappointed.

The danish winter is mostly grey and dark. Here is seldom snow, it’s mostly overcast and the sun goes down 15.30 when it is the darkest. Fortunately we are approaching lighter times and go to dark in the late afternoon now.

The sparse photons

There isn’t much light in the north. I mean, the amount is different than closer to equator. Less photons and therefore less color. I think that is why every single camera manufacturer shoots all their advertising and test pictures near the equator, where colours are vivid and the light is plenty.

The lack of light makes the Scandinavians prone to melancholia. We are supposed to be the happiest people in the world, but we also have a world record in consuming antidepressants.

Photographers often moan about the light. It’s either harsh, there is too little, there is too much, too much contrast… I’m guilty as well… Moaning about the light.

Advice to those who don’t need it

A fellow X-Photographer Jonas Rask, although being a very postive and energetic guy, complained to me about the lack of light in the wintertime. I told him to embrace it… I’m not sure where that came from, as I’m a bit of a complainer myself. But out it came and it actually sounded wise…

I felt a bit weird giving advice to such a talented photographer as Jonas, but hey… when you get the chance, grab it.

Following your own advice

So when I go out there, looking at the big and dull mass of  grey and faded colours. I now have to follow my own advice, instead of complaining. I have to embrace this dullness and make something out of it.

Fortunately, I’m walking around with a Fujifilm X-Pro2 dangling from my neck. I’ve learned that the RAW files are excellent. But I also know that the JPG’s will bring you far.

It is so sharp that you don’t have to

I’ve been spending quite some time, changing my presets from quite a solid bit of sharpening to next to no sharpening at all. Sharpening is no longer a thing you’ll spend time on, if you decide to get yourself an X-Pro2 when it arrives. It just isn’t necessary any more. Keep it at default with RAW and don’t sharpen your JPG’s – at least, that is what I ended up doing.

Thinking about it… Sharp might be the wrong word. The files are distinct and clear. It doesn’t cut you in the eyes, it pleases them.

Cheat the grey into another season

The side effect of having awesome quality files, is that you can push the colours quite a bit, without destroying detail. So I do, making the grey look vivid and autumn like. Because I’m not to fond of the grey.