All the Photons: 2013

Ah, the thumb grip. If you've ever used a rangefinder-style camera, you probably know how helpful a little extra grip can be. Film rangefinders (and SLRs) had a thumb grip (of sorts) in the film advance lever.

Nikkormat FT2's Film Advance Lever

Of course digital rangefinders, like the Leica M or Fuji X100S, have no need for such a mechanism. Duh. But Leica et al have decided we don't need no steenking thumb grips! and left them off of their contemporary rangefinders.

Leica M

Fujifilm X100S

It's said that nature abhors a vacuum. Well apparently third-party equipment manufacturers really despise them. There are countless thumb grips available in a range of shapes and colors (as long as the range of colors starts at black, ends at silver, and has nothing between). I happen to own the HorusBennu TG-1 thumb grip for my X100S, and I love it. It helps my giant hot-dog fingers hold onto the comparatively tiny camera.

The HorusBennu TG-1 on my X100S

But I also hate the TG-1--it uses the hot shoe as the attachment point to the camera, thus preventing me from attaching a flash, radio trigger, sync cable, disco ball, toaster oven, personal massager, etc.

As far as I know, all rangefinder thumb grips occupy the hot shoe. Match Technical makes one with a cold shoe, so you can attach an optical viewfinder. But a cold shoe is not a hot shoe. Otherwise it'd be called a hot shoe. And it'd be hot. With electrons.

Match Technical's Thumb Grip w/Cold Shoe

From an engineering perspective, this really doesn't seem like a difficult task, and I can't be the only one who'd like to have a thumb grip and a hot shoe... but that product doesn't exist.

Well, I should say that product isn't available from any manufacturer. Michael Bass will hand craft one for you if you send him $175 and your $110 Thumbs Up grip. That's right--for a mere $285, you can have a thumb grip with a hot shoe. Yikes. Granted, it does TTL pass-through, which for my purposes is really not necessary. I don't own any Fuji flashes, and I prefer to manually set my flashes anyway.

Michael Bass' Hand-Crafted Beast of a Thumb Grip

So this is where things are going to get interesting, and a bit dicey. I'm going to try my hand at engineering a solution. I have a need and some moxie, but I also have an expensive and very new X100S that I'd rather not fry, or melt, or mutilate.

Regardless of whether I fail or succeed, I'll share the result (and the process) with you. Wish me luck!

The Setup

This past weekend, I made a trip with my family to Kelleys Island, OH. It was my first time out of the house with my new Fuji X100S, and I was eager to see what she could do. Even though I was fairly certain that Friday night's thunderstorm was going to send us and the tent into Lake Erie, we emerged the next morning, unscathed, and I was able to get some shots with which I am quite pleased.

The Mistake

I was holding a Yongnuo 467 flash in slave mode, and I was attempting to get my X100S's built-in flash to trigger the 467. As I discovered, flashes' optical slave sensors don't work well in daylight. Actually, they don't work in daylight at all. Flashes' optical sensors work in the infrared part of the light spectrum, and apparently that giant ball of burning gas in the sky we call The Sun, cranks out enough IR radiation to confuse the flash.

In my futile attempt to get my X100S to remotely trigger the flash, I apparently pointed the camera at myself and pressed the shutter release. I don't even remember doing it--was I looking at the built-in flash to see if it was firing? I have no idea, but I kinda like the result.

Accidental Selfie

The Keepers

Despite the flub with the flash, I managed to get some shots that I'm pretty happy with. As you might notice, I'm a bit fond of the X100S's built-in film simulation modes, namely Black & White and Velvia. So far, I'm loving the Fuji. I can't wait to get back out there and make more mistakes.