Recently I had the privilege to be commission to shoot a campaign for 2 Radio stations in Singapore.
Power 98FM which is a english radio station and Jia 88.3FM which is Singapore’s only bilingual radio
station. This is a 3 days project. One of the most common question I ask myself when I am
commission to do a commercial shoot; is Fujifilm APS-C X-trans organic sensor able to handle the
demands of a commercial project? Should I rent a FF DSLR instead?( I am DSLRless! ) Better still,
why not shoot with my Phase One. IQ is never compromise. Again its rather slow and heavy. After 3
days of shooting I am pretty sure I will have to make a trip to meet my masseur for a shoulder rub.
Since leaving FF DSLR more then a year ago; I have been shooting with Fujifilm X-T1 and I have to say
that I been very pleased with the result. Loves the Fujifilm colors! And of course my confidence with the
X-system have been growing stronger by the day. Thank you Fujifilm for constantly updating the
firmware of our X cameras and lenses. In the end I decided to forgo the FF and MF and go with Fujifilm
for this coming project that required quite a bit of large prints!
My weapon of choice for this project? The X-T1, XF 23mm F1.4, XF35mm F1.4 and XF 56mm F1.2 APD.
As this is a commercial shoot and I needed it to be pin sharp over all. My F-stop setting is at the range of
F8 to F11. Below are some behind the scene pictures.
Here is the link to behind the scene video.
When its Robin Goh’s session to be photograph; a DJ from Jia 88.3. Who is also an awesome actor. I
almost can’t keep up with him in term of poses. This guy is quick to give you a pose. He certainly deserved
an award and will definitely beat any supermodel! If there is a term call PPM; Pose Per Minute; Robin will
probably hit 30-40 PPM! His session is done in 2 minutes! Here are the proof! I can’t imagine shooting
him with my Phase One camera. I am not saying its a lousy camera. But there is a time for each genre
of camera for each type of project.
Final thoughts; I am glad that I chose X-T1 for this project. Firstly it did help me save some money. As my
shoulders didn’t ache and thus I didn’t hand over some cash for the service of a masseur. Secondly, I am
more nimble as the system is a lot lighter and thus I could shoot from a high angle and also go low angle
easily. Lastly I am so happy that the Fujifilm X-trans sensor is able to handle the large prints, ads on the
buses and billboards too. Truly; Fujifilm X-Trans sensor ROCKS!
Congratulations on a great blog and some fantastic imagery. Just goes to prove it is not the camera but the person behind it that takes the images. It also proves the point that the 16mp X-Trans sensor rocks and can also be used to print BIG!! Love the shots on the bus ads.
Thank you. 🙂
Fuji X organic Sensor? Since when? I must have missed that introduction, although I read quite much everything about it.
X-Trans really rocks, you’re right! It’s great to see those big beautiful prints. Well done!
Thank you. 🙂
Hi – great to see your testimonial (found via Twitt from Fuji) – thanks for sharing your takes and experience. A few questions if you have the time i’d love to hear your note about: 1- what is your preferred workflow, re Raw conversion etc.. and 2- since you were shooting at f/8 to f/11, does that mean you could have shot these with, say the 18-55 at f/8 ? or are your fixed focal lenses much better in some respects?
Hello there, for my usual workflow; my setting is in raw and large jpeg. I will eye-fi the large file only to my laptop and open in Capture
One software. The raw is kept in camera. For this case the X-T1. The reason is for a little form of back-up incase any side fail me.
at least I have either the camera raw or large jpeg in the laptop. As for question 2, I have not done a actual comparison. I believe there
will be little difference if you gonna scrutinizes every pixel. As a whole I believe the 18-55 could also do a great job. 🙂