“Urbex”, an ugly label shortening Urban Exploration, must be done following good practices with respect for people and their properties.

Here a little story about ethic and friendship.

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This image won an Honorable Mention at the 14th Black and White Spider Awards in 2019.

See you next week!

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Some years ago, after I started using the X-Pro1, I wrote an article saying you were one step away from my dream camera. Partially you satisfied me with the firmware options of the X-Pro2 but still something is missing for me. I am satisfied, I sold all my Canon and I have no regrets but a tilt and shift wide angle. But something is missing from my ideal small format camera, not in the quality of the images produced but in the handling.

So here my hopes for the X-Pro3 to make it the perfect camera for me and I’m sure a lot of other users. The most important is the last, so keep reading.

First of all, keep the hybrid viewfinder. It is the essence of the X-Pro series and I really don’t get why people happy just with the EVF don’t buy the X-E or the X-T…

Second, keep the ISO/Shutter speed dial exactly as it is. A lot of old dinosaurs like me love it. It is what we were used to and what we really like.

Third, find a way to put a lock on the diopters dial. It really sucks when it changes taking the camera out of the bag.

Fourth, when I press MENU I want it only on the back LCD… I hate to have to change the view mode to adjust parameters! On this I have the doubt that is already possible to set somewhere… in case, my fault.

For all the rest I have enough trust in you to improve all the parameters of the image and I’m really happy with what I have. So no suggestions here, I do not need millions of ISO, eventually I would love very low ISO like 12 to use wide apertures in the sun. I do not need to make movies and so on. I need a camera to take images. And I need it simple.

So FIFTH, BUT MOST IMPORTANT, please add a switch so I can turn on the camera on a personalized setting without looking at the menus.
It can be a third option on the on/off switch, as it was on an old Pentax… sorry, I do not remember the model.

The position must be OFF, ON and USER.

On the user settings I dream to be able to choose what buttons and dials to keep active or turn off. Something that can be done now via menus.

For example I would love to make inactive the exposure compensation dial, all the buttons on the back, excluded the play button, and keep active only the front OVF/EVF switch, ISO and Shutterspped.
Nothing else for me personally for 90% of the photographs I take, but I would love to be able to set my preferences with a switch, not having to use a menu every single time.
I want to turn on the camera and know I have not to worry about anything but ISO, Shutter speed and aperture.
I want to be sure I did not forgot other settings hidden in menus from a previous shooting.
I really would love that switch.

For the other 10% of pictures I will use the standard ON mode.

Dear Fujifilm, if you insert an User switch I will really be a very, very, very happy man! Ok… just camera happy… but I do not suppose the reader is a shrink or willing to donate me 10 million dollars so I limit myself to this matter…

I’m tired, with all the digital cameras not only Fuji, I always have to check tons of parameters and go thru menus and sub-menus just to check if I forgot something.

I want a simple camera. I know a lot of people want a camera that will also make coffee, but is not me and not a lot of other people. With a switch to turn on the camera with the user settings we decided, everyone will be happy. They can even set the USER mode just for the coffee if they like it. It will be the perfect personalized camera, also a good starting point for the modular concept you are developing for the GFX.

It will be easy to go back and forth from a personalized setting and a generic one, for that percent of pictures requiring unusual settings. And mostly will be easy to go back and avoid mistakes thanks to forgotten parameters in the previous shooting.

Please, please, please, dear Fujifilm, make me camera happy!
And in case there is, between the readers, a good shrink or a billionaire willing to donate… I do not matter more happiness in my life!

BTW, if you wonder about my mental status when I think about the USER switch, I have found the perfect scene from a movie to describe it. It is from What About Bob?, a very fun movie..

Digital or Film? Fuji Acros Digital on a XPro-2 compared to Fuji Acros 100 Film on Hasselblad 6×6… who will be the winner?

Few weeks ago I did a non scientific comparison between black and white digital and film, using my beloved Fuji XPro-2 and a Pentax 67 with Ilford FP4.

The article got a lot of interest and was also published on Fuji X Passion magazine.

I decided to improve the test and use Fujifilm Neopan Acros 100 film, instead of Ilford FP4 and Hasselblad instead of Pentax. The use of actual Acros film instead of Ilford is obvious and needed for a less casual comparison. Hasselblad instead of Pentax is because I suspected some lack of sharpness was caused by the lenses, and since I have used Hasselblad all my life and I’m sure were the best analogue medium format camera and optics, I simply wanted to eliminate every variable related to the lens.

As I said before:

• I know that, scanning the negative, part of the process is still digital so is not perfect
• I do not intend to give all the answers
• I did this just for fun and to understand myself a little better

How did it go this time and who won? Not easy questions!

Technical premise, the Fujifilm Neopan Acros 100 film was developed in Ilfotec HC 1+47 for 8 minutes at 20C, after a 3 minutes prewash in water, and followed by a stop bath and 4 minutes fixing in Ilford Hypam 1+4.
In the image captions there are the specific data for each image.

I started in a snowy day, with absolute flat light and no real highlights in the scenes. The opposite of what I did in the previous test. It was not really a choice, but it was snowing and I wanted to do it anyway… yes, I would rather be in Florida than in the Italian Alps… and not just for the weather!

Fuji Acros 100 – Hasselblad 500 C/M with 80mm f 2.8 – Exposed at 1/60 f 8

First image, a fountain with the church in the background. When I arrived I looked around and thought “1/60 f8” then I took my Minolta Spotmeter and measured the light, exactly 1/60 f8.
I was with Gian Cerato, a dear friend and colleague and asked him what he imagined was the exposure and he told me “1/125 f5.6” and we laughed about the simplicity of film photography. No matter if the best quality is on digital or film, film have the simplicity on its side, once you set the ISO with the film choice there are just shutter speed and aperture that can be set with the old rule 1/ISO at f16 for a sunny day… the table found on every film box!

Please, note the stupidity of Italian bureaucracy that put a bar code for the water service on the fountain… an old fountain with a stupid and ugly white placard very visible from the best point of view. I avoid further comments to not get in jail…

As soon as I took the picture with film, I got my XPro-2 and kept the same settings. Last time I noticed that I always had very underexposed images, even in RAW, if I used the setting from the meter, so I decided to use the Fuji 200 ISO as if it was a 100 ISO to give that stop of overexposure needed in my previous experiment.
Now the image came out one stop overexposed, so I had to trash the jpg and use the RAW and correct one stop… All started to sound strange…

Fuji XPro2 with 35mm f1.4 – 1/60 f8 ISO200 – In camera conversion ACROS simulation

Fujifilm XPro-2 with 35mm f1.4 – 1/60 f8 – RAW transformed in CaptureOne 11

CaptureOne 11 has not the Acros simulation… so no comparison here, but I learned a lesson: something was going on in the camera.  The base ISO did not seem to be constant and I was sure the ISO were set to 200 and not Auto.

So in another location I was more careful on checking the histogram and evaluate the exposure.

Fujifilm Acros 100 with Hasselblad 500C/M and 80mm f2.8 – Exposed at 1/60 f11

As usual the exposure was perfect with film. With digital I corrected a stop for the difference in ISO and came out almost perfectly exposed.

Fujifilm XPro-2 with 35mm f1.4 – Exposed at 1/125 f11 ISO 200 – Acros simulation, in camera jpg

The tonal rendition is really perfect, the differences between the film and digital simulation are very minimum and can depend more on the developer used than on the film and simulation parameters.

I was positively surprised. Fuji really did an awesome job with the ACROS simulation.

We can see very similar results in the other pictures following. And still the XPro-2 set at 200 ISO continued to act properly as 200 ISO!

Hasellblad 500 c/m, 80mm f.28 – 1/60 11.5 Fuji Acros 100

Fujifilm XPro-2 with 35mm f1.4 – 1/125 f14 ISO 200 – Jpg from camera ACROS simulation

Hasellblad 500 c/m, 80mm f.28 – 1/60 8.5 Fuji Acros 100

Fujifilm XPro-2 with 35mm f1.4 – 1/125 f9 ISO 200 – Jpg from camera ACROS simulation

Hasellblad 500 c/m, 80mm f.28 – 1/60 f8 Fuji Acros 100

Fujifilm XPro-2 with 35mm f1.4 – 1/125 f8 ISO 200 – Jpg from camera ACROS simulation

Hasellblad 500 c/m, 80mm f.28 – 1/60 f8.5 Fuji Acros 100

Fujifilm XPro-2 with 35mm f1.4 – 1/125 f9 ISO 200 Jpg from camera ACROS simulation

For now all is good… exposure perfect using the same setting for film and digital just correcting for the ISO difference.

So I decided to take some pictures inside to test the sharpness and some higher contrast subject.

Hasellblad 500 c/m, 80mm f.28 – 20sec. f8 Fuji Acros 100

Fujifilm XPro-2 with 35mm f1.4 – 22sec. f8 Jpg from camera ACROS simulation

As usual the film excels in the highlights but this time, with the Zeiss 80mm and Acros instead of FP4 the sharpness is the same as you can see in the 100% enlargement.

Hasellblad 500 c/m, 80mm f.28 – 20sec. f8 Fuji Acros 100 – 100% enlargement

Fujifilm XPro-2 with 35mm f1.4 – 22sec. f8 Jpg from camera ACROS simulation – 100% enlargement

You can read the book covers in both images, and the 100% scan of the film with the Imacon 848 is actually 7400px wide vs. the 6000px of the Xpro-2

At this point I will be curious to test a medium format digital camera (Fujifilm? Pentax? PhaseOne?) against a 4×5″ film.

In my mind I was sure a medium format film was superior to a 24MP aps-c camera regarding linear resolution. I was wrong.

On the next picture I went very high contrast, and again I noticed underexposure on the Fuji XPro-2. The details in the highlight disappear and the shadow become dark, closed. Using the RAW the highlights can be recovered and the dark tones opened up, but the JPG is kind of dark and high contrast compared to the film.

Hasellblad 500 c/m, 80mm f.28 – 2 sec f8 Fuji Acros 100

Fujifilm XPro-2 with 35mm f1.4 – 1sec f9 Jpg from camera ACROS simulation

I had the confirmation that the sensor sensibility was acting strange.

I reread the manual and found nothing useful but… the Dynamic Range settings. I was on Auto, not on a fixed setting. I will have to do some test with also the highlights compensation turned off. Basically I discovered I did not spend the right time to know the camera and test it. RTFM repeated to myself as a mantra… in this case the XPro-2 F manual not mine “Photography: The f Manual“!!

I turned the Dynamic Range to ISO100 and did some other tests, this time in a sunny day and using the Hasselblad 903 SWC, to have a situation similar to the pictures I took in the previous comparison with the Pentax 67 and the 45mm.

Hasselblad 903 SWC – 1/125 f8.5 – Fujifilm Acros 100

Fuji XPro-2 with 16mm f2.8 – 1/250 f9 – Jpg from camera with ACROS film simulation

Still in the digital version we have problems with the highlights and the shadows are a little dark, basically a lot of contrast, but now the medium grey area are exposed correctly. This happens also with the RAW. So I suppose that the Dynamic Range settings changes the ISO sensibility of the sensor, lowering it when there are high contrasts in the scene to try to preserve the highlights.

But, no matter what is done, the highlights always get burned, it’s a problem of the sensor saturation. Film is much more tolerant, and I have to say I love this tolerance.

Now with less contrast in the scene… all is perfect again.

Fujifilm XPro-2 with 14mm f2.8 – 1/250 f11 Jpg from camera ACROS simulation

Hasselblad 903 SWC – 1/125 f11 – Fujifilm Acros 100

If you want to see more pictures let me know and I will do a second part of this article and show the other pictures.

But this is enough for my non scientific conclusion.

• Medium format Acros film on Hasselblad has basically the same resolution of the XPro-2.
• The Fuji lenses are absolutely superb, at the level of Zeiss/Hasselblad!
• Digital sensors sucks in the highlights, even underexposing and recovering the shadows form the RAW file, still there is a sensor saturation that cuts and blows up the sun and similar highlights.
• The tones can be the same in digital and film, is a matter of settings.
• Fujifilm did an impressive job creating the ACROS film simulation.
• All the settings in the digital cameras are a pain in the neck (I wanted to be polite lol)

As personal consideration, I really love both results.
Film for me is simple and I dream of a digital camera without settings except for the ISO/aperture/shutter speed. Nothing more, no display, menus, dynamic range etc. Just a RAW on a memory card and nothing more. But I dream… I know!

I also noticed that, even doing a comparison, when I take the film camera in my hands I already know what I want to photograph, the almost exact point of view and camera settings, with digital I tend to find the picture in the viewfinder and at the end I take always more than one picture. I do not like the digital attitude and I cannot keep the film attitude with a digital camera in my hands. This is my problem, nobody forces me to not use the digital as a film camera!

As soon as I had the Hasselblad in my hands I felt at home for two reasons.
First of all the cameras were so simple, well designed and all similar so was easy to get used to them. With digital I spent the same years than I spent shooting film, but each brand and model is different, with different controls, different menus and too many things to remember. After the first reading of the Hasselblad manual I never opened it again, with digital I need the manual in the bag because every time there is something I do not remember, and yes, supposedly, I can setup the camera and use it as an analogue camera… but then I do not know why but something changes, can be a button pushed in the bag or while I take the camera out, but I had the image proportion changed, the level disappeared, the usual exposure compensation or the diopters correction. At least the ISO are easy on the XPro-2! I know many people hate that ISO dial, I love it!

The second reason is that I love the square format, I’m ok with a rectangular like the 4×5″ or 6x7cm, it is not too much rectangular, but the square is my preferred format. The 3:2 proportion of the 135 full frame or the Aps-C, it is too rectangular for me. It does not reflect my vision.
So, as soon as I took the Hasselblad, I felt connected again, the camera was just a natural extension of my eyes.

I would love to try some medium format digital, to compare it with a 4×5 film and to see if a less rectangular sensor will make me feel again more connected with the camera.

After this comparisons and using again my old working tools I decided how I want the digital camera of my dreams:

• Square format
• No LCD
• Only RAW files produced
• Nothing more than ISO/Aperture/Shutter settings
• In the viewfinder simply exposure data, a grid, the level and the histogram
• Diopter correction and compensation dials, if present, with a lock on them!
• No other settings, I want a sensor that will always have the ISO I choose and always responds in the same way
• A battery lasting at least 3 years!!!

Again, I know I’m dreaming… but dreams are free so why not?!

After this test I’m sure I will continue to use both digital and film. Film photography gives me the pleasure of the mental process, digital the easy “development”.

My next step, as soon as I will have the time, will be to test deeply the Fuji XPro-2 to understand the sensor limits and the effects of the settings also on the RAW format. I imagined that the RAW was not influenced by the various settings, it was my mistake.

All this said, I still love the XPro-2… just, as I said in a previous article… please let me deactivate all the buttons and the &#@%^#* compensation dial via firmware!!! Please Fuji… listen to me… that compensation dial is a pain!!!

I was impressed by this picture:

© Swiss National Museum

The picture in itself is just a good documentary photograph but what I noticed is the dynamic range (or latitude of exposure as we called it before we were trendy…).

We can easily see details in the dark areas inside the gallery and we can see the details in the panorama toward the arches.

Some burning was made in the darkroom and the effect is visible, but all the details were in the original plate.

This was for sure a large format plate made before the industrialization by Kodak, so there was no need to save on the quantity of silver in the emulsion.

You can see the same latitude of exposure in almost all the old professional pictures well exposed and developed. If you are in Italy there are some good places to watch the impressive quality and dynamic range of old films the Alinari Archive is one of the best and has a lot of publications.

The rule in film was to expose for the shadows and develop for the lights, exactly the opposite of what we do with digital cameras.

The response curve of the film had a very wide shoulder where the highlights, ~3 stops more than the medium gray, were compressed but still available to bring them out with some burning in the print.

As we can see in the photograph of the example, where there is a very bright sun lighting the scene and the mountains, sometime the dynamic range was more than we can have now with the most modern digital cameras.

In digital cameras the curve is linear, it means that we have correct exposure with the right separation until we reach the point of saturation where everything is cut out. There is some good area to play with the shadows and bring out the dark areas.

But the point is that looking at this picture I do not need more. Let me explain, 99% of photographers now days, in a similar situation, will do an HDR to bring out all the details of the gallery, almost if it was illuminated, but I do not need the details. There are enough details in the picture to show that the gallery was dig in nude rock without any concrete refinement.
The sense of black darkness is exactly what we feel entering a gallery with opening that let the sun illuminate part of it and create a strong contrast.

The widest area of the image is pretty black, falling in what Ansel Adams defined as Zone 0 and I, and that is perfect for that picture.
With digital and HDR we tend to flatten everything and limit the darks and highlights to a small or no part of the picture.

Some years ago I took the pictures you can see below, I suppose with a Canon 1DS mkIII. I particularly like this picture and I submitted it to some contests, every time I heard complains for lack of details in the shadows… but is exactly how I like the image, the sun was strong, my eyes were adapting at the sun and I did not perceived every detail in the shadows but just enough to feel it.  I made a version with all perfectly visible HDR style… I simply did not liked it because was not the feeling of that morning.

The fun part of this details everywhere mania is that while most modern pictures are judged positively by the absence of Zones 0 and I, people is going crazy for film B&W simulation in their cameras!

Fujifilm has developed the film simulation modes in its cameras. People love the ACROS, a simulation of the B&W film made by Fuji. I have to admit is a great setting to use. I see why a lot of photographers are in love for it and I think the reason is very simple: the file will be a jpg with limited option for manipulating and the curve used to create it is more similar to film than the linear curve of a digital sensor. If you use the ACROS simulation you will have all the zones, included the 0 and I.
With RAW we are always tempted to bring out a lot of details also when we do not need them.

I see contests where the winners use so much Photoshop to make the image surreal and then I listens to the stupor of people watching photographs made more than hundred years ago and I see the success of film simulation modes.

One of the greatest revolution made by Fuji with the X series was to bring us back to the basics of photography. Fuji did it with a camera design that let us use in an easy way aperture, shutter speed, ISO and nothing else, and they did it again with the film simulation modes in the camera.

Don’t get me wrong, I love HDR and all the possibilities of digital cameras, but sometime I think we have to look back at pictures taken more than hundred years ago and rediscover photography forgetting all the extra tools we now have available. A great way to do that is to put the ACROS mode on your Fuji X and have fun with that.

The world is divided in two… always, that is why there is people making a lot of money selling t-shirts for opposite points of view!

The users of mirrorless camera are not different, photographers loving the optical viewfinder and photographers loving the electronic viewfinder and hating each other.

Since Fujifilm introduced the hybrid viewfinder with the X100 and the XPro we can have the best of both worlds and decide what to use for every picture.
It is surprising for me to see, on various blog posts and comments, Fuji users hoping to have a future release of those cameras without one or the other option when Fuji made the most intelligent move leaving the choice to us. But this is not the point of this article, here I want to concentrate on what I think is the philosophical difference between the OVF and EVF.

Personally, on my Fuji XPro1 I use both but mostly the OVF.

When we look at an EVF we look at the camera representation of the subject on a display, when we use the OVF we look at the framed reality. Basically people that like to preview and create the image in their mind before taking the picture prefer the OVF, people that like to see the world as is seen by the camera choose the EVF.

The mental process is very different. Seasoned photographers that learned to shoot with film are not very influenced in their mental workflow by the camera because they formed it before the existence of the displays, but younger photographers are forming their workflow based on what the camera offers.

Saint Pierre Castle, Aosta Italy. Linhof Master Technika 4×5 with Ilford FP4

The EVF shows the picture with the dynamic range, color balance and contrast of the camera, and gives to us a filtered scene. With the EVF we are looking at a display and the image is already done, we can take it but we do not make it because we are no more looking at the reality and having feeling and emotions created by the real moment.

The dynamic range of reality can be 100,000:1, the best displays can give 400:1 and a print is around 100:1. The art of photography is not only composition but also to interpret the reality so we can communicate the feeling of the very high light differences and the very subtle shades on a medium with a very limited dynamic range.
The same applies for the color gamut and contrast.
Looking at a display or EVF we limit ourselves to its specific characteristics.

Some time ago I was watching the sunset from a pier, I step few feet back from the railing and observed all the people, specially young, looking at the sunset in their smartphone, ready to click every few seconds. They forgot the reality around, what they were watching was a limited frame of reality interpreted by their phone.
There were two groups of teenagers, one males and the other females, spring, beach warm weather and small swimwear at the age when hormones are crazy and they were so concentrated to watch the sunset in the display and share the moment on the social media with their distant friends that they forgot to look around at each other, share the moment with the real people, smile, know each other and have the option to meet and perhaps fall in love!

I see the same limit in the images created by the display/EVF extremists, they forget the reality and what can make a picture great just because is out of the frame or out of the characteristics of the display. This is absolutely evident in prints because the image is not taken thinking at the final printed result but the click is created on the display. You see the images in small size on the social media and are very good, when printed become ugly and boring with a lot of defects and the limits of the display transferred to the print.

Personally I use the OVF to frame the image I had in my mind watching the reality and I use the EVF only sometime to check some parameters as the histogram or the precise composition in case of situations that can procure a parallax problem.

My preference come form the way I learned to photograph with film and my preferred cameras: Linhof Master Technika and Hasselblad SWC. Both of them had an external viewfinder I used to frame the subject and there was not a way to see the final image until the film was developed and printed.
My usual workflow was to walk in the scene, look around from many different point of view, than get the viewfinder from my pocket (yes was detachable from the camera) to refine my choice with the angle of view of the lenses I had in the bag and only then taking the camera off the bag and positioning it in the right place.

Grandparents kitchen, Occimiano, Italy. Hasselblad SWC with Ilford HP5 film

With the Fuji my workflow is the same, just more comfortable in size, weight and speed.

The average person spends 4 hours a day on internet watching at their computer or smartphone display. Photographers now spend a lot of time watching a display to elaborate pictures. We are modifying ourself to adapt to a display and a virtual reality. As photographer we are looking to produce images that will be good on the social media and will produce a lot of “like”.

The mental process used to create photographies is changing and images are no more created by the mind and sensibility of the photographer but by the camera. Blog articles and tutorials talking about the tools get more views and likes than articles and videos talking about the philosophical and aesthetic aspects.
Take a look at the B&H Youtube channel (I love their event space and the quality of the speakers and content!) a lesson of Sam Abell, one of the best photographer and speaker that made a very inspiring class, has around 22 thousands views in 11 months, the first look at different tools have more than 40 thousand views in 2 or 3 months. If we look at less known speakers (most of the time equally interesting) the difference is even wider.

My suggestion for the new “always digital” photographers is simple: sometime use the OVF, cover the display and take pictures in the old school way. You will improve, discover a real world and make your life better, and perhaps you will be able to see the woman/man close to you looking the sunset and exchange a real smile.

Infrared with X Pro 1

I always enjoyed infrared photography, starting with the Kodak Infrared film I always had great satisfaction exploring the infrared part of the spectrum.

When I switched to digital photography I forgot infrared for a while until I got my Canon 5D converted to infrared by LifePixel. The conversion was great, the support was perfect but when the camera was sent back to Italy the italian customs asked me to pay the taxes not only on the modification but also on the value of the camera. At the end of the game I had to spend around 700 Euros for a conversion that costs usually $300.

I decided to convert a Fujifilm X Pro 1 to infrared and this time I decided to try to do it myself buying the filter directly in Italy from Adriano Lolli Costruzioni Ottiche Meccaniche and avoiding all the import costs.

The choice of the X Pro 1 was very simple. I had bought a new X Pro 1 with the 18mm when the new model came around, I did it because was really a great deal (450 Euros included an extra battery, a memory card and the leather bag, since than the price went up a lot and I see now X Pro 1 new body only around 700 Euros on the net). I bought the camera as a “toy” to keep with me always, just to have a light camera comfortable in my pockets. It turned out I really love the camera. The quality of the images is absolutely great, the optics are very sharp and as I was used in the past with the Hasselblad SWC or the Linhof Technica I have again an optical viewfinder and I love it. The optical viewfinder (with the option to check with the EVF) brought me back to a more rational way to look at the subject, I have to think the image and not just watch it on a display and this fits perfectly my style.

As filter I went for a standard 720nm filter. I use it only for black and white and there is still some color that can be used in post processing to enhance some areas and make masks.

So I had some free time and decided to buy a used X Pro 1 and convert it to Infrared. The advantage of an infrared mirrorless over a DSLR is that the focusing and the exposure are measured directly by the sensor, so the focus shift does not affect the autofocus and the exposure is calculated correctly also in auto modes. If you were used to infrared film, guessing the focus on the lens red dot and the exposure based on the feeling of the sun on your skin, you can understand that the option of everything automatic seems like a paradise!

To have an idea of what the project involved I followed the DIY instruction on Life Pixel website. The instruction are pretty detailed and miss just few details. My initial idea was to buy a camera with the viewfinder glass broken, but when I saw it got sold on ebay for few bucks less than a working one in perfect conditions I went with the working one. Since I imagined to have to repair the viewfinder glass and I had no idea if the task was easy or complex, I bought online for $12 the X Pro 1 service and repair manual. It was worth the money!

In the DIY instructions on Life Pixel there are few things missing.

The first is that there are some elements between the sensor and the sensor support, they have different thickness and quantities and must be removed and reinserted in the same exact position because are used to align the sensor perfectly to the focal plane.

The second problem is that when you arrive at the step when you are supposed to unscrew the sensor there is a screw not accessible and covered by the viewfinder support so the viewfinder must be removed.

Third It’s easier to remove the speaker from his place than to desolder the cables.

Fourth and most important, I did not desoldered the anti dust glass but simply flipped it to the right with the sensor and I was able to put it together again.

Fifth, if you have a 1mm IR filter you can detach the old seal from the original filter, very carefully (!!!) and reattach it on your IR filter. In this way you can have the anti dust system working perfectly.

The steps to do this were almost all easy except for the desoldering and soldering.

I had to disassemble the camera first to take the measures of the original anti IR filter because the supplier did not have them. So after I disassembled the camera I had to place all the elements in clean plastic bags (the one used to freeze food are perfect) and wait a week before I had the new filter.

I was afraid to forget the correct place for the screw so I used a method learned from Wheeler Dealers where the mechanic, Ed China, used it for engine parts. It is very simple, just take a piece of paper and draw a simple scheme of the parts you are disassembly, for example the back of the camera, draw a spot correspondent to the position of the screws, do a little hole in it with a cutter and when you take off a screw insert it in the paper. In this way you will remember exactly where every single screw needs to be and you will not loose them. All the papers with the screw inserted can be put in order in a box, when you mount back the camera just take the papers in order and it’s done! And you will be able to do the reverse process also after months.

To be sure to have no dust stuck between the sensor and the IR filter I cleaned all my desk perfectly and waited rainy days, very humid both for disassembling and assembling so there was less dust flying around.

I was very surprised when I tested the camera and I found no dust at all on the sensor, or better I found some dust but was on the outside part and went away with a simple cleaning.

And… when you reassemble the camera check twice to have reattached all the connectors or you will have do do as I did… disassemble agin few parts and insert the connection you forgot!

Since I decided also to change the skin of the Fuji with some more fun red leather I was not very careful to preserve the original leather. I used the skin bought from Aki-Asahi Camera Covers, very easy to use following the instructions on their website and the final result seems to be appreciated by a lot of people. I sure like it!

To complete I found on Amazon a red thumb support and I bought from PrintArteMagazine the Sailor Strap.

I do all the postproduction with CaptureOne 9 and there are no problems for the white balance as with other software. You can see here a tutorial on how to use CaptureOne for infrared photography, and you can download a trial version form the PhaseOne website and if you like it you can use the coupon code AMBBARBANO to get a 10% discount on it.

I tested on the IR camera the 18mm and really is not usable for the center hotspot, the 14mm and it is absolutely perfect, the Samyang 12mm f 2.0 and is not usable at all. I played also with an old Pentax 50mm 1.4 that is working well and the Hasselblad 80mm that is perfect.

The total cost for the operation, included the camera, was around 350 Euros. The satisfaction to not have to pay to the customs some money I did not owe to them because the camera was already mine and not imported… it has no price!

Below you can see a 5 minutes video of my Fuji X Pro 1 conversion.