I visited my son at his college this past weekend. He wanted to use my camera to take some pictures while we were in downtown Nashville at night. He has used point-and-shoot cameras in the past, as well as film SLRs and a Holga. I suggested he start off with the 18-55, then later stated that I prefer to use the 27mm as a walk around lens with the 60mm in tow. I let him use my little DSLR bag which has exactly enough room for the camera with one of the two lenses attached and the other in the bottom of the bag. He put on the 60mm and started taking pictures.
It was set to Velvia. He took a few pictures using the 60mm 2.4, using manual focus and looking through the eyepiece. He was surprised at how large the focus control was on the 60mm.
He wanted to know how to adjust the white balance. I showed him how to use the down arrow (I had mapped to that purpose) to change the white balance to see the effect in the live view. He switched to black & white and played around a bit more. He wanted to change the shutter speed, which I was proud to show was controlled with its own knob. I showed that ISO was mapped to the fn button, as well as how to change the aperture with the dedicated control on the lens. I pointed out that I loved being able to see exactly what the picture would look like through the eyepiece instead of taking the picture and then having to check it.
I showed him how to use Q to switch between C1 (Set to Velvia, high auto ISO) and C7 (B&W, 400 ISO) to quickly change the mood.
He didn't like my C7 so went back to C1. I showed him that he could change the focus point using the AF button and the arrow keys. Even though he was using manual focus, the focus point mattered because you could zoom in by clicking the scroll wheel, all while using the eyepiece. He liked it, but said it was disorienting focusing off-center in zoomed-in mode. He continued to play with ISO and other settings as he took pictures.
We left the hotel and went to the restaurant. He switched to the 27mm 2.8 because it was so discreet.
I have the silver-and-black X-E1 and the silver-and-black 27mm, as well as the Fuji 1/2 leather case (please don't hate me for the case) and a nice wrist strap. It's not invisible, but it certainly is not intimidating to people being photographed.
He took a few pictures in the restaurant.
He wanted to know what the picture would have looked like in B&W. I showed him how to use the in-camera RAW converter to re-process immediately. He liked it. I was proud that the camera could do that so easily.
He tried a few other conversions as well.
I don't know if he's happy with any of the pictures, but I certainly am. I remember showing him how to use other cameras I have owned in the past, mainly Canon point-and-shoot and Canon DSLRs, and I remember how apologetic I was about how to change things instead of being proud about how to change things.
I have left the pictures as they came out of the camera, only changing the size to work for this blog. I know that Velvia is not great for skin tones, and that several of these could use some balancing, but that would defeat the point of the story.
Thanks for the great visit.
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