When fortune cookie copy has to go through legal

Last Sunday I had the opportunity to shoot the Summer Hawaiian party for HeritageRadio.org. The party was hosted by Roberta’s Pizza in Bushwick, Brooklyn and featured great food and drinks from restaurants all over New York. Here are a few favorite shots from the day. All photos were taken with my dueling Fujis – the X100s and the XPro1.
Click on any of the clickable pictures to see them larger on Flickr.
Dan Delaney of Delaney BBQ and Briskettown
DJ Jack Inslee
You just never know.
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Here are a few wet-nosed friends who I met this week on the streets of New York.
All photos were taken with the Fuji X Pro1 35mm 1.4 lens except for the pit bull outside the coffee shop. That one was taken with the Fuji X100s.
Last night, the Internet promised New York an amazing once-in-a-lifetime glimpse at the Northern Lights. The lights haven’t been visible in NYC since the 1800s.
Given that I’m probably not going camping in northern Finland anytime soon, this was possibly my one shot at photographing the Aurora Borealis. So I drove an hour and a half up the Hudson River Valley to get away from the light pollution of Manhattan and hopefully get a clear view of the show.
I got to Cold Spring harbor just in time for dusk, and set up my camera on the Main Street pier. It was the perfect spot to catch the Aurora. The vivid green ribbons would dance across the tops of the mountains and reflect on the Hudson River. And you’d just get a hint of twinkling lights on the horizon from distant Newburgh.
I got my camera settings just so, fired off a few test shots and set up my folding chair. Voila. Just add magic.
9:00 came and went.
Then 10.
Then 11.
Then midnight.
After obsessive compulsively checking Accuweather, NOAA, NASA and (desperately) Twitter for any signs that we might see the Northern Lights, I finally gave up and packed in the gear The only light show I got to see was the Manhattan skyline coming into view after a long, dark ride home on the Palisades Parkway. Not a bad consolation prize.
For what it’s worth, I’m not sure the actual Northern Lights would have lived up to the photograph that I captured in my imagination while I sat and waited on the pier for four hours.
I hope you enjoy it:
On Sunday night I shot the ChefX event in the Hudson Valley for the Heritage Radio Network. I had lots of fun hanging out in the kitchen at the gorgeous Crimson Sparrow restaurant with 5 of the top chefs from the Berkshires as they turned out an amazing 5 course dinner.
One reason it was so fun? I got to test out my new Fuji X100s side-by-side with my trusty Canon 7D and see how they performed under the same conditions.
The short version: The Fujifilm X100s flambeed the Canon. In every possible way. I was expecting the Fuji to do better, but I was pretty shocked at how huge the gap was.
A few technical details and then I’ll get into the pretty pictures:
I shot the Fuji X100s on jpg, AF-S, Auto ISO with a minimum shutter speed of 1/125 and max ISO of 6400.
I shot the Canon with the 24-70 f 2.8 lens on RAW, auto ISO and slightly adjusted them in Lightroom to be more jpg-like. (I meant to to switch the Canon to JPG beforehand to make it more apples to apples, but forgot. So this is more apples to asian pears.)
Chef Bjorn Somlo of Nudel Restaurant in Lenox:
Canon 7D: 70mm, ISO 1000, f4, 1/100
Canon 7D: 70mm, ISO 1000, f4, 1/100 Detail
Fuji X100s: 23mm, ISO 6400, f4, 1/110 Detail (Straight out of camera)
Fuji X100s: 23mm, ISO 6400, f4, 1/110 (Straight out of camera)
Canon 7D: 24mm, ISO 3200, f3.5, 1/20 (Straight out of camera)
Canon 7D: 24mm, ISO 3200, f3.5, 1/20 Detail (Straight out of camera)
Fuji X100s: 23mm, ISO 6400, f4, 1/17 (Straight out of camera)
Fuji X100s: 23mm, ISO 6400, f4, 1/17 Detail (Straight out of camera)
Here are a few more favorites from the night. Edited in Lightroom, Nik Color Efex Pro and/or Nik Silver Efex Pro
Chef Bjorn Somlo of Nudel Restaurant in Lenox:
Fuji X100s: 23mm, ISO 2500, f 2.8, 1/125
Fuji X100s: 23mm, ISO 3200, f 4, 1/125
Fuji X100s: 23mm, ISO 6400, f 5.6, 1/120
Fuji X100s: 23mm, ISO 4000, f4, 1/125
L to R Chef John McCarthy III of The Crimson Sparrow, Chef Bjorn Somlo of Nudel Restaurant and Chef Brian Alberg of The Red Lion Inn.
Fuji X100s: 23mm, ISO 6400, f4, 1/45
Canon 7D: 52mm, ISO 3200, f3.5, 1/100
Chef Brian Alberg of The Red Lion Inn.
Fuji X100s, 23mm, ISO 1600, f5.6, 1/125
Fuji X100s, 23mm, ISO 400, f2.0, 1/30
Quick shot from the commute home last week. I was just screwing around and shooting from the hip with the new Fuji X100s to see what I’d get. Most of the shots were terrible, as tends to happen when you’re not actually looking through the viewfinder to see what you’re shooting. But this one is just gorgeous. I’m sure I wouldn’t have gotten it this perfectly if I was trying to frame it. Sometimes its better to be a lucky photographer than a good photographer.