Choosing The X-T2 For An Unusual Photo Shoot (For Me) Ensured Success

Typical example of images from event.  My 4-year-old granddaughter Emilie is in the middle.  (click to enlarge)
X-T2, 50-140mm f/2.8 lens + 1.4x tele-converter @ 167 mm (254mm-e), 1/250th sec. @ f/4 (wide open); ISO 4000
No noise reduction has been added.  About 1/4 of the image has been cropped out in this example.

As most of you know, these days I'm primarily a travel, nature and landscape photographer.  On occasion, I will go out with some photographer friends and try to shoot some wildlife.  I've had what I would call moderate success.  With any photographic endeavor, if you don't practice you just don't develop and maintain the necessary skills to be good.  That applies to pretty much any activity.

Landscape, nature and travel represent my primary photographic repertoire for the past several years.  However, as the designated "family photographer" I'm often tasked with photographing family events.  I am always asked to "take pictures" at family birthdays, graduations, holiday gatherings, etc.  In my distant past, as the photographer for a city government, I did photograph events regularly, so those skills come back to me relatively easily.  Now taking this one step farther, over the weekend my daughter asked me to photograph our two older granddaughters performing in their annual dance recital.  That kind of event stretches my abilities to a level beyond comfort.  After all, I can't mess up an important event like this, can I?

The venue was a high school auditorium to which I had never been.  So, I didn't have any idea how good or bad the lighting would be—brightness or color temperature.  I didn't know the size of the auditorium.  I didn't have an idea of where I would be allowed to set up my tripod and camera.  I didn't know anything about this place and I had no way to scout it out ahead of time.  Time to problem solve and cover my bases before the event.

Immediately, I decided to take my Fuji X-T2 for several reasons.  First, being sure the light level would be low (small town high school stage lighting), I knew the X-T2 would handle the high ISO with minimal digital noise.  Second, I was almost sure I would have to shoot wide open either on my 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 or 50-140mm f/2.8 lens and I know from my own experience that those two lenses are very sharp, even wide open.  Third, I knew it would be pitch black in the back of the auditorium so I would need to be able to manipulate the camera settings intuitively.  There would be no opportunity to turn on a light to find or change a setting.   I'm glad I chose my X-T2 as, in the end,  it performed marvelously for me and I was able to capture some good images of my granddaughters.

When we arrived, I found myself back about 75 ft. from the stage.  The lighting was horrible, as expected.  It was uneven from one side of the stage to another.  Spotty instead of even.  I put on the 100-400mm lens but it was just a bit too long on the wide end as I couldn't capture the entire stage when the dancers would be spread across it.  I then switched to my 50-140mm f/2.8 lens and also attached my 1.4x tele-converter. Perfect.  I could zoom out and see the entire stage and I could zoom in and capture a single dancer, if needed.

The first thing I wanted to determine was my shutter speed, aperture and ISO.  I thought 1/250th of a second would be a good compromise speed and should stop all but the fastest movement of the dancers.  If I went any faster, the ISO would have to be even higher and I was trying to keep that at a reasonable level.  And, if there was a bit of blur of the girls' extremities as they moved and twirled, that could be a good "creative" effect. The aperture would be wide open.  In this case, f/4.  As for ISO, the setting that looked about right was ISO 4000.

Another example.  My 7-year-old granddaughter Hannah in center.  (click to enlarge)
X-T2, 50-140mm f/2.8 lens + 1.4x tele-converter @ 196 mm (297mm-e), 1/250th sec. @ f/4 (wide open); ISO 2500
No noise reduction has been added.  About 1/4 of the image has been cropped out in this example.

The second problem to solve was white balance.  The curtain at the rear of the stage was black so I should be able to adjust my white balance successfully.  Now, just what color were those old stage lights.  This was not some Broadway theater, but a small town high school with a limited budget. With the Fuji, the solution was easy.  Look at my LCD, go to the white balance settings, specifically to the Kelvin temperature settings, then scroll down until I was close.  When I hit the most appropriate Kelvin temperature setting, I noticed the black curtain still had a magenta cast.  So, I dialed in some green to neutralize the color cast.  Easy! Perfect!  The white balance feature on a mirrorless camera is a life saver!

Next, decide upon single AF or continuous AF.  Also, a single focus point or the multiple focus points.  I decided, in fact, to try several combinations as there were thirty or so dances and I would be able to experiment and not miss anything important.  My granddaughters were only in 5 or 6 of the dances and I could experiment with focus adjustments and parameters on the other dances.

Cropped to about 1/4 of the original image (click to enlarge)

A few issues arose during my photography (in total darkness) that the X-T2's intuitive and easy to find controls allowed me to easily solve.  For example, I realized that the couple sitting directly in front of where I was standing might be annoyed by the sound of my mechanical shutter firing away during the performances.  As I have one of my function buttons set to change shutters, it was easy for me to quickly switch to the electronic (meaning totally silent) shutter.  Voila!  No more noise.  In short, I was able to change any setting I needed to change without ever taking my eye from the viewfinder.  Whether it was to use the "joystick" to have my focus point follow the dancers back and forth across the stage, adjust the ISO, change focus settings, or change from S-AF to C-AF or back again, I didn't stumble once in immediately finding and changing the needed setting. That is superior design and engineering with the end user in mind.

Let me list the reasons why I feel the camera allowed me to achieve success more easily.


I was able to set my exposure by the over all look of the image on the LCD or in the EVF, being able to double check it with the in-EVF histogram.  I would have to continuously chimp if I had been using my previous DSLR.

I was able to set and see custom white balance directly on my LCD or EVF.  No need to guess if it was dead on or even slightly off color.  That makes a difference in providing JPEGs to others.

(click to enlarge)

Later in the performance, when some of the dancers came out in bright white dance costumes, I quickly noticed the histogram showed the bright white costumes would be blown out.  With the histogram in viewfinder, I was able to continuously monitor spread of tones and then adjust ISO as necessary to prevent any blowout of highlights.  This is extremely important as with a DSLR I would never have known the bright white tutus and costumes would have blown out all the highlights at ISO 4000.  I lowered the ISO while looking at the histogram (to reduce over all exposure) and ensure I kept those dresses and costumes properly exposed.  Again, with my Nikons I know that I would not have realized the difference and not have made the necessary changes.  I would have been hoping the highlights were recoverable later in editing.

My X-T2, being a mirrorless camera which focuses off the front of the sensor with phase detect focus points, gave me additional confidence that my images would be in proper focus.  DSLRs have a separate focusing system built-in that can be slightly off resulting in less than optimum focus.  Trust me I know.  When I had my last two big full frame Nikons, a D800E and a D810, I had to buy software to test and correct for minor focusing errors in the system.  All of my lenses needed to be tweaked.  Every one of them.  I'm talking about the really expensive Nikon trinity f/2.8 zooms, not inexpensive lenses.  The nature of how a DSLR is designed and engineered allows variation in camera/lens focus performance while a mirrorless camera focuses directly off the front of the sensor.

The Fuji lenses are really sharp,  even wide open and even with 1.4x tele-converter attached.  Previously I had tested mine for performance so I had a high level of confidence in what results I could expect.

Again, a cropped image. (click to enlarge)

The ISO 4000 noise was minimal.  I was able to reduce it to the point where it was either gone or so unobtrusive that it didn't matter.

My battery usage was excellent.  It was not a concern as I had the power grip attached which gave me three batteries in series.  After over 1800 exposures, one grip battery was at 20% charge remaining (as shown in my Watson digital dual battery charger), the second grip battery showed 95% charge remaining and the battery in the camera itself showed 100%.  Who can complain about those stats?

I was able to switch off the LCD panel on back of the camera (remember I was in total darkness with some audience members to the side and behind me so I didn't want my brightly lit LCD to disturb them.  All pertinent data I need to work is shown in the EVF. Wonderful!

I was able to easily find and change all settings without taking my eye away from the EVF in total darkness.  All settings, function, buttons, knobs etc., were exactly where I knew they would be.  No fumbling to make changes.  I would never have been able to do that on my Nikons nor could I do that on my Olympus E-M1 Mark II.  Thank goodness for Fuji's thoughtful engineering.

(click to enlarge)

I shot at 8 FPS.  I had no problem catching the peak action of the dancers.  I could have shot at a faster rate, but I thought 8 FPS was plenty fast for the subject matter.  My D810 shot at a maximum of 5 fps.  At 5 fps you can miss your shot.  I know that from experience.

I was able to experiment with both S-AF and C-AF.  I was also able to experiment with single point focus and zone focus.  How did they perform?  Is there an advantage in this particular circumstance for one over the other? 

Lessons learned.

Choosing the right tools for the job can make the difference between success, marginal success and failure.  It can make the difference between waking away satisfied you got the job done or disappointed.

Again, a larger single focus point locked on better than a smaller one.

The difference between using the single focus point and the zone focus was minimal. Without a detailed analysis (which I might do later), I tend to think the single focus point did a bit better.  Why?  Well, I tended to focus on the dancer in the front and middle.  In most dances, there were many girls dancing and there were more than one row of girls dancing on the stage.  Depth of field was limited and I had to choose where in the image I needed the most sharpness.  I chose where you eye would normally go—front and center.

With the zone focusing, I found that there were a few more misses as trying to follow the dancers around the stage would have many of the visible focus points on the black curtain in the background, making it harder to hit the right spot for focus.

I didn't really see a difference between S-AF and C-AF.  Both seemed to work well.  The only difference is keeping the shutter pressed halfway and pressing it and releasing it regularly to reacquire focus as the dancers moved.

(click to enlarge)

I wished that the "joystick" moved the focusing point(s) around the screen faster than it did.  Afterwards, the thought came to me that if I reduced the number of focus point from 325 to 91, it would move faster.  I'll have to keep that in mind for the future.

All in all, the Fuji X-T2 and how it is engineered and how it operates provided me with all of the tools to achieve success.  If there was a failure, it would have been mine as the camera and lenses were the best tools for the job at hand.

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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