Tiny Landscapes and the X-T2

2016.09.26

Written by... Bill Fortney

Bill Fortney is a photographer, writer, pilot, and highly sought after presenter with over

45 years of experience in-the-field. Bill has done professional work as a newspaper and magazine photojournalist, sports photographer, (once an official photographer for the Washington Redskins), medical photographer, and nature/landscape photographer. Bill’s best selling books include; The Nature of America (with David Middleton), American Vision (with David Middleton, John Shaw and Wayne Lynch), America From 500 Feet (with Wesley Fortney), Bill Fortney’s Great Photography Workshop. America From 500 Feet II (with Mark Kettenhofen). Bill’s books have sold well over 150,000 copies, placing him on the list of best selling photographer/authors in America. Bill has been named a Fellow by the North American Nature Photographers Association.

Bill currently teaches for KelbyOne and appears at Photoshop World as a speaker/teacher. Bill teaches His Light Workshops, a Christian based workshop company and for you can learn more about Bill, his workshops and view his work at www.billfortney.com Bill, and his wife Sherelene, live in Corbin, Kentucky, and have three grown children and 6 grandchildren.

I first heard the term from Mike Moats, the great close-up master. His website is titled Tiny Landscapes. I’ve been a close-up nature shooter for many years, and to this day tiny landscape shooting is my favorite past time. When we work in the world of small features there are so many ways to reveal the texture, color, and form of these great subjects.

For this mid-August shooting session, wild flowers in my region are getting scarce. To make the most of the season, I visited my neighborhood nursery, Laurel Gardens, to find some interesting tiny landscapes.

The new FUJIFILM X-T2 has proven to be a close-up shooter’s dream camera. It has the resolution to show great detail, the tilting LCD for both horizontal and vertical shooting when shooting down low, and without a mirror, the vibration is nonexistent! My current favorite lens for this kind of work is the XF60mmF2.4 R MACRO. With the help of the MCEX-11 and MCEX-16 macro extension tubes, you can get to closer than life size or 1:1.

While color is always an interesting subject, for this outing I tried to find compelling shapes, forms and textures to highlight in the images. The X-T2 has wonderful color rendition so capturing the pale greens and almost white leaves was not an issue at all! All the images shot for this article were jpeg in Velvia film simulation mode. In the X-T2, the Velvia simulation is well tamed and not overly saturated as it was in the very earliest editions of the X Series cameras. It provides that extra kick of saturation while still keeping the colors spot on accurate.

When you combine the razor sharp XF60mm lens and the 24.3 megapixel sensor of the X-T2, you get some stunningly sharp and well defined images. For the lovely Lilly Flower, in shade, I couldn’t resist taking it into Topaz and turning it into a painting affect! That was how I saw it, in my mind’s eye!