u/Dinosaur802

Took my X100VI to Vermont a week ago to visit family and friends, but made sure to schedule some sightseeing time to visit some of my favorite photography spots.

The X100 has become my prime travel and hiking camera, to the point where my Nikon Z7ii stays at home unless I’m going on a dedicated photography trip or need more telephoto reach. It’s been nice to slim down on my gear for hikes and more casual outings; I end up getting so many more photos that I really end up liking that I wouldn’t have bothered to take otherwise, I feel like. I do bring the WCL and TCL with me, though the WCL is typically mounted for landscape shots (sometimes), while the TCL is really only used when I’m taking portraits of family, or need a little bit more reach at ~50-75mm (FF equivalent) for my desired composition.

These images were all shot using custom recipes of my own, but none of these images here are post-processed in any way and are SOOC.

Feel free to see more of my work:

IG: dinosaur801_  (my fuji-only page where I post only SOOC images)

IG: dinosaur802 (my “professional” landscape photography page, which  includes my post-processed X100VI images)

Zenit Photosniper FS-12
Tair 3S
Helios 44M-4

This is officially the weirdest but coolest photography thing I’ve ever purchased. I’ve always had an interest in old Soviet photography gear, partly because of where I was born but also because some of the lenses from that era are still sought after to this very day.

The Zenit Photosniper was initially a piece of USSR military recon photography equipment (you can probably see why that is with its design), but was eventually made and sold to consumers in the Soviet countries from the 70’s-late 80’s.

This original kit features a 300mm f4.5 lens mounted to a trigger assembly / stock. Pulling the trigger fires a second shutter button located under the modified Zenit film camera, activating the aperture and taking the picture. The lens has a whopping 16 aperture blades! Hilariously Soviet design all-around.

This kit also features the famous Helios 44M-4 lens, which makes some sweet swirly bokeh and was even recently used to shoot two scenes in Dune II.
My copy has some sticky aperture blades which seemed to go mostly back to normal after manually triggering the blades with the lens unmounted. I did adapt both lenses to my Nikon Z7ii which makes for significantly easier focusing of the manual lenses!

The camera itself is fairly sturdy and the metal construction makes it feel like a tank. I read through the English translated manual and watched a couple YouTube videos about its operation and its wonderfully Soviet designed in every way. I’ve been shooting exclusively digital for about 15 years, so I’m excited to run through a few rolls of Ultramax 400 this weekend and see what photos I can get.