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Supermoon – 2017
Super Moon I missed the full ‘Supermoon’, it was cloudy. Rather than not bother at all, I thought I’d try and capture it the following night.
The resulting image didn’t have the big jump in image quality I was expecting moving from the X-ES2 to the X-E3. In part, because the moon was further away (and therefore smaller) than when I took my original ‘Beaver Moon‘ picture last year. And also because it was darned cold and I rushed things — forgetting to turn off the image stabilizer, and not bothering to use a remote shutter release.
The interesting thing (for me) about this picture, is that the in-camera jpg image was better than anything I could reproduce from the raw image. This seems to be a trend with the new camera. I find myself deleting the Raw files and working with the much better (and smaller) jpgs the camera produces. In fact, I’ve even caught myself going back to the camera and getting it to recreate a jpg from the raw file when I’ve decided that slightly different processing is required.
I’m not sure if this says bad things about Lightroom or my processing skills. I think (hope) the former.
Supermoon. Inset: the full frame. 
Original Uncropped Supermoon image -
Installation of Fr. Jim Lile at All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Nevada
The Rev. Dr. James Lile, Jr. Rector of All Saints’ Episcopal Church Nevada, Missouri Sunday I went on a 200 mile round trip to Nevada, Missouri.
There I attended the installation of Jim Lile (or the Rev. Dr. James Lile, Jr. If you prefer) as rector at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Nevada. This was my second outing with the X-E3, and I was generally very pleased with the results. The above picture is another personal edit of what will be published as a color image. Below are a few more pictures from my trip.
I also got to meet up with my fellow expat friend Robert Smith – who sneaked a crafty picture of me at work. I’ll have to steal a copy and post it.
The Installation of the Rev. James Lile
The Installation of the Rev. James Lile
The Rev. James Lile’s first Eucharist as Rector at All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Nevada, Missouri.
The Rev. James Lile’s first Eucharist as Rector at All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Nevada, Missouri.
Image credit: Gary Allman
All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Nevada, Missouri
All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Nevada, Missouri
All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Nevada, Missouri
Altar – All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Nevada, Missouri
Altar – All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Nevada, Missouri -
Installation of Fr. Jos Tharakan at St. James’
My own processing of one of the pictures I took at last night’s installation of Fr. Jos Tharakan at St. James’. Copyright © 2017 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Tonight was the first run out for the X-E3. It was either a bold or a very dumb idea.
I’ve not taken any pictures with my new X-E3, apart from a few test shots, so it was a bit risky deciding to use it for photographing the installation of a new rector – Fr. Jos Tharakan at St. James’. I had every confidence in the camera, but not quite so much in my abilities with it.
The camera is fundamentally the same, but like British English and American English, it’s the subtle differences that can not only surprise you but also catch you out. Fortunately, nothing about the camera blindsided me. I did an excellent job of that by myself; I also decided to change the way I work. My theory was that I might as well get all the changes over in one go. So, I went from shooting with one zoom lens to using a couple of prime lenses. The advantages are smaller size, less weight, and much better low-light performance. The disadvantages are less “reach”, the 135mm zoom lens can work from the back of an average-sized church, and of course, now I have to change lenses, which also involves anticipating which lens is going to work best for different parts of the service. And that was the problematic bit.
I reverted to using the zoom for one set of photographs, where I’d have had to get right in the way to take the pictures I wanted, and earlier ‘test’ shots suggested that the primes just didn’t bring me close enough. Inevitably, it turns out that my favorite picture of the night (above) was taken with the zoom lens.
My other battle of the night was the lighting. I don’t know why, but someone had decided to light the nave with fairly under-powered daylight colored lights, at the same time retaining incandescent spots and lighting around the outside. The clash of the different light temperatures was a bit of a nightmare. Personally, I would not light a space with daylight colored lighting unless it is a workspace or display area. For example, I use daylight lighting in my office because I need to be able to see colors accurately and it makes photography easier, but not in our living areas. Daylight is also cold and uninviting.
Of course, the evening wasn’t about me, the color of the light, or my camera. My role was just to do my best at documenting the proceedings without getting in the way. The jury is still out on how successful I am at doing that when I’m using the primes. The problem is that I have to be a lot nearer to the action. For now I’m going to carry on working with the primes and review how it’s working after a while. If I can get good shots without being obtrusive it’ll be fine.
Putting my woes and photography to one side, it was a great service and evening.
Sunday afternoon I get to do it all again, only this time at All Saints’ in Nevada, Missouri.
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Lazy Camera Picture — Fujifilm Finepix F30
Fujifilm Finepix F30. Copyright © 2017 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. I guess it had to happen. I bought a new camera and the ol’ photo-mojo does a complete runner, and apart from some training/test shots I’ve not taken a picture with it.
This uninspired and lazy picture was taken on my desk. Lazy because if I was serious about it I’d have gone to the ‘photo closet‘, and set the camera up on a tripod so that I could get a good depth of field. Studying the picture more closely I would have also removed the hair stuck to the camera.
Whatever. This is my first digital camera — a Fujifilm F30 — bought in 2006. It’s been sitting on my ‘antique’ camera shelf for a year and a half now, and much to my surprise it still had a charge in the battery, and it works! I know it’s been on the shelf for that long because I looked at the pictures on the memory card — though it took me ten minutes to find a suitable USB cable so I could check.
Fujifilm Finepix F30. Copyright © 2017 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. The F30 still impresses me, it takes wonderful pictures. The wear on the shutter button shows how much it has been used. The picture quality, longevity, and customer support from Fujifilm was a major factor in my decision to buy my X-E2s and X-E3 cameras. Customer support because Fujifilm repaired it free of charge when I broke it by very stupidly getting water in it, totally my fault.
Just to prove it still works …
Taken with my Fujifilm Finepix F30. This is straight out of camera with just a tad of artistic vignette added in Lightroom. Copyright © 2017 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Link: Pictures taken with my Fuji Finepix F30
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New Camera — Fujiflm X-E3
FujiFilm X-E3 & Fujifilm X-E2s. Copyright © 2017 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. I love my Fujifilm XE2s.
In fact, I like it so much I could not resist investing in the Fujifilm X-E3, which while only slightly smaller, looks and feels a lot smaller — I included a quarter in the picture to show just how small these cameras are. The X-E3’s higher resolution sensor and improved lowlight handling should be very useful for a lot of the pictures I take. I’ve already uncovered a load of little ergonomic improvements that are really good. A frame around the image in the viewfinder so you can see where the image ends when shooting in the dark, the addition of a customizable menu, and RGB exposure histograms — complete with an overexposure warning.
I’ve spent the afternoon setting it up and generally playing with it. Now I’m looking forward to getting used to the E3 and learning how to get the best from it. Next weekend I’ll be using it for work — I’ve got a couple of new rector installations to photograph.
By-the-way, my X-E2s isn’t going anywhere, it will become Ginger’s studio camera replacing the trusty ten-year-old Nikon D40x which just keeps on going (and is what I used to take this picture).
Fujifilm X-E3 — First Impressions, and My experience vs Comments I’ve read
- It’s so small! I know it isn’t really a lot smaller than the X-E2s, but it feels and looks like it is. I’ve not had any trouble handling the camera — but I’ve yet to try my heavy 18-135 zoom on it.
- The EVF works a treat, and I’ve not had any problems with the change in EVF size or eyepoint. If anything it’s clearer for me than the X-E2s. Note: I wear glasses and have a strong prescription.
- Lightroom reads the Raw files with no problems whatsoever (the latest Classic version of Lightroom).
- The Arcos film simulations are well worth all the brilliant reviews they’ve been receiving.
- On-Off switch I’ve read some criticisms of it, I found it fine.
- The Image quality is not a huge leap up from the X-E2s (comparing shots taken side-by-side) but the improved cropping options from the increased number of pixels are very welcome.
- The Remote Tethering to a cellphone is great (when it works), but getting Bluetooth to find and recognize the camera/phone is really painful. However, anyone who owns a Fitbit will already know how awful Bluetooth can be at finding and making connections.
- The Swipe Function to replace the Dpad – is totally unusable. My experience so far is that about one in ten swipes gets correctly recognized, the other nine times the swipe is either completely ignored, or the wrong option comes up. That’s just not good enough.
- I do like the touchscreen for reviewing and zooming in on the pictures I’ve taken.
- The High ISO options are so noisy as to not be of use. 8000 is about as high as I’d want to push it. So a slight gain. I’ve yet to do a comparison at 6400.
Fujifilm X-E3 — Things I missed or didn’t read in the reviews
- Picture Frame – This has been on my wishlist for ages. You can turn on a frame around the image so that you can see where the edge of the frame is when shooting in the dark. So simple – I hope this appears in a firmware update for the X-E2s.
- My Menu – So much better than the Q-menu. Your very own menu, no indecipherable icons with indecipherable acronyms for the options. When I’m working on a shoot, and under pressure, my memory goes. I need all the help I can get in making changes fast. Having a list of your most used menu options in plain English with the options listed in full is great. Only having to scroll rather than move in two dimensions is much faster to navigate too. Next, I need to reassign the Q button to My Menu. I hope ‘My Menu’ also appears in a firmware update for the X-E2s.
- RGB Histograms, with overexposure indication. I’ve assigned this to the Fn button, and it is great.
- Sound, You can’t disable all the sounds with a single option selection. On the X-E2s, you can disable Flash and sounds with a single option. I can’t find an equivalent on the X-E3. So I’ve decided to turn all the sounds off permanently. I can’t have beeps when I’m shooting a church service. With my X-E2s I’d only disable sounds during the service.
- ISO adjustment on the front dial. Magic.
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Incense Holder
Just fooling around.
I thought I’d be able to burn incense inside this holder, but it didn’t work — there’s not enough air-flow. It’s okay for sticking joss sticks in, but that’s it.
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Radio
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My Desk
My Desk. Copyright © 2017 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. I’m about to take delivery of a new camera, so I took a few test shots of my desk with my current camera to be able to compare the results.
Believe it or not, this is how my desk looks most of the time — give or take a magazine or two and my cell phone.
What’s On My Desk
Let’s have a bit of fun, and I’ll point out the obvious. Along the back…
- Speakers. D’oh! that’s fairly obvious.
- Cell phone stand & charging cable. I made the stand a while ago. It keeps the phone out of my way.
- Book of Common Prayer. I have a pdf version, but I prefer to thumb through the pages.
- Photographs. These glass frames are double-sided, I turn them around every few days.
- Buck 110 Knife. I love this knife, but it’s just a bit too heavy for every day carry, so it sits on my desk.
- Pilot Metropolitan fountain pens. I probably should find somewhere else to keep my collection, but I like having them close to hand, even though recently I’ve been pretty much exclusively using the Conklin Durograph.
- Desk Tidy. One day, when I get around to replacing the desktop I’ll add drawers and all this stuff can be kept out of sight.
- PC. I’d rather not have the PC on the desk, but it is a standing desk, and the computer needs to go up and down with it. At some point I may suspend the computer underneath, but I am not keen on dealing with limited access. One could argue that access to the innards of the machine is not needed very often and my experience tends to agree. But, when I need to get inside it’s typically a hardware emergency, and I won’t want to waste time unstrapping it from a sling.
At the front…
- Leather writing pad. This is so good. And — as I’ve said before — I wish I’d made one a long time ago. I also get a huge amount of pleasure from conditioning and polishing it.
- Journal. My hand-made leather journal cover containing my bujo, personal journal and mini sketch pad.
- Conklin Duragraph. My current favorite fountain pen. The inks I’m favoring right now are Diamine Ox Blood and DeArtramentis Cherry.
- Keyboard & Tablet. I don’t use the tablet as much as I should, and I really like this three-quarter size keyboard. Both are wireless, which is great. I can use them from my office sofa when I’m feeling that way inclined.
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Fall Sweet Potato Chip
Fall Sweet Potato Chip In honor of the season, it’s a Fall Sweet Potato Chip.
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Sunday Make & Mend – Weekly Journal Insert
Making my Weekly Insert. Copyright © 2017 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Today my Bullet Journal Ran out of Space.
It’s time to set up a new notebook. While I was doing that and setting up for the new week, I took some pictures to answer a question asked on one of the Facebook Groups I’m a member of. So here’s how I put together my bullet journal, along with how I hold my weekly inserts in place.
It is all very simple.
I have a gatefold insert I use each week for time recording and some basic planning. To state the obvious, I edit the insert for the right dates and print it on Inkjet paper (Inkjet paper is fountain pen friendly).
It only takes some basic tools to make:
- a straight-edge,
- cutting wheel (scissors would do),
- corner trimmer,
- cutting mat.
The template includes folding marks so I know where to make the folds. It typically takes less than five minutes to make my insert.
By the way, the big stack at the top of the picture is around 18 month’s worth of filled-in weekly inserts.
The insert is held in place with 1mm shock cord. Copyright © 2017 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. 
Weekly insert in place. Copyright © 2017 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. 
Inserting a Notebook into the leather cover. I also use 1mm shock cord to hold my notebooks in their leather cover. Copyright © 2017 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. And that’s it …
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Hotel Room
Hotel Room. Copyright © 2017 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. What can I say? I liked the lighting.
It’s a shame I messed up the bed, but I decided to take this picture after I’d retired for the night. 22:18 — Yes, I was in bed before half-past ten on a Saturday night. The past few weeks had left me exhausted. I had produced the first online version of the diocesan magazine as well as Convention to prepare for.
I arrived in Kansas City Thursday, helped set up, and then covered the area confirmation service Thursday evening. Friday, I worked on the AV presentation, and Friday night, after the convention dinner, I set up the AV for Saturday’s convention, finishing around 23:30. Saturday I was up early for Convention, followed by the breakdown, and then in the evening, I went off to shoot pictures of the youth at the Bishop’s Ball. It was no wonder I was tired, and I was glad I’d opted for another night in the hotel instead of driving back home to Springfield Saturday night.
(Marriott Courtyard Hotel, Kansas City East/Blue Springs, Missouri)
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Diocesan Convention 2017
View from the Back If it is the start of November, it must be Diocesan Convention time.
After being in full view, upfront to one side of the dais during the business session of the 2015 convention, I decided that something had to be done so I could be more low-key. They’d be no swish AV booth at this convention either. I fixed it by investing in some video splitters, a video switch, and three 50′ cables to let me run the AV from the anonymity of the back of the room.
AV Test – Yes we can switch to slides & back
AV Test – The camera works …On November 1, I finally got a few minutes spare to test the AV setup I’d put together. As that left one day before I headed off for Convention it was just as well that it all worked.
As might be surmised, this year’s run-up to the diocesan convention has been more manic than usual.
At June’s Special Convention the churches voted to ‘defund’ printing the diocesan magazine and the postage necessary to send it out. It was not considered necessary to consult with a communications expert in advance, and it is going to take several years on a low budget to gain back the readership we had. Without the postage budget, I have not been able to send even a simple postcard to the 5,000 families receiving the magazine to tell them it’s been discontinued. I was told I could publish the existing magazine online. That would involve publishing a pdf copy. The decision did not take into consideration that you cannot easily read a pdf on a mobile device. Unfortunately 48% of our online readers use a mobile device.
The only practical option was to design a new website that was easy to read on a mobile device, locally printable, and maintained an obvious stylistic link to the original magazine.
I wanted to be able to publish the first ‘New Spirit‘ magazine before Convention took place. With only twenty hours a week to do the work, and day-to-day tasks competing for my time; designing and building the website wasn’t happening. In the end, I had to ‘donate’ two-three weeks’ work to get it finished. It was completed four days before Convention. See the first issue of the New Spirit here.
And that is why the run-up to Convention was so busy and fraught. I had next to no time to spend on the preparations. Signs and posters were designed three days before and printing finished the day before I left. Not surprisingly there were some errors in the artwork …
My ‘Duct-tape and Baling wire’ AV system worked well, though I forgot to bring along the second monitor for the AV desk – spotting a mouse cursor 60′ plus away is a big challenge. Especially if you are like me and everything beyond around 15′ is a complete blur.
Gary chatting with Larry. Image Credit: Gary Zumwalt I found this picture on my camera. I suspect Gary Zumwalt took it. No surprises there – it’s not the first time he’s sneaked in a picture of me. And on my left is the long-suffering Eric, who volunteered to help with the AV and did a great job running the Mevo live video broadcast. He also put together the excellent slideshow we ran between sessions (and put up with Gary Z. and I discussing who took which picture).
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Sermon
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Kansas City. Area Confirmation service.
There were five churches from the north of the diocese represented at this evening’s confirmation service.
I was particularly fascinated by the incense which had made it all the way up to the spotlights at the top of the picture.
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Waiting to Process
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Kansas City. Area Confirmation service.
Unless you notice that the candles are lighting the acolyte’s faces it isn’t obvious how dark it was. This is the first Episcopal Church I’ve visited that has a Verger (standing at the front — ready to lead off).
This is another of one of my black and white versions of what will be officially posted as a color picture. I actually shot the picture in Black and White (my camera will let me do that) but it keeps a color copy, which is the image I processed.
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Bookcase
Bookcase Copyright © 2017 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. I walk past the bookcase all the time, so much so that it merges into the background. Something brought it back into my conscious today and I allowed myself a little bit of pleasure in appreciating that I hadn’t done a bad job building it. I decided to celebrate by taking a picture, trying out my new 18mm lens in the process.
I could improve on the result, but to do so I’d need to use a tripod. That would allow me to reduce the iso for less image noise and stop-down the lens for a better depth of field.
However, it was only meant to be a quick snapshot, so I’ll just leave it as it is.
Color Version -
Kitchen Light
I have a strange photographic obsession with this light fitting. I ought to consider cleaning it before I take any more pictures.
As obsessions go, I guess this one is fairly harmless.
.jpg file straight out of camera.
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Red Leaf
Today I was reminded of a lesson.
The lesson is more than adequately summed up in the old adage: “Pride comes before a fall…” I’ve been fairly happy with my photographic output of late. Today I sucked big-time. I took some still life pictures, they were terrible – I’d even gone to the trouble to set up a reflector for some fill-in lighting — all deleted.
I’ve also been working on a project for work – and if I took one picture to capture the image I wanted, I have taken 20. Now I’m not sure that I’ll use the couple I did get. While I was processing them I did some pixel peeking and discovered that the out-of-camera jpg files were in many ways better than the raw files processed in Lightroom — thanks, Adobe. I am not impressed.
Finally, I spotted this single red leaf while taking a quick walk out on the deck. I had visions of a brilliant picture; it wasn’t to be. Whatever I saw, I couldn’t capture it in post-production. So this is the best of a bad job that I refused to give up on.
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Sprinky Spies a Squirrel
Sprinky The squirrels have been working on a new route. They now launch themselves from a low hanging branch, landing with a thump on the roof just above my office window.
Sprinky considers this cool because she can sit and watch them from the comfort of my filing cabinet.
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Votive
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Springfield, Missouri. I’m always moved by the sight of the votive candles flickering away in a dark empty church.
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St. John’s, Springfield
Altar – St. John’s Episcopal Church, Springfield, Missouri. Copyright © 2017 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Southern Area Confirmation Service at St. John’s
I’ve been working flat-out times two on business and diocesan stuff the past couple of weeks. I almost let today’s service slip by me. Fortunately, a calendar check on Friday put me right.
This was the first time I’ve put my new 18mm lens to work — and it is great, I’m loving the results I’ve seen so far.
To get today’s pictures I donned camo, in the form of a cassock. For good photographs of the confirmations I need to be right up front, in with the choir – hence the cassock. Except … there was no choir. I was not as inconspicuous as I’d hoped. As a consequence, I didn’t take more than a couple of cell phone pictures for sending live to Facebook/Instagram.
These are a few personal edits from the pictures I took at (and after) the service.
Before the Service. Copyright © 2017 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. 
Altar – St. John’s Episcopal Church, Springfield, Missouri. Copyright © 2017 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
