Fujifilm launched their latest camera, the X Half that mimicked the film half frame shooting experience. If you know you know that it was Olympus who popularized the film half frame format back in the 1960s. Therefore, it was not surprising to find out that Olympus had some tricks up the sleeves on their newer cameras, particularly the Olympus PEN E-PL7 from more than 10 years ago. I am recreating the magic of shooting with X Half in the E-PL7, but applying a few tweaks and settings. For simulating vertical sensor, I applied 3:4 aspect ratio, to match the film simulations, I used Art Filters (Vintage I. II III and Grainy Film II), to replicate similar field of view, I chose the Olympus 17mm F1.8 lens. I shot in JPEG only, and all images were in portrait orientation, and you can find these and more tips in my latest video here (click). I am just sharing my images from this session in this blog entry, which I thought came out interestingly well!
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Great video and photographs, as always! I think that your assessment of the Fuji X Half is pretty reasonable: why buy some camera with a smaller sensor to emulate a film-era product whose characteristics were defined by the medium? As you showed, if someone likes the portrait-by-default orientation, there are solutions with existing, more capable products. Your suggestions were pretty helpful in that regard.
ReplyDeleteMy father still has a half-frame PEN, and while he presumably got a lot of use out of it originally, making more out of each roll of film, he obviously doesn't use it any more. Most of us have moved on, after all. Also, I don't understand why Fuji has to make the X Half look so ugly, either, but tastes may vary, I suppose.
Hi Robin, loved your article. But, of course, one can emulate a half-frame camera simply by changing the aspect ratio of capture. Did that with my PM2 and got similar results, although I didn't go as far as trying to simulate a film look. Yes, one can get a pretty good imitation of a half-frame camera without spending any additional money. So cool, and so funny. Some people think Fuji is gonna sell a truckload of these to those easily swayed by Internet trends and memes. Hahaha... let them have their fun. We'll be happily clicking away with our more versatile and higher quality cameras and lenses and get even better results! Thanks.
ReplyDeleteLiked your images, but I can't see setting up my E-pl7 in 3:4 aspect ratio and framing images with the objective being to throw away about 44% of my pixels. Not personally interested in the new Fuji half frame, but they do have a really good track record in successfully bringing new cameras to market, so don't count them out.
ReplyDeleteMany decades ago I was using a1/2 frame Univex camera built in the 1930's. Don't care to go back to that format.