Today I was ready, or so I thought. I was ready to test and compare the Fuji X-T1 and the XF 18-55mm lens against a similar Pentax gear I used a week ago. So I got up very early to make sure I had ample time to get to Cinta Costera, set up the Fuji, compose and shoot.
Truth is I was very distracted. The setup didn't make sense. Why did I use the viewfinder loupe with this kind of camera? It proved uncomfortable for composing every shot. The X-T1 already has a fabulous tilt screen with great resolution, this loupe was just in the way. This was very so distracting to the point I failed to judge that a polarizer was not needed to render the shot at blue hour, so I got to much vignetting in the shots. Then, the battery ran out so quickly, being the generic kind, it drained fast perhaps because I had accidentally left the camera turned on the night before. Besides, replacing the battery with the attached loupe was very cumbersome which took several minutes of missing gorgeous light.
Realizing sunrise would take a couple of more minutes, I decided to go to a different spot at Cinta Costera. Rushing to get there just proved it was a wrong decision, I should have stayed in the same location. The light was already clearing out, couldn't compose fast enough, and the loupe was too much in the way of the X-T1 buttons, so correcting and adjusting became difficult and time consuming. I did my best in such distracting mental circumstances.
At the end, I got home, and it got worse. I shot everything at JPEG!!! Oh, no, that was the biggest rookie mistake I could make, and to add insult to injury, looking at the pictures I could see many dirty spots on the sensor. Please, kill me.
All in all, those who know the X-T1, know this is an amazing camera for fun landscape photography. The lens in my opinion, offers too much distortion at 18mm, and with the shots I took I cannot conclude about its sharpness, so this experience merits another test.
Truth is today I wasted beautiful light.
