In fact almost all of them were because the kids were moving so much. The OVF is actually really good for studio shooting and I was really surprised at just how few shots I got out of focus. This could turn into a plus if your scene was just too dark to see. So rather than this being a con, I'm amazed that only a few of my shots have the dreaded black line across them.ĮVF is not very good for this type of shoot as the camera ups the brightness of the viewfinder to the point where it's mostly blown out. I shot all these photos at 1/250th of a second, but the maximum flash sync speed for the X-Pro1 is 1/180th of a sec. The main con is that you get the odd shot where half the frame is black (see left) due to the flash firing when the curtain is half way across. I'm pretty sure this is just a matter of switching off the sleep mode in the Speedlights. The SB800 would go into sleep mode if there was a gap between shots and would not fire when the shutter was pressed, but would be back on for the next. So this is a good test for the X-Pro1's auto focus. My daughter Janel walks away everytime the flash fires and announces "that's us done". His actions become very animated and can look like poses (like the photo at the top of this post). My son Teo can't sit still for more than 5 seconds, so the best way to keep him in front of a background is to let him do what he loves, tell stories. When you shoot your own kids, they don't sit still and they don't want to spend time being photographed when they could be outside playing with their friends. With other peoples kids, I'm the stranger with the camera and they tend to sit still and behave. The most difficult models to shoot are my own kids. I usually shoot strobe stuff about F8, but I wanted a shallower depth of field for these shots. I sat in position and took a meter reading (taking the PC sync cable from the camera and plugging it into my Sekonic light meter) from in front of my face which gave me f4 which was fine. I should have read the manual as the maximum sync speed is actually 1/180th sec (see CONS). I set the front light to 1/8th power, the X-Pro1 to 250th of a second and ISO to 200. My second flash, an SB900, was set as an optical trigger (SU4 mode) and lay on it's back on the floor tilted up at 45 degrees to light the background and give separation between it and the subject. I placed an SB800 in the softbox and connected it to the camera via the PC sync cord. My background was a collapsible Lastolite Black Velvet 6' x 5' and I also used a Lastolite Easybox Hotshoe softbox and stand. I do loads of stuff with Nikon Speedlights, so I was really interested to see how or if they would work with the X-Pro1. I went old school for this test by using a PC sync cable (long one) and a light meter. Maybe this will be the final nail in his wallet's coffin? Check out Patrick's blog for loads of great X100 & X-Pro1 stuff. I know that my photog buddy Patrick La Roque is also waiting with interest to see how the X-Pro1 does in a studio environment. But I quickly became curious when I saw the results of portraits I had taken on the streets. The X-Pro1 is an awesome camera for natural light portraits, but how about portraits with strobes? I ordered the camera back in January, when it was first announced, but the thought of it being a studio camera never crossed my mind.
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