Photo of the week - June 4, 2013

Nora Jane Struthers and the Party Line at the Gettysburg Bluegrass Festival, May 16, 2013. Nikon D90 with 70-300mm VR @ f/5.3. More pictures (in color) from this album here.

Photo(s) of the week - May 28, 2013

Tim O'Brien and Bryan Sutton of Hot Rize at the Gettysburg Bluegrass Festival, May 18, 2013. Nikon D90 with 135mm DC @ f/2, ISO 2000. More pictures (in color) from this album here.

Photo of the week - May 14, 2013

Steve Earle (and bassist Kelly Looney) at the Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville, PA. May 3, 2013. Fuji X-Pro1 @ 3200 ISO with a 60mm lens @ f/2.4. Processed with Aperture and Snapseed (Mac version). See more pictures from this show here.

Photo of the week - May 7, 2013

Chris Masterson (playing with Steve Earle) at the Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville, PA. May 3, 2013. Fuji X-Pro1 @ 3200 ISO with a 60mm lens @ f/2.4. Processed with Aperture and Snapseed (Mac version). See more pictures from this show here.

Photo of the week - April 30, 2013

Aimee Mann at the World Cafe at the Queen in Wilmington, DE. April 24, 2013. Fuji X-Pro1 @ 3200 ISO with a Nikon 135mm DC lens @ f/2 (Novoflex Nikon to Fuji adapter). Processed with Aperture and Snapseed (Mac version). See more from this show here.

Aimee Mann @ The World Cafe Live at the Queen

I had my first opportunity to try out my Fuji X-Pro1 with a Nikon lens (using a Novoflex adapter) last night at the Aimee Mann show in Wilmington. I originally bought the adapter because I wanted to use my Nikon 10.5mm fisheye with the X-Pro1, but I haven't had the opportunity to do so yet. Given that we had balcony seats, I took my Nikon 135mm DC f/2 lens (rather than the Fuji 60mm that I used at the David Bromberg Quartet show last month) for the extra reach and large aperture. The downside to this lens, at least when attached to the Fuji, is that it's manual focus only. I was worried that it would be hard to get images that were in focus, but it ended up being okay. Sure, it's not as easy to manually focus as with my FM3A, but it's certainly more than useable. I hit focus about half the time, which doesn't seem to be so bad given the circumstances (i.e., long lens, large aperture, moving target, handheld from my seat). While it's certainly a bulkier lens than you'd usually want to use regularly on a small-bodied camera like the X-Pro1, it wasn't too unwieldy.

This has me thinking more about the just-announced 55-200mm Fuji zoom. I wonder how it would have autofocused in these conditions (especially in the low light)? At 200mm it's 2.5 stops slower than my 135mm, but with stabalization it should be fine in reducing camera shake, although there would still be motion blur. If Fuji released a telephoto prime (somewhere between 135mm and 200mm) at f/2 or f/2.8, I'd be all over it as an awesome lens for concert photography.

Photo of the week - April 2, 2013

David Bromberg (and Nate Grower) at the Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville, PA, March 24, 2013. Fuji X-Pro1 @ 3200 ISO with 60mm lens @ f/2.4. Processed with Aperture and Snapseed (Mac version).

Photo of the week - March 26, 2013

The David Bromberg Quartet (Mark Cosgrove, David Bromberg, Bob Taylor, and Nate Grower, L-to-R) at the Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville, PA, March 24, 2013. Fuji X-Pro1 @ 3200 ISO with 60mm lens @ f/2.4. Processed with Aperture and Snapseed (Mac version). Here's the same image in black and white (which was posted by the band on David's Facebook page).

Photo of the week - June 26, 2012

Elvis Costello in the audience at the Melkweg, June 5th 2012. Fuji X100 @ f/2. Converted with Nik Silver Efex Pro.

Photo of the week - May 1, 2012

Kathleen Edwards and her band at World Cafe Live at the Queen in Wilmington, Delaware. Fuji X100 @ f/2. Converted with Nik Silver Efex Pro.

Photo of the week - December 13, 2011

Ryan Adams at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. Fuji X100 @ f/2, 1/15. Converted with Nik Silver Efex Pro.

Photo of the week - December 6, 2011

Ryan Adams at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. Fuji X100 @ f/2, 1/25. Converted with Nik Silver Efex Pro.

An excellent fall for concerts

Tickets acquired for the following shows:

• The Jayhawks - October 22nd @ the Keswick Theatre in Glenside
• Lucinda Williams - October 29th @ the Keswick
• Ryan Adams - December 2nd @ the Academy of Music in Philadelphia

I passed on (a) Richard Thompson (Oct. 15 @ the Keswick) since we'll be up there already the following two Saturdays and (b) Gillian Welch & David Rawlings (Oct. 20 @ Union Transfer). I really would have liked to go the the GW/DR show, but it's on a Thursday night and Jen has class then. I've never been to Union Transfer but from what I can tell it's general admission and I'm too old to stand to watch shows :-)

Summer update

Sadly, the summer is ticking away at a tragically fast pace. There's only one more week of the summer research season (students are funded to work in labs for 10 weeks), and then a month until the last minute crunch before classes start. My summer students have done really great work and I'm excited about their project and for the skills they've developed over the last nine weeks.

I'm teaching stats/methods in the fall and need to start working on that syllabus soon. Plus I volunteered for a "transdivisional seminar" during orientation week and have a stack of articles to review (i.e., peer review for journals). Oh, and those manuscripts I'm supposed to be writing. Sigh...Summer goes by way too fast.

Last week we went to the U2 show at "the Linc" (Lincoln Financial Field); it was a good, not spectactular, show. But it was a nice summer activity and a good time with friends (other than the 90 minute traffic jam trying to get out of the parking lot). We saw U2 in Indianapolis 11 or 12 years ago, and I thought the band was tighter and more energetic then, but of course Bono and company are that much older now (and coming off of back surgery) so I suppose they should get some slack. The stage/screen was impressive and the band played most of the songs you'd want to hear, so all in all it was a good time.

Yesterday I went to the semi-annual Philadelphia guitar show (a.k.a., the Great American Guitar Show). It was smaller than when I last went a couple of years ago, and it's probably 70% electric stuff, so there wasn't too much for me to see. Plus it's pretty loud and hard to hear any acoustic guitars you might want to try out. But I did play a 1948 Martin D-18 that seemed pretty fantastic and a 1957 D-18 that was in really great condition that was also nice, but a couple other mid-50's D-18's didn't impress me as much. I'm starting to think a late-40's models is where it's at for me (since I can't affort a pre-war model!), if I ever get into the vintage game.

I also played a few late-40's to late-50's Gibson J-45's and SJ's, as well as a modern J-35 reissue, and didn't find anything that I was particularly impressed with. I've been wanting to play more Gibsons, but so far nothing has particularly resonated with me. Maybe I'm just more of a Martin guy.