EF-X500 testing on location by Max De Martino

20.12.2016

Written by... Max De Martino

Max De Martino is a photographer of events, portraits and weddings.

His clients include companies such as Chanel, AirBnB Beyond, Luxury Retreats and Vodafone.

He has always been involved in technical and creative training. For this reason, as well as being a Fujifilm X-Photographer, he is an ambassador for several companies in the photographic sector, such as SanDisk, Cactus and AlbumEpoca, as well as being the Italian trainer of Profoto.

Being curious and interested in technological innovations, he takes a train, an airplane or his old motorcycle and travels whenever he can. He has visited over thirty countries and in June 2008, he was the first Western photographer to exhibit a solo exhibition in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. For him, photography was a clear choice: to be a photographer he quit a job as sales manager in a company that had a turnover of 100 million euro a year.

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I initially chose Fujifilm because of its portability, with the first X100. Then I noticed that besides being a small and light system, it enabled me to obtain a very high quality, also thanks to the Fujinon optics, really insurmountable. Today my kit consists of two X-T2, a GFX50S and an infrared X-T1 IR, plus a significant number of optics, to be able to perform each job with the most suitable tool.

Fujifilm's cameras was the best choice to move in Prypiat and Chernobyl without the hassle of a bigger DSLR body and lenses, but with great quality. The picture here were shot with a Fuji X-E2 and lenses that fits all in a small bag: XF14mmF2.8, XF18-55mmF2.8-4, XF35mm, XF50-200mm

Following the first overview of the flash EF-X500, I met with my colleague and X-Photographer Simone Raso to put the new flashes to the test on location by photographing the basketball player Tommy Marino.

Tommy is a great model: aside from being a good looking guy, he is at ease in front of the camera. To take these shots, Simone and I used a X-T2 and, for lenses, the XF16-55mmF2.8, XF56mmF1.2 and XF10-24mmF4. All the shots were taken in High Speed Sync with times between 1/800 and 1/2000 to block the movements of action in the shots, and above all, to eliminate the ambient light of the hall that we were working in. Another reason for using the High Speed Sync was to use the XF56mmF1.2 wide open, to have a creamy bokeh, but without having the disruption of the ambient light that was present.

We used some Rogue Flashbenders to control the light; in some cases as a softbox to soften the light and in other cases as a snoot to avoid the light from going to places where we didn’t want it. The results are those which you see and in my opinion it’s very interesting that all the shots were taken in TTL with a completely automatic light control.

The EF-X500s are easy to use and have an excellent automatic control. If, however, you were to find yourself in difficult situations and had the time to work calmly, obviously you can choose to switch to manual and control the light to the finest detail.