Roots II
The X-Pro1 sits on my desk, next to my dad’s old Electro 35. They look so similar that I sometimes wonder if, one day, I didn’t merely continue where he left off. Fathers and sons are complex equations to solve.
I’ve rarely felt so little need for new gear. I know this probably sounds pretty rich coming from a guy who often gets to shoot with pre-release stuff, but it’s true. What I already own seems, mostly, enough (1).
This weekend I stumbled on a website called Fuji X Weekly, which most of you probably know already. It offers tons of recipes that attempt to emulate classic films by combining in-camera settings with Fujifilm’s own film simulations. They even offer a mobile app, which I remembered reading about at some point. It’s a really fun resource.
The post that brought me there was a recipe for the X-T1 camera, and its X-Trans II sensor. It’s what grabbed my attention: I hadn’t seen the X-T1 mentioned in awhile. In our quest for the latest and greatest, we tend to forget the past.
My niece has the X-T1 at the moment, but my X-Pro2 was right there, ready to go, so I picked it up. For kicks, I entered the CineStill 800T settings listed in the post, based on the good old PRO Neg Std—my goto film sim from those days. The camera’s smaller EVF was jarring for about three seconds, until my body remembered and settled. I love the X-Pro2. And I deeply believe there’s a case to be made for older sensors and processors’ intrinsic personalities—they’re really the closest digital equivalent we have to film stock. Swap the guts, change the look? Probably. In enough subtle ways to matter, I think.
I still processed the JPEGs in C1, but differently, more like the way I used to. Nostalgia? A bit, perhaps. But mostly: this was like feeding forgotten roots.
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Apart from that superwide zoom on the GFX roadmap…been asking/waiting for that a looong time.
