Fuji Experience Day in the Peak District with the X-Pro3

For my birthday this year my Mother brought me this Fuji Experience day in the Peak District. I have often like many places in the UK, past through this region many times but never stopped to explore, so I was excited to take part in this. Added to that was my lusting after another Fuji camera because with this experience we were going to be able to use the X-T3 coupled with various lenses for the day.

The date was to be Thursday October 24th, so I decided to drive up the day before and stay at the George Hotel in Hathersage for the night, as we were due to meet there at 9:15am there anyway, so all I had to do was get up have breakfast and walk into the reception area to join them.

The Fuji Ambassador / instructor for the day was Chris Upton (website), who has many years experience both as a professional photographer and teacher.

After a preliminary chat and the handing out of Fuji cameras we set off in the minivan for our photo-shoot experience. I love street photography and Fuji had just announced that the X-Pro 3 was being released in November and as we had a couple of Fuji staff with us I decided this would be a great opportunity to quiz them on what that new camera could do. Imagine my surprise mixed with shock and joy when James from Fuji took the loaned X-T3 off me and handed my his Pre-Production X-Pro3 to use for the day!

I grew up composing photographs through the viewfinder and when I owned the Fuji X100F I would walk the streets of London with the digital screen turned off and either shoot from the hip knowing the field of view I had or again by composing in the viewfinder, so getting a camera where this digital back is hidden is bliss for me. OK on a tripod taking landscapes, the screen is helpful, and the X-Pro3 was able to do that without much of an issue.

Lenses on the day were in short supply, the new 16-80mm for example there was only one, so it was a case of borrow for a few shots then hand it back. I think it would have been better to equip us all with the kit lens and have a few others like that new one as try outs. As it was I found myself increasingly being forced to use a lens not suited for what I wanted to take so repeatedly pulled out my Sony A7iii to get the shots that I wanted.

Being a new camera there isn’t any support that I have found for the RAW files, so I will only be able to show jpgs. Don’t expect stunning images I threw caution to the wind and hand held many shots at very high ISO, just to see what sort of results I would get. Unfortunately I can’t get to see because the camera will have done all of the noise reduction in the jpgs. I would have preferred to process the raw files.

However I thoroughly enjoyed my day and fell in love with the X-Pro3. Chris was a great instructor and managed to give us all some individual time. I offered to look after the X-Pro3 for a while but James declined my kind offer and took it back :(

This is a provisional draft of my day and I’ll update it over the week-end with a link to the photos taken.

Link to a mixture of photos taken.

Great Staple Tor with Tom Peters and Chris Sale

Once again I swapped my walking stick for a pair of trekking poles and once again the weather proved to be less than desirable, but having driven 260 miles through heavy traffic in the rain and negotiating diversions it was a case of making the most of what was on offer.

Tom Peters of YouTube PhotoNinja had kindly offered me a place on the workshop that he and Chris Sale were running on Saturday 12th October 2019, The venue was Great Staple Tor on Dartmoor which by all accounts has wonderful views of the surrounding area.

We met up in the Pork Hill car park at 6am with the intention of setting off to catch the sunrise. However it was pouring with rain and the forecast didn’t bode well for any clearing up of the weather, so instead we had a general chat until daylight. Tom and Chris soon put the 3 of us at ease and explained what we would be doing. There was to have been 4 on the workshop but unfortunately one person had dropped out through ill health. Once it was light enough we started up the well worn trail, with our hosts moderating the accent to suit my mobility.

At the top whilst the rain made setting up our equipment less than comfortable, we were greeted with some great cloud formations. This is where my photographic equipment was lacking because all of the interest was in the distance, which meant long lenses and the best I have on my A7iii is the 28-75mm. I could have selected the crop within the menus which would have dropped the resolution to around 8 megapixal, but instead I opted to use the RX10iv with it’s built in 24-600mm zoom lens. This only has a one inch sensor and the light was low so to keep the ISO down was going to require the tripod and slower shutter speeds than I generally use with it.

A few weeks ago in Snowdonia I had a dog run up to me to be fussed, I duly obliged but her owners were shocked because their dog never goes to men she doesn’t know, but showed no hesitation with me what so ever… weird.

Dartmoor has ponies everywhere and they generally keep their distance but one, for some inexplicable reason came within a few inches of me and stayed for several minutes. I don’t know much about horses and ponies so all I did was talk to it until finally it became bored with my conversational skills and wandered off  …. Very weird.

We spent the morning up there with Tom explaining how to get good panoramas and Chris giving us an explanation of his normal thought process and workflow on taking landscape photos.

After our descent and a short drive into Tavistock an ”All day Breakfast” from a well known chain was very welcome.

OK the weather wasn’t great and I didn’t get any images that I’m pleased with, but Tom and Chris’s sunny dispositions really lit up the day. They were knowledgeable, helpful and professional in their approach to the workshop. A thoroughly enjoyable experience and well worth the 520 mile round trip.

Link to some pictures taken.

Tom’s YouTube

Chris’s YouTube

A Summary of Your Rights as a Photographer

from >

https://expertphotography.com/a-summary-of-your-rights-as-a-photographer/

Your Rights

If you’re on public property, you can take photos of whatever you like. Whether it’s property or people, you don’t need anyone’s permission. Some people are going to tell you that you can’t take photos of private property, such as bank buildings and people’s houses. So long as you are on public property, you can.
This means that you can take photos in public libraries, museums, government buildings, from the street and anywhere else public. The only case where you can’t take pictures is if there’s a specific law that prevents such shooting.

You’re also allowed to take photos in private property that is open to public, such as shopping centers, malls, pubs, restaurants, etc. You will, however, have to stop if the owner/management ask you to. Sounds fair enough to me.
You don’t need a person’s consent to take their photo if they are in a public place. They do, however, have a reasonable right to privacy, so you can’t be intrusive if they’re in a private place, such as their own home.
This means that, if they’re walking down the street, you can take their photo. But you can’t peer through their living room window and start snapping.
The word “terrorism” is one that comes up far too often with photography in a public place, such as in the video below.
The truth is that it’s just used as a scare tactic to stop people from using their camera. Photography in a public place is not terrorist activity; the words should never be used for the sake of ‘security’, if you’re not breaking any laws.

Nobody can make you delete the photos you’ve already taken, even if you took them on private property without permission. Even a police officer would require a court order to take the camera off you if they’re not making an arrest.
A common situation where I’ve seen the above happen is at concert.
The venue can tell you that you don’t have permission to take photos. You should follow that rule as you’re on private property but they can’t then break further laws as a result. I’ve seen members of security delete photos and even take the camera away from the audience members.
That is technically theft and destruction of personal property: not just a legal case but a civil one too.
You don’t have to provide your ID to anyone (including security) unless they’re police officers in states/countries where the law dictates that you must.