Larry Bolch

Very much so. Hasselblad will sync up to 1/800th of a second. Mamiya offers a mix of leaf and focal plane lenses. Schneider Kreuznach provides lenses for Phase One and Leaf (if they are still around) with leaf shutters. Pentax went with focal plane and I don't believe have any leaf shutter lenses, however, they did have at least one leaf shutter lens for the film 6×7. Leica has a mix. Leaf shutters historically have been primarily for medium and large format cameras.

Lenses would be the least of the problems. During film days, Fujifilm produced industry-leading large format lenses, medium-format cameras, both with fixed primes and interchangeable lenses. The relationship with Hasselblad is somewhat hush-hush, but word on the street is that both the lenses and bodies are being contracted to Fuji for manufacture. What is sure is that Fuji and Hasselflex have long had a relationship. Fujifilm points out on their site that the GX645AF was developed in collaboration with Hasselblad and looks just like cameras that are branded as Hasselblad. (Bottom of the page.) http://www.fujifilm.com/products/digital_cameras/fujinon/quality/ Furthermore, they are a major supplier of lenses for movie and TV production. At the moment, B&H lists 24 ciné lenses starting at $22,815.95US and ranging upward to $99,800.00. On the video side, they list 158 lenses from $2,999.95 to $233,490.00. B&H also shows an additional 47 lenses for industrial applications. X camera lenses may be new to the consumer market, but Fujifilm has long been a major player on the industrial level. Clearly Fujifilm has the capability of building a medium-format camera. However, capability and will may be entirely different. Once again, Hasselblad is in trouble, so they might be more willing to work with Fuji if there is a non-compete clause in their agreement. However, if Fuji has committed to NOT building a medium-format camera and Hasselblad digs in their heels, we will not see a Fuji Texas Leica. Secondly, they may see the medium-format market as saturated, small as it is. While a major network may not flinch at buying a bunch of $233,490.00 lenses to cover the Olympics, not that many working shooters are willing or able to spring for a $5,000 normal lens.

A local store had both the Metabones Speed Booster and adapter, so for convenience bought both. Simply, they worked. No drama, no workarounds, no esoteric tips needed. Most of my shorter Nikon lenses are redundant to my Fuji primes, but not the longer lenses. I specially like my f/1.8 105mm with and without the Speed Booster. More than adequately sharp wide open, and with the reduced focal length, a f/1.2 105mm field of view. I found that my Perkin Elmer (marketed by Vivitar) 600mm Solid Cat mirror lens, very difficult to focus with either the adapter or Booster. No loss, it is massive and very heavy. While rated as a f/8.0, it is more like a t/11.0—quite a dark view. I also tried my 28mm PC-Nikkor shift lens and it worked fine. I have the excellent Fuji 60mm, but if I needed to work even closer, my 55mm MicroNikkor would do the job. Macro does not lend itself to autofocus, so the 55mm would not be a problem. Again, I could use it with or without the booster.

The 60mm is my most used lens, or very close to it. The close focus is great, but it is an all-around excellent short telephoto. Using its compression, I have found it excellent for panoramas, either stitched in the camera or in Photoshop. Distant details are greatly enhanced.

When I bought my X-Pro1, I was delighted that the first lenses released made a classic photojournalist's kit (18, 35 & 60mm). While I use zooms a lot on my dSLR, primes seemed to match the rangefinder-style shooting that the X-Pro1 fosters so well (both eyes open, prefocus or zone, etc.) Three and a half years later, my initial opinion still holds. I added the 14mm which is brilliant, significantly wider than the 18mm, and very crisp. Recently, I added the Samyang 8mm fisheye, which is a delight. At the moment, this kit serves me very well and I have zero gear-lust. I have a Metabones Speed Booster and adapter which I use on occasion, mostly with an AI-S f/1.8 105mm Nikkor. It works great but adds a lot of weight to the bag. No point in most of the other Nikon lenses since they are generally redundant, and the Fujinons primes are excellent, light and autofocus. I have tested my 200mm and 600mm, but both are heavy, clumsy and not easily focused. I have also tested my 28mm PC-Nikkor shift-lens that works fine, but I have never used it on a shoot. Nice to be able to draw upon these lenses if the occasion arises, but they are not going to be frequently used.

Money for the X-Pro2 is in the bank, should I choose to spend it. Highly satisfied with my X-Pro1 and would be willing to continue with it indefinitely. However, it is nice to be able to shoot with two similar cameras instead of switching lenses, and would be tempted to shoot with both. A Fuji honcho said in an interview that the X-Pro2 would not ship until they could include a significant technological breakthrough. Once I see the whole package, then I will decide whether I will add it.

I have the Metabones adapter and Speed Booster. Both work well with my Nikon lenses. That said, the only Nikon mount lens I carry on a regular basis is the Samyang 8mm.

If I ever needed 200MP, it would certainly not be for action, but most likely it would be for an enormous landscape print. However, it is very easy to shoot a mosaic of 16MP exposures and let Photoshop stitch them. The CC 2015 version does an amazing job with little effort on my part.

Yes, that is the routine. It is great for using zone-focus when you are shooting street or action. Given enough light, stop the lens down to get a reasonable depth of field, use the button to focus on some object in the middle of the zone and then go ahead and shoot. The advantage is that there is no lag while the lens is focusing. When the f/2.4 60mm came on the market, many people in forums declared it was only useful for static subject matter. Any subject movement at all and it was a complete failure. I expect a lot of people actually believed this and passed up a superb optic. They were too inexperienced to realize that a macro lens has a vast focusing range and a bit more anticipation is needed while it seeks focus. However, it also works great with zone focusing. A couple of years ago, I found myself as a houseguest in a far northern town. The son of the family played hockey in a Peewee league (10-11-year-olds), and we all trooped down to the local skating rink to watch him play. Upon arriving, I focused on the goal and did a test shot at f/2.4. The boards opposite my position were somewhat out of focus. Another test at f/4.0 and they were sharp. The foreground was sharp up to the point the players over-ran the frame. The OVF showed a considerable area outside the frame, which made the X-Pro1 remarkably good for covering the sport. One could instantly shift the frame to cover developing action just outside. The results were superb. The contrast was low, so I was able to underexpose by a stop, giving me a shutter speed of 1/1000th without any loss of shadow detail. Thus set, I was able to ignore camera operation and nail peak of action after peak of action. Not one single frame was culled because of softness. See: http://larry-bolch.com/ephemeral/hockey/ The same technique works equally well when shooting candid on the street or when pursuing a ballistic toddler. An added bonus is that most lenses are at their peak of sharpness between f/4.0 and f/8.0. While f/11 may show a bit of fall-off due to diffraction in the optical lab, it will not be noticed in real-world photography.

At this point, medium-format is a bit of a misnomer. In film sizes, nothing under 6×4.5cm was considered medium format. 6×6, 6×7 and 6×9 were the common formats, while Fuji built a magnificent 6×8 SLR and a 6×17 panoramic camera. Current MF sensors are in essence half-frame versions of 6×4.5—roughly 4.5×3cm. The ratio between full-frame and medium-format is about the same as between APS-C and full-frame. (Note: Sensor size not only varies from brand to brand, but from model to model in the case of the Hasselflex.) In 2012, The Camera Store in Calgary did a video comparing the Nikon 36MP D800 with a 40MP Hasselblad. While the Hasselblad had an edge, it was remarkably small for the difference in price and the size of the sensor. https://youtu.be/9UBTE4xpvpk Fujifilm built some wonderful medium-format film cameras, and certainly has the resources to do so in the digital realm. However, the market is small and the cameras such as Hasselblad, Pentax, Mamiya and Leica are well established. An actual medium-format sensor would be one way to distinguish an identity, but unless they went to a company like Teledyne DALSA for a custom part, the part just does not currently appear to exist. Even using the current 3×4.5cm sensors, the price would cause considerable sticker-shock among consumers who feel that an X-T1 is expensive. Of course, a larger sensor means bigger and heavier lenses and camera bodies to handle them. Don't expect f/1.2 to f/1.8 lenses. Few have apertures wider than f/2.8 and they are priced accordingly.

Pretty much every lens in a focusing mount has an adapter available. Some work very well, like my f/1.8 105mm Nikkor or horribly like my f1.8 50mm and f/2.0 90mm Canon Serenars. Both Serenars have flat rear elements, and while they worked very well with non-reflective film, clearly they reflect the light back and forth between the sensor and rear elements. With the Metabones Speed Booster, the 105mm performs beautifully, keeping its 105mm relative field of view and performing as a f/1.2. Using just an adapter gives me the FOV of a 157.5mm f/1.8. I bought the chipped, removable lens hood version of the Samyang 8mm in a Nikon mount, so it is usable on both the D700, and the X-Pro1 with an adapter. The f/4.0 28mm PC-Nikkor can also serve as a shift-lens on the Fuji. While I have other lenses for the D700, these are the most useful. I do have some zooms and long lenses including an old solid glass 600mm built by Perkin Elmer, of Hubble fame. They work but are big and heavy for hand-holding. The downside is that they are all manual focus, aperture control may not be ideal and they lack the connections for writing to the EXIF metadata. And yes, these cameras are about superb Fujifilm glass. The Samyang is the only lens I carry all the time. The 105mm is carried when I plan to do head-hunting in low light. I have not actually used the shift-lens on a shoot, only tested it to see if it works. My 14, 18, 35 and 60mm Fujinons are my core kit. Even though I have those focal lengths covered with other lenses, I would not even think of using them in place of the Fujinons.

Look at the charts of a great many lenses at http://www.photozone/ and a trend emerges. Very fast lenses increase their center sharpness until about f/4.0 with slower lenses hitting their peak in the range of f/5.6 to f/8.0. Almost universally, f/11 shows some drop-off. By f/16-f/22 the drop-off is terrifying. No matter now widely absolute numbers may vary, the charts follow the same pattern. Oddly, it does not show much difference when actually making photographs—without pixel peeping. Even in the optical lab, the difference between f/8.0 and f/11 tends to be quite minimal. This holds true for pretty much every lens they have tested, no matter the focal length. For your own information, shoot the same shot at f/5.6 and at f/16. Make prints and compare.

To understand depth of field, the key is understanding the Circle of Confusion. It is defined as eight optical engineers sitting around a table and arguing about the definition. The problem is a simple one. Sharpness drops off gradually at any aperture. If it went from _|¯|_ there would be no problem at all. The argument depends upon where the individual engineer decides the image is sufficiently out of focus to make that the basis for the circle of confusion. It is entirely possible that no two charts or apps will ever agree. Using the internal hyperfocal function with the X-cameras guarantees success since it is extremely conservative. There may well be charts and apps kicking around that were based upon early films without anti halide coatings that were based upon the flair within the film itself and way too loose for our 2015 sensors.

The various cloud devices seem to also come bundled with automated backup software. If I go this route, I will probably use Directory Opus resource management software instead. No automation, just drag and drop since it will see the cloud as a local drive. http://www.gpsoft.com.au/ The cloud device I am looking at can also be used as a NAS. Upon taking delivery, I will hook it to the machine I use for network storage and transfer all the files I want into the cloud device—no need for taking up the Internet bandwidth to initially copy loads of files. Once in opperation, as I transfer files to the graphics machine, a copy will go to the storage machine and then via the Internet to the cloud at my friend's home. It looks very flexible and adaptable to whatever workflow you are accustomed to.

I wish that ACR/LR/PS would do the same for my D700 shots. There is nothing the least bit creative about fixing a lens in processing. Just an extra manual step.

I am considering a personal cloud from WD or one of its competitors, configured as a fault tolerant RAID. It will be installed at the home of a friend, so if a power surge wipes out my storage at home, I will still have a set of images. As with any cloud, it can be accessed via the Interwebs from anywhere. (I do have fault tolerant backups at home as well)

I discovered I could see just fine if I used my reading glasses. They must be very high-quality optics, since they cost nearly $20 at the grocery store. Problem solved. Next I set the adjustable viewfinders on the other cameras to match. Now I shoot everything when wearing the glasses.

I mostly shoot my X-Pro1 with the OVF when shooting with the 14mm lens. What makes it useless for you? I find it to be quite an ideal combination. Perhaps I can help.

Optical viewfinders have never been precise. Single lens reflex cameras were developed to overcome this characteristic. Each has their virtues. There is zero lag with an OVF. One can view the surrounding area with an OVF with normal lenses and catch moments that would otherwise be missed, compared to the tunnel-vision of reflex cameras. Cameras with an OVF have been a traditional choice for candid and street photography. Focus is usually dead accurate, first with rangefinders and now with contrast detection in sensors. Reflex viewing takes place on a screen, and the photographer sees exactly what the camera sees. Early SLRs were very slow to operate, and shooting lag was substantial. Now EVFs still have a bit of lag, but refresh quite quickly. Current dSLRs are quick to focus, but may need to have individual lenses fine tuned to be accurate with auto-focus. My D700 has memory for up to 12 different lenses.

Not necessarily cured by an excess of currency. While film offered no problems with filters, it had the virtue of being non-reflective. Sensors are quite reflective and it is possible to set up feedback reflections between the sensor and the filter since they are perfectly parallel. Similar things can happen with lenses designed for film if the rear lens element is flat. I have a 90mm f/2.0 Canon Serenar with a flat rear element and the results are nearly psychedelic!

Good point. One does not use HDR for action photography. Great for interiors, landscapes, night-time photography, where there is lots of time to write the images to the card. Out of curiosity, I just did a nine stop bracket with my seven year old D700, and it managed to clear the buffer in a tad over five seconds. Should be a breeze with a contemporary processor. The question is whether there is enough buffer to handle it.

At this point, there are Fujinons that cover all but the long telephoto segment and that will be answered next year with a 100-400mm zoom. Above all, they are all excellent. I went with primes just because it felt right to shoot primes on the X-Pro1. However, most of my shooting with the dSLR is with zooms. Really, it is a matter that only you can answer, and the answer will be right for you.

The latest update to Photoshop CC (and I assume Lightroom) includes HDR in Adobe Camera RAW. It does a remarkable job of eliminating the ugly artifacts that turned so many off HDR in the early days. I too would love a ±4.0EV range, but even with the ±1.0 X-Pro1 bracket, a definite gain is visible.

One thing in the favor of mirrorless cameras is that the focus is based upon the actual image. DSLRs use phase-detect which can result in fore or back focus. My D700 has memory to fine tune the autofocus of up to 12 individual lenses. If a contrast-detect camera focuses on the wrong subject, it is user error.

The negative is the equivalent of the composer's score, and the print the performance. - Ansel Adams