Fuji X100S Wedding Photography – Colorado

Yesterday, I photographed a wedding entirely with the new Fuji X100S. And I’m happy to present those photos to you. Before I go any further, I do want to thank Mark Alison who was the primary photographer at yesterday’s wedding. He let me tag along and do my own thing. Well, my own thing is usually a little different. I do tend to shoot a lot with a 35mm lens, but I’m usually the primary photographer working for myself and that lets me get up close when I want to and need to. With such a wide angle lens that’s important. But, I wanted to be completely respectful to Mark and his staff, so I tended to be much more hands off and stuck in the background a lot more than usual. That makes for some challenging situations, but I made the best of it, and it’s all good.

I know all the gearheads and Fuji fans want to know how the camera performed. For the most part, I’ll let the photos do the “talking” here (ongoing X100S Pros and Cons here). But I will say this– I’ve never been much of a manual-focus-photographer, but I was really surprised how often I found myself going to the manual focus with focus peaking yesterday. It was not limited to the reception, but it was particularly helpful when I was photographing the dancing shots with a hotshoe-mounted flash. Since it was so dark and using the OVF is not helpful in that situation, I was using the EVF. However, for flash photography, your camera settings are not set bright enough to very effectively use the EVF either. Except… with focus peaking engaged, you could see those white contrast lines show up in the dark and could know whether you had focus or not. Loved it! Also, please note for those wondering about the low light ISO capabilities (FYI- I did shoot RAW). I happen to love the grain structure of the X100S and so I did very little noise reduction on these– most have no noise reduction at all, even many of the ISO 4,000, 5,000, and 6,400 photos. If you’re looking for the cleanest shots possible– the camera can do it very well– but you won’t be seeing too much of that here. And yes, I know my black levels are high– it’s intentional. The camera is capable of producing an amazing dynamic range. I only mention it because I know some people will be confused (and some will even be pissed off… I have no idea why).

Alright, so now on to the photos! Jill and Matt (who have known each other since the age of one!) had their wedding in Brighton, Colorado– just a bit of a drive outside of Denver. The blizzard conditions kept us from venturing outside at all for any portraits, but that’s ok– it didn’t stop me and the X100S from keeping cozy and spending some quality time together. Enjoy!

read it on briankraft blog