Last year I spent five weeks in China with my wife and the Fujifilm X-T1. We travelled through four Chinese cities, spending most of our time in Shanghai but also visiting Xi’an, Beijing and Hangzhou. My cameras of choice for the trip were the Fujifilm X-T1 and an X-Pro 1 for backup (never used), accompanied by several lenses and an iPad with SD card reader for backing up my memory cards. My wife also took her Fujifilm X-M1 with 16-50mm kit lens.
My reasons for choosing Fujifilm cameras were simple – it’s a lightweight system that fits easily into the 7kg weight restriction (strictly enforced) on New Zealand airlines. But more than that, there’s something beautiful about the X-T1. The electronic viewfinder is superb, the image quality amazing, and it feels good in the hand.
I didn’t take many photos in Shanghai – there are not many old things left in Shanghai, and this is the type of subject matter that appeals to me. But I really got going once we arrived in Xi’an. A small city by Chinese standards (population 7 million) Xi’an is the ancient capital of China and stands at the end of the Silk Road. The old city is surrounded by a thick stone wall, but the city itself spread beyond that boundary a long time ago.
My favourite part of the city is the Muslim Quarter – a series of narrow, crowded streets marked by shops, food stalls, a bazaar and the Great Mosque. Men and women with white hats (traditionally worn by Muslims in China) manned the food stalls, preparing and serving food.
I wandered around in the fading light as evening fell, the street lit by a mixture of neon and fluorescent lights. The crowd was so thick that we could only walk slowly through the streets, avoiding people and checking out the food stalls (it was a relief to finally escape from it later in the evening).
It was an evocative, heady mix, and I took lots of photos with my 35mm f1.4 lens. With so many people around, and the people working on the stalls so busy, it was like being invisible. Other writers have written about feeling invisible with the Fujifilm X-T1, but to be honest the Chinese seem to be quite an easy going people and not bothered about people with cameras.
I found using a prime lens quite liberating, with no option to zoom in, there was one less decision to make and I just concentrated on making the best compositions I could. On following evenings I returned with my 18mm f2 and 56mm f1.2 lenses, but I found my favourite photos were all taken with the 35mm, a theme that was to continue throughout the trip.
After Xi’an we took the high speed train to Beijing, travelling over 1000 kilometres in under five hours.
Beijing was much larger than Xi’an, and the crowds just as dense, but it turned out to be a very interesting place to take photos. We visited a variety of historical buildings including the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace and Prince Gong’s Palace. I left the 56mm lens in the hotel room and took the 35mm and 18mm lenses with me out on the streets. But most of the time I used the 35mm.
I saw Beijing’s historical buildings as a bit like a theatre with spectacular stage sets, and the local Chinese people as actors passing through. All I had to do was wait and take photos of the most interesting characters when they appeared.
In the Summer Palace I ran into something that reoccured several times throughout the trip. A teenaged boy asked me something in Chinese. I didn’t understand, but his friend spoke English and explained that he wanted to have his photo taken with me. This happened three or four times in Beijing, and it was amusing to find the tables turned and have someone, sometimes a whole family, ask me to pose for a photo with them.
From Beijing we moved on to Hangzhou and the weather changed from hot and dry to hot and steamy. We didn’t see the sun once the whole time we were there. The rain fell and the streets glistened, but it was relief after the hot sun of Shanghai, Xi’an and Beijing.
Hangzhou is famed for the beautiful West Lake. The city sits on its eastern shore, and the lake and tree covered hills stretch out into the distance, punctuated by the roofs of Chinese temples poking up above the forest canopy.
We took a taxi to a temple complex built on several hills on the far side of the lake, and spent the day wandering around amongst the trees, and picturesque buildings. The ancient buddhas carved into the rock, some of them over a thousand years old, were a highlight.
Crowds were never far away in Hangzhou, and the bus trip back to the hotel took over an hour as the bus got caught up in the traffic snarls that emerged as the day wore on. Wherever we went in China we encountered vast crowds and it certainly becomes energy sapping dealing with so many people. On the other hand, it provides a rich source of material for street photography. Hangzhou citizens have a reputation for rudeness, but the locals seemed just as oblivious or tolerant of my camera as elsewhere in China.
So, how did the Fujifilm X-T1 do during the trip? It’s difficult to say anything other than what you have read in similar articles – the camera performed wonderfully. The small size and SLR form of the camera suit the way I work. I’m very happy with the quality of the photos, albeit a little surprised by just how much I used the 35mm lens in comparison to the others.
Before the trip I was expecting to use the 56mm f1.2 much more, but found the 35mm more appealing. It helps that the camera is well balance with this lens – the 56mm f1.2 makes the camera feel a little front heavy.
One of the big risks of travel photography is loss or theft of your memory cards. I didn’t take my laptop with me while in Xi’an, Beijing or Hangzhou, and used my iPad for backup instead. I left my iPad in the hotel room while we were out, and carried all my memory cards with me. I had plenty of 16Gb and 32GB memory cards, so there was no chance of running out of space (I’m fairly conservative with the amount I shoot anyway).
The system worked well – I just connected the camera’s memory card to the iPad using Apple’s SD card reader and imported them into the Photos app. It was fun viewing the photos I had taken on the iPad, and a useful way of reviewing the day’s photography. I had intended to use Lightroom mobile to Flag the photos I wanted to process, but in the event was too tired after the day’s activity to bother.
I was so pleased with the photos from China that I used my favourites to help illustrate an ebook that I wrote about street and travel photography called The Candid Portrait.
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