Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Test of Fuji 35mm f1.4 X-mount lens

Since I've had my Fuji X Pro-1 camera - about three months - I've been shooting with the 18mm f2 lens. I purchased the 35mm f1.4 lens and gave it a spin today. I'll leave all the techy numbers and  pixel peeping reviews for those folks who are so inclined to crunch numbers for the greater good of the rest of us who rely on those results for some kind of guidance. My acid test of any piece of equipment is how it works in the field shooting with the conditions and of the subjects on which I concentrate.

I needed to see my dentist in Jersey City, NJ, so I went early and took a little walk. Good news all around. The dentist was painless, and the lens performed spectacularly. There's quite a bit of talk in the Fuji forums about the lack of speed of the XP1 - the chatter comes mostly from photographers who cut their teeth on DSLRs and were looking for the same kind of quick responsiveness from a different kind of camera. I personally have never had an issue with that responsiveness - just that I needed to learn to work with a different tool. The 18mm lens had is 'character' and I adjusted to working with it, and learned to love it. The 35mm lens auto focus is distinctly faster in response and is a bit sharper (not that the 18mm lens is at all a disappointment in its acuity). The 35 mm focal length, in comparison to the 18mm, solves some problems and creates others. I'm excited about the few shots I made today, and I'm looking forward to a full afternoon outing later in the week.

Here's a shot I entitled Time To Scratch. Three versions: #1 is in color with my basic Lightroom and slight contrast adjustment, #2 is the same as #1 but converted to b/w using Nik software's Silver Efex Pro 2, #3 is #1 taken a bit further in processing before converting to b/w.


#1



#2



#3


3 comments:

  1. Congratulations with your new lens. Sounds like a good lens already. With that expression the man on the photo have - I don´t hope it´s the dentist writing the bill :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great post! We are linking to this great article on our website.
    Keep up the good writing.
    Here is my weblog :: atlanta dentists

    ReplyDelete