The Analogue Photography Series: Film is Still Alive

Leica M-A with 35mm f/1.4 Summilux Asph. CineStill 800T rated at ISO 800.

As many of you know, I am a film photographer. Yes I love all types of photography, but film is where it's at. If money was no object and I could choose to shoot with any camera and any format, I would use the Leica M-A and 35mm Summilux, and shoot with CineStill 800T and Kodak Tri-X for the rest of my life. Ok, maybe I'll have the Ricoh GR-21 as my back-up and shoot Portra 400 once in a while. Don't ask me about my negative storage workflow (I've been working on this for the past 25+ years).

For those of you who follow my YouTube channel, whenever I have the opportunity, I try my best to do film photography projects. I love interviewing film photographers, camera collectors, camera stores, and photo labs. However, these types of videos take more time, effort and cost, making it difficult for me to produce consistent content. Recently a good friend of mine encouraged me to apply for the StoryHive grant by submitting my pitch video, and it was accepted. Based on a voting system, the top 30 projects will get a $10,000 grant to produce their first episode of their web series. I'm hoping for your support by your vote to make my analogue photography project a reality. After the initial grant, there is another opportunity to receive a $50,000 grant to finish the series. This is the true goal for me and my series.

First Impressions: Fujifilm X-E3

September 7th, 2017 6am GMT: The day has finally arrived to announce the release of the brand new X-E3. It's been almost 21 months since the release of the X-Pro2, so it's taken awhile for Fujifilm to upgrade the body, sensor and processor to the latest generation. I have a soft spot for the X-E series since the X-E1 was the very first Fujifilm camera I reviewed way back in 2012. Since then I've always hoped the X-E series would basically be a mini X-Pro2 without the complicated and expensive hybrid viewfinder. I knew Fujifilm would stick to their guns with the rangefinder form factor, so no articulating screen, no vertical control battery grip. The big question was about navigation. Would the engineers choose a joystick (found on the GFX, X-Pro2, X-T2, X100F) or a touch screen (found on the X70 and X-T20).  How about both? Yes, indeed Fujifilm decided to put both a joystick and a touch screen on the X-E3, much like the GFX 50S. There's a lot more to talk about so let's get started with the some of the key upgrades as well as the differences of the new X-E3 versus the X-E2S and its sibling camera the X-T20.