Our little village in France (Montréal, near Carcassonne, in the South West) has a history dating back over 1000 years to Cathar times, and has a pretty eclectic architectural heritage. The Collégiale, or main church, dates back to the late 13th century, although it is thought a primitive church existed here several hundred years before that. Much of the surrounding village was burned to the ground by the Black Prince in 1355, and the next 400 years saw the village repeatedly attacked as a consequence of the religious strife that dominated this part of France. As a result, many of the older houses in the village date back to the 17th and 18th centuries and these sit alongside houses that have been modernised since, often in a haphazard fashion. There are barely a handful of completely new houses in the main part of the village – all the new development has been carried out further afield.
The somewhat diverse architectural styles in the village are reflected in the doors – not just to the Collégiale and the grand houses in the village centre, but all the smaller houses too. Every time I walk around the village I marvel at the sheer variety of styles of door on show, so for a bit of fun decided to do a mini photo project, recording as many of the different doors as I could. Camera used was (as it often is these days) the Fujifilm X-T10, this time with the 18-55mm zoom. No special technique here – just walk up, select a nice view of the door/doorway – often from the side as the streets are too narrow in some cases to use even the 18mm front-on. Photos are all RAW images, imported into Lightroom with a little ‘punch’ added, and some judicious cropping and further adjustment where needed. Here are a few of my favourites from my mini-project.
Encouraged by attending a couple of excellent workshops and photo walks with 
Shooting at street markets in France is a case in point – French people, in my experience, are not at all keen on candid photos. Whether its a national sense of privacy, or because some of the traders at the markets are working ‘on the black’, I don’t know, but be prepared for some hostility if you are seen overtly photographing them!
I took this rig out this weekend to shoot the lively Saturday market in Revel in the 
#1. Interested in getting the new 35mm f2 Fuji lens, I saw it advertised online at Digital Depot. As I was keen to get it asap, and passing relatively near their Hitchin store, I ordered it for collection next day. Come the day, and just before I swung off the M1, I thought I’d give them a quick call to check all was ok. “Ah”, said the man, “we don’t actually have them in stock, but I can call you when we get them in….” So I asked why they were showing them as in stock – “well, we don’t actually link our online stock with our shop stock, so I guess we must have sold out in store…” Tried to explain that it wasn’t really on to advertise something as in stock, when it wasn’t, but it fell on deaf ears. Needless to say I bought the lens elsewhere, and probably won’t try Digital Depot again.
#2. I received an email from Stafford Audi suggesting it was time to get my car serviced, and inviting me to book online. Duly did that, selecting a date a few days on, and got a response indicating they would shortly confirm my reservation. Surprised to receive a call next day to say that day wasn’t available, and indeed the first available date with pickup and collection was a month hence! Tried to point out how frustrating this was, but again, it fell on deaf ears….
I had planned to try a couple of long exposure images using my new Hitech filter holder, but it was clear it was far too windy for sharp pictures, even with my heaviest tripod set as low as possible. The tops of the fells were shrouded in mist/cloud, but there were some brighter patches in the sky (nothing to actually call sun though…) Anyway, I found a nice view with a fence as lead-in, and set up and waited. After about 10 minutes, it had pretty much stopped raining, and I was rewarded with a few breaks in the cloud. The foreground was nicely bathed in sunlight – only for a few seconds, but enough to get a couple of frames including this one.
Wandering along looking for another view point, I spotted this family of ducks, and quickly set up. Within a few seconds they had moved into the perfect position in the frame, and as luck would have it, another fleeting moment of sunlight brought the scene to life. Time for one shot only before the ducks had moved on, and the sun had disappeared again!
When the X-T10 camera was launched in late 2015 it was dubbed by many as a ‘cut down X-T1’, stripped of many of its features. Having bought one a few weeks ago, that seems to be far from the truth! Sure it is smaller, it doesn’t claim to have the weather proofing that its big brother has, and both the LCD and viewfinder screens are a little smaller, but it really is an exceptionally good camera, at around half the price of the X-T1!
no issues there – the image quality is identical. There are the full range of image quality and shooting controls, a tilt LCD screen, face detection and continuous AF, and even a built-in flashgun. Apparently the time to store a burst of photos is slower, but as I see it that is really only an issue if shooting sport or similar.
I suppose it’s easy to assume that photography only really got going with the advent of ‘digital’ – the easy availability of photos taken on smartphones and tablets, and relatively cheap and easy-to-use point and shoot cameras has revolutionised photography for the ‘man-in-the-street’. What you see is very much what you get, and cloud photo-sharing sites make sharing photos so easy.
Box Brownie and folding cameras taking roll film, together with the advent of consumer oriented processing labs really reduced the cost of photography, and the widespread adoption of 35mm film (originally developed for the movie industry) and cheap Far-East produced cameras really opened up the opportunities for everyone to take their own photos.
Much as I love my Fuji prime lenses, particularly the 14mm and 23mm, there are times when a nice wide zoom would be so useful. Sometimes 14mm just isn’t wide enough to get everything in shot, and there’s no opportunity to step further back. Likewise you may want to stay close to a foreground subject and get more background in. And there’s the ‘zoom’ thing – its all very good saying ‘ah well, don’t be lazy, just take a moment to change your lens over’, or ‘stand further back’ – that’s not so easy if you are standing in the middle of a mountain stream. Likewise if its blowing a gale you don’t want dust getting into your precious camera body, or to faff around switching filters over from one lens to another. If you are a documentary rather than landscape photographer, those few seconds changing a lens can mean missing that shot.
Ah, the first real problem… The 72mm filter size does mean I can fit my Lee Seven5 filter system on, but alas, at anything wider than the 14mm setting there is vignetting – i.e. the edges of the filter holder come into the edge of the shot – its then pretty much unusable with the Lee polariser fitted. Not great, but not the end of the world, as there’s always the option to use round 72mm filters – more money and more to carry around, and of course no graduated filter option.
Nigel Young 