“Cirque Du Soleil” with the Fuji X-Series

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to cover the dress-rehearsal and première of Amaluna, by Cirque Du Soleil. For the summer they have set up their big top in Knokke-Heist. Awesome show, so go check it out!

I’ve been shooting Fujifilm for a couple of years now so I dare to say I know the ins & outs of the system. I was confident enough about the camera’s but I shoot primes only… I guess I looked like the odd-one-out arriving at the venue next to guys from the associated press & getty. (think Canon/Nikon and heavy glass)

Gear Used:
Fujifilm X-PRO2, Fujifilm X-T1 (with grip), XF16, XF23, XF35, XF90

For the techies I’ve included hires images links, Exif data and some 100% crops. Yes, the AF & high ISO on the XPRO2 is amazing but let me tell you the X-T1 is still a very capable camera and the XF90 is a beast! For more geaky Fujifilm techtalk, scroll down. For now, here are my favorite images…

Tech Talk: how I worked my kit

Main settings: manual aperture, shutter, ISO, AWB, CH.

X-T1
When shooting longer lenses like the XF90 I tend to shoot in portrait more so for the first time ever I attached a 3rd party battery grip to the XT1. That also meant I had one battery less to worry about.
I feel comfortable shooting it to ISO1600 but here I used it to a max ISO2000. I did not use zone tracking on the X-T1. Worked CH & CL. Blackouts are annoying but when you prefocus and need to get the action you just keep your finger on the shutter anyway. Note: I accidently shot JPG only, but Fujifilm JPG’s are so good! (phew) While everyone is going on about the XT2 this little ‘old’ guy really amazed me.

X-PRO2
Zone Tracking just works for this guy so I relied on it. (Even with the older XF35). 8fps jeej! And I cranked up to ISO3200. Have you seen this insane 100% crop? I was so blown away when I saw this image on my 27″ screen. For an earlier review, click here.

XF90mm
I haven’t shot a lot with this guy yet but I was seriously impressed the by AF speed and sharpness wide open. One of my fav shot’s of the night is the one where I could isolate the peacock lady dancing. Expect a review soon.

XF16mm
Allowed me to do some negative framing and capture the scene in a different way. Love this lens more & more.

XF23mm & XF35mm
No zooms remember. So depending on how I wanted to frame I switched lenses so I didn’t have to crop (and lose pixels) in post processing too much. About the no zooms. I was only allowed to reposition myself once during the intermission. For the first part of the show I was on the front row, for the 2nd part I was at the back row. More range would have been nice but not a must.

Above images were processed in Adobe Lightroom without any heavy correction (contrast, exposure, cropped). I didn’t even perform any noise reduction.

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