Category: Lenses

GF 80mm ƒ/1.7R WR, Continued

Gonna make this quick... I finally had a chance to take the Fujifilm GF 80mm ƒ/1.7R WR lens for GFX out on a photowalk to peer thru it from an urban landscape and street photography perspective. Let's say I'm a little more than impressed. There's something about this lens that gives everything a 3 dimensional quality. The subject just pops right off the page. Sure, that's what large bore portrait lenses do but there's something special about this lens, a quality my GF 110mm ƒ/2 lacks. Even compared to the Sigma Art 85mm ƒ/1.4 I previously owned and adapted onto the GFX 50S, the GF 80mm exceeds it in lifting the subject out of the frame.

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Update: Preparing to Test a Digital Instant Medium Format Film Camera System

So here we are. As promised at the end my GF 80mm ƒ/1.7 lens review, I've received the Fujifilm Instax Share SP-3 printer and 8 film packs totaling 80 exposures. I've never owned or printed using Instax so I decided to use one pack of film to print a full spectrum of recent shots; a couple of portraits with 2 printed directly from the camera, monochrome, vivid color, high contrast, golden hour and my personal processing style. I wanted to get a good feel for the film's dynamic range, color, contrast and sharpness. While the film is traditional instant pack film, the printer works by projecting the image on an 800 x 800 dot, micro-OLED display that exposes the film, basically a digital form of the optical projection used to expose pack film in a traditional Polaroid Land camera. Because it's not fully optical and the micro-OLED is so, uh, micro, I wanted to see how far I could stretch it so I can make adjustments to my shooting style for the best results.

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Review: Let’s Talk About the Fujifilm GF 80mm ƒ/1.7R WR, Shall We?

Thanks to Glazer's Camera here in Seattle, I was able to get my hands on the fujifilm GF 80mm ƒ/1.7R WR on release day. Since then, the weather's been shit, so I haven't been able to test it. I have been able to take some sample shots in my home, running all the way through its ƒ/1.7 to ƒ/22 aperture range and from minimum focusing distance to infinity. I've also shot it with both of my macro tubes, for shits and grins. The 80mm was a lens GFX owners have been screaming for for years now. It's a common focal length in medium format portraiture and one of the most common focal lengths you'll see if ever shopping for a medium format film camera. It's odd Fujifilm has chosen to ignore it for as long as they have and I'm assuming it's due to some internal strife over how it should have been engineered... a fight between ultimate resolution versus ultimate character. In the end, they seem to have landed on a mix of both and you'll see why as you read this review.

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Review: The GF 45-100mm ƒ/4R WR LM OIS is the Best All-Purpose Zoom Lens for Most GFX Owners

You may be thinking, "what an odd focal range," and you'd be right. It covers approximately 36-80mm in 35mm terms, with a significant overlap with the 32-64mm lens in coverage. Judged purely by the range, it's obvious this lens is designed for handheld portraits, covering the popular portraiture focal lengths of 35, 50 and 80mm. Judged by what the Fujifilm lineup lacked at the time of its release, it's also a potential landscape and all-purpose lens as it fills the aforementioned hole in the range, especially at 70mm, a focal length landscapists use often via the wide end of a 70-200mm or the long end of the 24-70mm. Priced at $2299 USD, just like the 32-64mm and 80mm ƒ/1.7, it's like you're getting stabilization for free. Should you own both lenses? Am I missing out by not owning both the 32-64mm and 45-100mm? That depends. If you deal primarily in portraits, fashion or travel, this could be the ideal, single lens solution. However, if you're into landscapes, astro or urban photography, it may not be wide enough for many occasions. I own all 3 zoom lenses and for the first 2 weeks of using the 45-100mm, I found myself carrying it with the smaller, lighter 23mm ƒ/4 prime lens rather than in tandem with the 32-64mm. For one, it cuts my filter pack to half as the two lenses share the 82mm filter thread, compared to the 32-64's 77mm diameter. Another convenience is being able to share the 23mm's lens hood; while the hood may be shorter, it still offers enough protection from both flaring and impacts to be useful on the 45-100mm, plus it helps to slim down my bag a bit. In the end, what I discovered was that I didn't miss the 32-64mm one bit by carrying this tandem.

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Near Misses…

If you know anything about landscape photography, 99% of your planned shots usually end up as a near miss. Funny, that term "near miss," since it literally means "hit."if you "nearly missed," it means you hit it. Anyways, back on topic. I recently bought the 45-100mm lens for GFX and I usually take new lenses to Rizal Bridge to test them, as long as the focal length permits. Conditions turned out to be nearly what I've been waiting patiently for. The one shot I want from there is with the clouds traveling either northwest or southeast, preferably at a pretty good clip, since movement of the bridge due to buses and trucks traveling over it limits the length of long exposures.

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Not a Review: Fujifilm GF 45-100mm ƒ/4 Lens

This is not a review of the lens. This is purely a single first impression I have of it. Reality is that the weather has t been great in Seattle at the right times for me to give it a proper test. Hopefully that changes after this weekend, though, and I'll be able to compile a proper review. What I HAVE done is give the optical image stabilization a quick once or twice over. By that, I mean that I've sat and aimed my camera around my sitting area, seeing how slow I can set the shutter speed and still acquire a perfectly focused image. What I've discovered is that this lens' OIS is amazing.

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So, I Bought a Creative Filter…

I purchased my first ever creative filter: a Tiffen Black Pro Mist 1/4 for diffusion. It should soften up direct light sources and skin while holding sharpness... or at least that's what it says on the tin.

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Review: Fujifilm GF 110mm ƒ/2 Portrait Lens for GFX

Usually the 85mm, or equivalent, lens offered on a system is one of their best lenses optically due to its popularity for portrait photography. The Fujifilm GF 110mm ƒ/2 is no different in this regard. Despite being one of Fujifilm’s first 3 lenses for the GFX system when it was released in 2017, the formula still holds up. The hype surrounding the GFX 100’s release last year also caused a resurgence in this lens’ profile and popularity. It’s reputation has reached near mythic proportions and for good reason: this is an excellently performing lens. It’s not without its flaws, but it has the right combination of flaws to give it character.

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Review: Fujifilm GF 100-200mm ƒ/5.6 OIS Telephoto Zoom Lens for GFX

Giving up a stop of light in exchange for 100mm of zoom range, the GF 100-200mm manages to be light and compact. For more range, it’s compatible with the $850 GF 1.4x teleconverter, bringing the maximum focal length to 280mm but at a minimum ƒ/8. Not all is bad news though: you get excellent OIS and weather sealing, a 67mm filter thread for more reasonably priced filters, a removable tripod foot, a slim profile that’s smaller than most 70-200 ƒ/2.8 lenses and a price of just $1999 USD.

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Adapting FX?

You may have heard that Fujifilm has opened the door slightly to third-parties regarding their APS-C based X-mount. It seems they've finally given in to both unrelenting pressure from their users and the reality of being able to fully flesh out their lens lineup with more niche lenses in a timely and profitable way. One example: poor sales of the $5995 XF 200mm ƒ/2 with 1.4x Teleconverter, a specialty prime designed for sports and wildlife photographers. It seems very few people "clamoring" for that sort of lens actually put their money where their mouths are and has made Fujifilm gun shy about serving up more high performance, expensive, niche lenses. However, the result is Fujifilm opening up X-mount to approved third parties...

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Adapting GFX: Sigma 35mm ƒ/1.4 DG Art

Where the Sigma 85/1.4 is a home run, the 35/1.4 is a bit of a mixed bag. For most people, it should be fine. For some, like me, it's borderline acceptable. For those few, it will be unacceptable. In 35mm crop mode, it works just fine, but for any other mode, it will require a bit of cropping and correction. At wide open, there is a bit more smearing in the extreme corners that sharpen up by ƒ/4 to 5.6.

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Adapting GFX: Sigma 85mm ƒ/1.4 DG Art

The Sigma 85mm seems to cover all of the imaging sensor with no hard vignetting. Fitment of a Wine Country Cameras 100mm filter holder does cause some very light vignetting at the extremes but is easily correctable. Image quality at the extreme corners and edges is a bit compromised at wide open but shapes up when stopped down to ƒ/4.

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Adapting GFX: a Quick Note on the Canon EF 135/2L and Some Brain Droppings on the 85/1.8 USM

Eye-AF works pretty well with this combination. Focus is slow, but it's able to find and lock onto an eye. Because of my experience with the X-T3, sometimes my expectations can be a bit skewed; face and eye detect on the 2018 X-T3 is quite good, especially on distant (small) faces as Fujifilm has improved by leaps and bounds in this area. How quickly I forget the GFX 50S is over a year and a half older, with an imaging processor based on the X-Processor 3 design in the X-T2 and not the current X-Processor 4. Combined with other hardware limitations, plus the fact that the latest firmware update was over a year ago, eye AF on the GFX 50S (or 50R, for that matter) cannot be expected to perform anywhere near that of my X-T3.

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