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Scooped by
Thomas Menk
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....
Conclusions
While both lenses are quite good, Fujifilm has a major advantage with a more affordable offering while also retaining a better build quality. However, Zeiss has faster focusing and better image quality. This is kind of a tough test to consider but we should all take comfort in knowing that both lenses are excellent. But on a personal scale, I’ve always had a love for Zeiss products the same way that Steve Huff loves his Leicas. And in the end, I’ll have to give the win to the Zeiss despite owning Fujifilm’s lens.
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Scooped by
Thomas Menk
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Here is the angle of view comparison you guys asked for Fujinon XF 14mm, Fujinon XF 18mm, Fujinon XF 35mm.
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Scooped by
Thomas Menk
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Just because I had nothing to do this afternoon and Hanna found something to play with(and not jumping on my back) I baked a blueberry tart(or sort of). Didn't feel like having an espresso so I decided to brew a light filter coffee for myself with Aeropress.
Hanna was still busy playing so I grabbed couple of flashguns, triggers, a softbox and some light diffuser and did a few coffe and cake shots. All images were made with the Fuji X-Pro 1 and the 35mm f1.4 lens and processed in Lightroom.
My wife loved the cake too, but probably she's going to kill me for my "nothing to do" opening line.
Bon appetit mon ami!
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Scooped by
Thomas Menk
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FUJI X-PRO1 V2.03
The firmware update Ver.2.03 from Ver. 2.01 incorporates the following issue
1. Adding the compatibility with "XF14mmF2.8R"
You will get the full performance of "XF14mmF2.8R", including Manual Focus function.
2. Improvement in performance
(1)Accuracy of auto focus performance has been much improved under a various shooting condition.
Shooting with XF35mm lens, Shooting for the target with relatively high frequency, One-push AF by pressing AE-L/AF-L button,
Notice
To enable more accurate AF performance with XF35mm lens, please update the firmware of your Fujinon XF35mm lens at the same time. Firmware version must be Ver 2.02 or later.
(2)Improvement of unexpected pixels recorded in the top far-left taken with XF18-55mm Lens under the condition of middle range focal length.
FUJINON XF35MM
The firmware update Ver.2.02 incorporates the following issue:
This update will improve the accuracy of auto focus function for various shooting condition.
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Scooped by
Thomas Menk
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A few observations that I made during the test:
- While focusing I noticed that the Canon lens tended to show more color fringing from green to red while I was fine tuning the manual focus.
- The Canon was also more difficult to fine tune since the manual focus reacted rather fast and direct to small movements.
- The Fujinon on the other hand actually benefited from the fine graduation of the “focus by wire” setting in this situation at close focusing distances. This was the first time that I actually saw the benefit of this technology.
- The Fuji seemed to have a larger sweet spot of the sharp focus area depth compared to the Canon – even though both were set to f/1.4
I was surprised that the Fuji lens did this good in direct comparison to my favorite Canon lens! But there is one factor in favor of the Fuji lens that also needs to be mentioned:
The X-Pro 1 recognizes the Fuji lens and applies some lens correction inside the JPG engine. The Canon lens does not get this special treatment and shows an uncorrected result from the lens. I could have partially avoided this by shooting in RAW but then the RAW converter of i.e. Adobe Camera RAW could have recognized the Fuji lens as well and add some auto correction. But in the end I wanted to see how the Canon lens compared when I use it on the X-Pro 1 in my normal use and this is what I got. The X-Pro 1 will not internally compensate for the Canon lens no matter what I do.
But if you happen to own some Leica M lenses and purchased the Fuji X-Mount to Leica M-adapter, then the Fuji will internally apply corrections to some of the Leica M lenses (i.e. the SUMMICRON-M 35mmF2 ASPH)
My resume:
The Canon EF 35mm f1.4 is a fantastic lens on my Canon FF DSLR camera. It has a fast Ultrasonic AF motor and the weight and size match the bigger camera body well. The Fujinon XF 35mm f1.4 R is a fantastic AF lens for the Fuji X-Pro 1 / X-E1 cameras. This comparison has solved the question for me if I could improve the image quality by using the Canon EF 35mm f1.4 instead of the XF 35mm f1.4 for special occasions. The answer for me is “No!” and I can now comfortably leave the bigger Canon 35mm lens attached to my Canon camera.“Bigger is not always better” :)
I drive 8 times a week through the Belgium countryside. Always the same road. This morning the fog was so beautiful I had to photograph it.
The Fuji X-pro1 is so small it is always with me. The 35mm did the rest. B&W conversion in Ligthroom.
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Scooped by
Thomas Menk
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I recently acquired two little, vintage dinky mini cars and normally would have reached for a 50mm lens and a sub f/2.0 aperture to create a miniature world effect. The Fujinon 35mm lens at f/1.4 is equivalent to a 53mm lens at f/2.0 on a full frame camera so I began to wonder if I need to turn to 50mm to achieve the depth of field I was looking for. Starting of with the Fujifilm X-E1 & 18-55mm XF Lens”>18-55mm zoom lens I shot a number of photos of the car (setting the X-E1 on macro mode). You can see from the following two images to get the scale right meant framing at 35mm-55mm....
You can see that moving between the 18-55 zoom and 35mm prime offered different focal lengths and I could adjust the scale of the car. I think both the 18-55mm zoom and 35mm prime worked well to achieve a ‘slight’ sense of reality. I am genuinely beginning to wonder if I really need to retain a full frame camera given the quality of photographs I can achieve with the fujinon lenses. I know there is an even finer DoF offered with f/1.4 on full frame but I am just not sure how often I actually need it. Note: All photos were captured on the Fujifilm X-E1 and either the 18-55mm zoom lens or 35mm prime lens.
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Suggested by
Jeff Seltzer
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Where I live in Southern California ("The Valley") it's rare that we get really thick fog this far inland...it's even more rare that we get really thick fog this far inland, and I'm not too lazy to wake-up and photograph. So, it was a rare occasion indeed last weekend that I got a chance to capture some images at the park around the corner. I love fog because it creates a clutter-free background with just about anything, which is important to me when I shoot. Early morning is also great at the park because there's a relative lack of people getting in my way. Still, several runners stopped and just stared at me as I photographed, no doubt thinking, "what the hell is he taking a picture of??!" (which is a typical reaction for me). All images are taken with the Fuji X-Pro1 with 35mm lens.
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Scooped by
Thomas Menk
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... the last beautiful days of autumn with the X-Pro1
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Scooped by
Thomas Menk
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Shoot for Psyberia’s Fall 2012 lookbook and on-site assets. This was all shot with a Fujifilm X-Pro1 and 35mm f/1.4 and 18mm f/2 lens. Psyberia is a fashion goods company based in New York. Client: Psyberia
Location: Lake Miramar, San Diego
Model: Lorenzo Canizales
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Scooped by
Thomas Menk
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Main camera: Fujifilm X-Pro1 with Fujinon XF 35mm f/1.4 & 18mm f/2 Backup camera: Sony DSC-RX100...
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Suggested by
Stephan Geyer
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Faces and Portraits in Black and White with Fuji X-Pro1 and Fujifilm Fujinon XF 35mm f/1.4 R
by Stephan Geyer
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Scooped by
Thomas Menk
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The firmware update Ver.2.00 from Ver. 1.11 incorporates the following issue. To enable those features, please update the firmware of your Fujinon XF lenses into Ver 2.00 at the same time. 1.Improvement of Auto Focus Performance (1)Auto focusing speed has become much faster under a various shooting condition such as dark scenes, bright scenes and so on. (2)The shortest focusing distance without switching to macro mode has become shorter. 2.Improvement of Manual Focus Performance (1)The speed of images coming into focus when turning the focus ring has become faster. (2)When adjusting the focus with the EVF or the LCD, displaying live view with the minimum depth of field in full aperture has made it easier to focus on subjects. (3)In addition to the focus checking with the 10-time magnification function, the checking with "3-time" magnification function has been added. 3.Improvement of Writing and Processing Speed (1)Writing speed to a memory card has become faster with the maximum speed doubled. <Note> The speed may vary depending on card type and sizes of images. (2)The waiting time of viewing image after shooting has become shorter. (3)An image will be displayed approx. one second after pressing the playback button. 4.Other improvements (1)The ISO setting of "Auto (6400)" has been added. (2)When EVF or OVF is used, the indicator lamp will turn off because the lamp comes to just in front of your right eye if you see the finder with your left eye. (3)When shooting in low light situation, a recorded image will look like more natural atmosphere you saw. Firmware Fuji X-Pro1 V2.00 http://www.fujifilm.com/support/digital_cameras/software/firmware/x/xpro1/index.html Firmware XF lens 18mm V2.00 http://www.fujifilm.com/support/digital_cameras/software/firmware/lens/xf18mm/index.html Firmware XF lens 35mm V2.00 http://www.fujifilm.com/support/digital_cameras/software/firmware/lens/xf35mm/index.html Firmware XF lens 60mm V2.00 http://www.fujifilm.com/support/digital_cameras/software/firmware/lens/xf60mm/index.html
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Scooped by
Thomas Menk
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They come to tame the dragon, deep in the heart of its den. I follow them into a half-light I’ve come to associate with ceremonial spaces; this is a temple to motor oil, dust and gasoline. The machine is massive, built to plow through dense northern trails thick with freshly fallen snow. But today it refuses to budge. Its steel frame shudders in fits and hiccups but the motor won’t start; such a capricious old beast. Get the tools out. Sharpen those swords. Screw this, loosen that. I’m circling & lurking as the ritual takes place. It’s all very quiet, the silence only broken by muffled questions & puzzlement. There’s no banter, just slow, rational work: from one to two, then two to three. Connect the dots. Solve the puzzle. Suddenly, without warning, the Thing roars. Exit the warrior priests.....
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Scooped by
Thomas Menk
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A few random twilight and night shots captured with the Fuji X-E1, the Fujifilm 35mm f1.4 and 18mm f2. When my favorite all-round camera, the Nikon D800E remains shelved due to weight and size (crazy good refurbished Nikon deals, including D600, D800, click here), I reach for the Fuji X-E1, a serious lightweight alternative. I admit, shooting without an AA filter can be very addictive
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Scooped by
Thomas Menk
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On the morning of 29th of December 2012 I visited a little village just south of Kovalam, Kerala India. It is called Vizhinjam and life takes place in and around a fishing harbour. Vizhinjam seemed like a self-containing mechanism, despite the very basic livestyle lived here. It is located a maximum of 10 minutes by taxi south of the tourist spot in Kovalam, the Lighthouse Beach. And as such it is a huge contrast to the clean beach, the hotels etc. on Lighthouse Beach. Vizhinjam is a “real” village. I have tried to give an honest portrait of this little village with kind, but poor and hardworking people. The boats had already landed after fishing during the night. Nets where fixed. Boats was maintained. Some of the fishermen relaxed. The women sold the fish at the local market place. And the very small village even had a small churh with a church square surrounded by religious flags. As always in India the colours where great. But, I was mainly caught by the authenticy and roughness found here.
All photographed with Fuji X-Pro1 + Fujinon 35mm f/1.4.
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Scooped by
Thomas Menk
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It has been a couple of weeks now since I’ve been using the Fuji X-E1 with the 35mm f1.4. This camera is incredible and so is the 35mm f1.4! This lens is super sharp and produces some great colors. The all metal construction has a great build quality. It feels solid, but it is not too heavy. Autofocus is alright, but not comparable to a DSLR of course. The autofocus is crippled by the contrast detection. And since I haven’t had any other X-Mount lens to compare yet, I have no idea if a different lens (i.e. the new 18-55mm) is actually focusing faster. The manual focus is a focus by wire system. So manual focus is smooth, but quite “slow”. You turn it quite long to get from infinity to close focus (In MF you can use the AE-L / AF-L button to initiate AF and then do some manual focus adjustments though). The good thing is that you can actually decide in which direction you want to focus to infinity. In other words either a Nikon or a Canon user can feel right at home....
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Scooped by
Thomas Menk
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Took a trip way back down memory lane today. In Århus, we have a huge 1:1 scale museum depicting old city life around the 1900′s. Some great scenery to be found there. I gave the images an authentic S-Curve processing to make them look dated. I think they turned out quite well. All images shot with X-Pro1 w/35mm f1.4 lens.
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Scooped by
Thomas Menk
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I’ve read a few reviews of the X-Pro1 dismissing its use in the studio, confining it purely to the realm of event and documentary photography. Obviously this a genre at which it excels and the core of the system’s philosophy. But as most of you know these cameras have now become my main system, not merely a fun add-on. Which means they ARE used for studio jobs. All kinds of studio jobs. I recently did a shoot for Serdy Media, a production company which owns several specialized TV stations in Quebec — namely Zeste and Évasion, the french food and travel channels. This was a studio product shoot for their new online boutiques. After thoroughly testing the setup, I decided to again forego my Nikon kit and do the entire session using only the X-Pro1 and the 35mm Fujinon XF f/1.4 lens. It worked beautifully. The X-Pro1 actually has several things going for it for this type of work: - The ability to use the rear LCD for live view without changing how you usually work with the camera. - The two zoom levels with built-in sharpening to pinpoint the focus. - Large focus point coverage. - Horizon line and framing guides. - The ability to switch the same lens to macro mode for detail shots. - No mirror to deal with. Combined with the timer function this is as stable as it gets. All of this makes for a very easy going experience and allows for extremely precise work. The two points of contention when it comes to shooting this camera for studio and/or flash photography are 1) sync speed and 2) tethering. The sync speed obviously wasn’t an issue in this case. As for tethering, I’ve discussed my solution in another post already: an Eye-Fi Pro X2 card. To be honest this was definitely the weakest link in the chain, and I was very fortunate to work with a client who didn’t mind the glacial speed at which photos were getting transferred to the computer. But I didn’t like it. I made jokes about it but it bugged the hell out of me the entire time. I’m glad further testing has revealed an ad-hoc network to be exponentially faster. I won’t get caught with this problem again.
October and November have been very busy months. I was stuck in client projects for a long time and after these were finished, Rebecca and I worked on the relaunch of her website. Even though that all was a lot of fun (check out the cool preview tool we developed), my beloved X-Pro1 was sitting on my desk the whole time making these sad eyes at me. This week we finally had two days off work and sun. Rebecca got the X-E1 meanwhile and we took both Fujis with us and went to Kinsale for a day (you can find her pictures here). This was the first real outing with the X-Pro1 and I have to say that I’m really impressed. It does almost everything better than my Nikon. The level of details, the colors and the dynamic range are so much fun to work with. The only thing I am still adjusting to are the different field of view (crop sensor vs. full frame) and the depth of field (50mm f1.4 vs. the equivalent of a 50mm f2.0). All the shots below were taken with the Fuji X-Pro1 and the Fujinon 35mm 1.4 lens
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Scooped by
Thomas Menk
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This lens has quickly reached cult status, does this standard live up to the hype? This lens is a beautifully built standard, constructed entirely of metal. At least anything you touch, including the filter threads, which is a nice departure from the standard plastic these days. The aperture ring is reminiscent of older lenses with nice metal knurls and nice positive 1/3 stop click stops. The focus ring is similar quality, also with all metal knurled grip. The hood is nice and positive and the lens has two caps. One that goes on the hood since it is not a reversible style, and a second that goes on the filter thread. Thankfully the cap on the threads can still be removed with the hood in place. The hood has a nice positive bayonet mount which makes it easy to take on and off even with the lens cap on. The lens is a modern design 8 element lens with 1 aspherical element, and a nice 7 curved bladed diaphragm, which remains fairly circular until about f/2.8 or f/4. By f/5.6 it is mostly polygon. The 52 mm filter threads are standard for many large aperture standard lenses, so filters are easy to find. The lens has a typical minimum focus distance of about 0.3 m and a maximum magnification of 0.17x. It is well weighted at about 187 g, feeling not too heavy nor too light. This lens is nearly the same size as a classic 50 mm f/1.4 lens from the film camera era. In use, the AF motor is a stepper motor style, and it does make audible focus noise, on par with a quieter screw drive system. Focus remains quick if the lens doesn’t have to hunt the range, but if it does it takes just over a second to go full range. The lens seems to have a long throw, so it should be very precise, but take a little longer to go end to end. In normal circumstances the lens will focus in just a fraction of a second. The manual focus ring is slightly slippery due to the metal knurls. I think rubber would provide a better grip, but wouldn’t last as long or feel as high quality. If you are used to doing quick back and forth motions to manually focus, and stopping on the sharpest point in an instant, this lens won’t work great for that. You have to slow it down as it takes a fraction of a second for the motor to respond. The best way to manually focus is to prefocus using the AE-L/AF-L button and tweak manually, but turning quickly back and forth will work if you slow it down just a bit to compensate for the “lag”. Now how about the optics in a 35 mm f/1.4? The only other standard class f/1.4 lens designed for APS-C at this time is the Sigma 30mm f/1.4, which is notoriously bad in the corners. Does this slightly longer standard lens do better?
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Suggested by
Stephan Geyer
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A continuation of my street portrait project, Faces of the Creek. All shot with my trusty (and sharp!) Fuji X-Pro1 and the wonderful 35mm f/1.4 XF.
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Suggested by
Luc Pher
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This week, I decide to try something different and use the X-pro1 to capture some actions shots together with the 35mm 1.4. The main subjects are skaters at a skate park in the city. It was a short shoot but interesting and fruitful. As most reviewer commented, the AF on the X-pro1 is “OK”. To overcome the slowness, I use pre-focusing and lots of anticipation to capture the action. Coupled with the OVF, I can see outside of the frame to see skaters coming into the frame.
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Scooped by
Thomas Menk
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I’m hip-deep in a lot of retouching, and have some fun stuff to share coming up – including a few amazing weddings. I did want to drop a note about the latest firmware update for the X-Pro1. MUCH faster focus and some nice options -faster write to the card, faster delete, just all around improved performance for the camera. My friend Indra was vending at a club event last week, so I had a chance to test it in some really tricky lighting situations and was extremely impressed at the upgrade!
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Suggested by
chris
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I had some time before a meeting in downtown LA today, so took a side trip to the amazing Walt Disney Theater. The Frank Gehry-designed building opened in 2003, and is just stunning to see.
This is one building where having a built-in level on your camera is essential - nothing is level or parallel r straight! Worth a visit if you're ever in LA. All shots X-Pro1 with 18mm and 35mm Lenses. Great Work by Chris Dodkin :-)
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