Street Photography at Night - thoughts on the Fujifilm XT5.

First time using the Fujifilm XT5 for a night street photography session. I am very impressed with it’s low light performance considering it’s a smaller sensor.

The thing is, to me, you can’t beat Sony camera’s on low light. They are just really really good!!!

However, since a couple of months now, I decided to give the Fujifilm system a try. I started with the medium format but quickly realized that it’s simply just over kill. It’s a camera that you want but don’t need.

The fact that I was really charmed by the colours of Fujifilm and the simulations and how close to film you feel when you shoot with that system. I decided to go with the XT5 and haven’t been happier.

I am seriously considering getting rid of my whole Sony kit to fully move to Fujifilm but that is a costly endeavour that is not quite necessary.

Here are some shots I took couple of nights ago in the streets of Montreal.

I usually shoot on aperture priority when I shoot with my Fujifilm camera but this time, I felt more control of going full manual. I think it’s just a matter of habit and I don’t know if I trust the camera yet to have so much control on what I’m doing considering that shooting at night is a bit more tricky than other consequences.

Next step is to actually try it in Aperture mode and if it passes that, huge point for the system. My favourite time to shoot street scenes is at night, everything just look more cinematic, and like on those images, I had a black pro mist 1/8 diffuser on and I believe it’s just the right amount of diffusion to just remove that edge into making the image more natural.

One of the hardest thing with shooting at that time, and time of year is that the light goes out really really fast. I am very passionate about blue hour, where those colours just pop naturally.

I think a blue hour, really lasts about 20-25 minutes.

For that time, honestly I was in the zone. I decided to switch things around and shoot more around sunrise or during the day. This time of night is what gets me going. I literally cannot wait for another session!