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.

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.

Adapting GFX: Canon EF 135mm ƒ/2L USM

There are some drawbacks though. Uncannily enough, they’re the same as with the Canon EF 28mm ƒ/1.8 USM: slight vignette with a hard vignette at infinity focus. At ƒ/8, it isn’t very prevalent as you’ll see in the samples, easily corrected with a 5:4 crop that retains 48MP. However, as the aperture gets smaller, the vignette hardens, as you can see at ƒ/32, but still works at a 5:4 crop ratio. The lens works fine with a 3:2 crop at full sensor width and in 35mm crop mode, so you can choose what works best for you.

Weirdly, the lens changes focus as you move in and out of playback mode on the GFX...

Adapting GFX: Canon EF 28mm ƒ/1.8 USM

Widening out to an approximate 22mm in 35mm format terms, the Canon EF 28mm ƒ/1.8 USM does show some hard vignetting that is never fully resolved. It’s very, very slight and occurs at ƒ/4 and smaller at infinity focus. Vignetting is prevalent fully open, mostly disappearing by ƒ/4 at close focus distances.

If the vignetting is a problem for you, the EF 28mm ƒ/2.8 IS might be a better bet but isn’t on Canon’s list of preferred lenses for the 5DSR, so it may or may not resolve well on a 50MP sensor.

Adapting GFX: Sigma 50mm Art Addendum

One thing I quickly discovered is the intrusion of the lens hood when adapting 35mm lenses onto the medium format GFX. Since the 50mm Sigma casts an image circle closer to 40mm, it's going to pick up more of what's on the periphery of the field of view; in this case it's the lens hood.... Continue Reading →

Adapting GFX: Contributing Data

If you'd like to contribute your findings, please include lens specifics (brand, focal length, maximum aperture, lens version, firmware version, and if it's weather sealed or stabilized), adapter used, and camera used. Full sensor sample shots without the lens hood (JPEG, 2000x1500 pixel minimum) needs to be of a white or gray background at the widest aperture at both minimum and infinity focus, repeating this at ƒ/8 and at minimum aperture, be it ƒ/22 or ƒ/32.

Adapting GFX: Sigma 50mm ƒ/1.4 Art

This is the first in a series of posts on individual lenses adapted to the Fujifilm GFX 50S with the TechArt Pro EF-GFX adapter.

Fujifilm GFX 50S, firmware v3.30 (latest)
TechArt Pro EF-GFX, firmware v1.01 (latest)
Sigma 50mm ƒ/1.4 Art, firmware v2.02 (latest)

Summary:
Full compatibility: Autofocus, EXIF OK.
This lens shows a correctable vignette throughout the aperture range but is heavily affected by focus breathing. As the aperture shrinks, focus toward infinity causes the vignette to become harder and more pronounced. Despite this, it is easily cropped and corrected while maintaining 45mp or more.

Adapting GFX: The Introduction of 35mm “Full Frame” Lenses on the GFX

As I have alluded to in a burst of recent posts, I am planning to generate a small database of lenses for use on the Fujifilm GFX series. Here's my chance for an introduction to give my rationale and to lay the foundation of this endeavor. I'd like to break this down into three "Y's."
Let's begin with a personal "why": I'm choosing to use Sigma lenses to obtain focal lengths and apertures not currently offered in the GF lens lineup. Fujifilm's lineup is sparse at best, and apertures wider than ƒ/2 aren't represented. It's not that I'm a bokeh whore; it's that I need more light gathering for astrophotography and Fujifilm's widest lens, a 23mm, has a maximum aperture of ƒ/4 and that's just not going to work without a star tracker due to the sensor's 51MP resolution. I'm hoping to print a few of these so what counts for "sharp" on the web doesn't work at 20" print sizes. Other benefits: 35mm lenses are much cheaper, especially used prices, and these lenses mostly have direct focusing units unlike the "fly by wire" systems used on Fujifilm lenses. The GFX system just isn't mature enough to have grown both a complete lens lineup or a diverse used lens market.

A Free Education is Worth Exactly What You Paid For It

There's a certain couple on Youtube that talks a lot about photography and tends to harp on the value of education also pushes their "free" photography education courses online. You may even begin to believe some of their rhetoric or have heard some of their misinformation floating around.
Mind you, much of the technical information they love to claim they're proficient in and knowledgeable about is shit. They'll contradict themselves within the span of 5 minutes. One example is their belief that "professional" lenses on a smaller sensor, like APS-C, will perform worse in sharpness because said lens isn't tuned for the sensor size, yet will then claim that some lenses on 35mm are so sharp, you get the ability to crop the image in closer than other lenses. Realize that these two things are a contradiction and a sharper lens will never give a sensor of fixed resolution higher resolution, perceived or otherwise. How do I know this? Simple physics and geometry. Let me explain:

I’ve Learned the Secret to Using ND Filters: Consistency.

Since finding joy in landscape photography, I made the decision to try and do as much "in camera" as possible in an attempt to teach myself the art of photography, rather than exploit the science of photography, to create a photograph. As such, I slowly learned exactly what that meant and have been on the quest to acquire the best tools for me to do so, starting with a solid tripod and high quality circular polarizers.

From there, I continued. I bought a set of B+W ND filters in 3-, 6-, and 10-stops. Then, I bought a Formatt-Hitech (F-H) 100mm Firecrest filter holder kit so I could use graduated ND filters, solid ND filters, and a circular polarizer all at once.

Desperate Plea: Fujifilm, Please Redesign The 35mm ƒ/1.4 Lens Sooner Rather Than Later

This lens was once an excellent value from the inception of the X-Series system until now. Unfortunately due to Fujifilm's push to dominate in video, the introduction of the ƒ/2 lens, and the announcement of the 33mm ƒ/1, the 35mm ƒ/1.4 has lost all reason to exist in its current form. A complete redesign, implementing these features, could create a lens that outsells all of their other lenses by appealing to the widest range of users and without having to compromise.

Updated Flatlay

I've been acquiring more and more stuff to support my photography over the past summer and, since my last flatlay photo was taken back in May, I thought I'd update the image with all of the new gear I've acquired. This is limited to just my Fujifilm bodies and glass. There's far more laying around in support of this, from bags to filters to tripods and everything else in between. At least I've hit a plateau, now owning all but 1 or 2 lenses on my list, transitioning to the acquisition of the filters and platforms I need to support my work.

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