aceflibble

Had this conversation with someone from Fuji earlier; there's a lot of talk on Fuji sites about which lens is the best/favourite/most used/whatever, but few people will speak up on what they've ended up not liking. It's actually a bit of a problem for certain Fuji departments; because so much of the feedback on lenses is nothing but praise, it makes it harder for them to know how to market new lenses. (Note: I've not heard that it makes it any harder for them to know which lenses to make next or revise, just how to advertise them/communicate their benefits to consumers.) Also, as someone who has traded in/sold more lenses than he can remember owning, I'm often thinking of which lenses I don't need, rather than which lens I have to buy next. So, with that in mind, I thought it'd be interesting to ask y'all: which one Fuji lens have you bought but ended up not using much, have outright hated, or have never been at all tempted to buy? I made the thread, so I'll start: 56mm f/1.2. Bought one thinking it would replace the 60mm as my main Fuji portrait lens, hated it, sold it, thought I didn't give it enough of a chance, bought a second one, had it sit in my camera bag for a year unused and finally traded that one in. I think I'm definitely done with it now. Never thought the results at f/1.2 were that spectacular, and from f/2.5 onwards I found I was better off using the 60mm, especially in the studio where the 56mm hits diffraction much earlier and AF speed is basically irrelevant. I can totally see its use for other people, and I still advise other people give it a go, but for me, it just wouldn't 'click'. Anybody? (Disclaimer: no guarantee anybody from Fuji will read this, but it'll be fun to bring up next time I see them.)

If you like a 24-70 and 70-200 on your Nikon bodies, the obvious answer is to go for the 16-55 and 50-140 lenses. The problem there is that you said you want to cut down on the weight and size, and those two lenses defeat that. An X-T2 with the 16-55 and 50-140 weighs more-or-less the same as a mid-range SLR with the 24-70 and 70-200 style of zoom lenses. You'd be saving a little weight and size, but not much, and it costs you effectively one stop of light.Yyou'd get the same size/weight/light difference by simply moving from the f/2.8 zooms to f/4 versions. (Being an ex-Canon user, I'm not familiar with Nikon's offerings; I'm only assuming they do f/4 versions of the 24-70 and 70-200, like Canon do.) When you then factor in the need to carry more spare batteries—the X-T cameras eat up battery power about 3.5x quicker than the average SLR—you start to question why you made the switch. When you also talk about things like the 10-24 or using teleconverters, frankly you're then not saving any size/weight at all, but you are losing light and convenience. If weight and size is the primary reason for switching, I'd go for the 18-55 and 55-200, or even consider using only the 18-135. Switching to a couple of primes would also give you a significant drop in bulk; take a look at the 23mm and 60mm, to cover the middle range of the 24-70 and 70-200, respectively. There's no weight or size advantage to be had if you go straight for the 'equivalent' zooms. They're the same size and weight as the f/4 Canon/Nikon versions. You can't cut down on bulk by replacing like-for-like. The X-T2 won't be lighter than a standard Nikon SLR in any significant, meaningful way, either. Consider the X-T10 or X-E cameras, to save more weight; they're not weather resistant, but the X-T1/2 isn't actually that weather resistant, either. Having used pretty much every combination of Fuji lens and body you can name I can also say that there's no increase in image quality to be had from the new sensors (Pro2/T2) until you start shooting at ISO 800 or higher; if you're below ISO 800, it's really impossible to tell the new files from the old ones once they're resized to a normal viewing size. If you're printing your images, there's no difference at all; even at ISO 3200, I've not been able to tell a Pro2 file from a T10 file, with both printed at the same size. There's not really any such thing as "best glass" with Fuji, if you're looking at the XF lenses. The only one which is optically inferior is the 18mm prime, and even that is just fine by Canon/Nikon standards. The primes are generally a fraction sharper than the zooms, just like with SLR lenses, but that's about it. If you take every Fuji XF lens, except the 18mm, and stop them all down to f/4, they will all give you identical image quality. There's a little more variation when you use each lens wide-open, but they're all as good as you can expect; there's no Canon or Nikon lens which is sharper wide-open as any of the Fuji lenses, so whatever you're used to with your Nikon, the Fujis will all at least match. Have a hard think about whether you prioritise bulk over lens focal range, or vice-versa. You're going to have to compromise on one to get the other.

It's hard to recommend the 16-55 because, for its size, it doesn't really offer much that the 18-55 'kit' lens doesn't. The real reason to buy the 16-55 is because you feel you absolutely need that extra stop at the long end. If the weddings you shoot are in very dark venues more often than not, maybe for you the 16-55 will be better. If f/4 is fine for you, save some money and weight and buy the 18-55, instead. In terms of sharpness, contrast, and focus performance, they're basically the same once you're shooting at the same aperture. Don't forget the 18-55 has OIS, which will help in lower light if you don't need to totally freeze fast action. If you'd be happy with primes, I'd really suggest the 14mm and 56mm. 14, 23, and 56 is a helluva all-round prime kit for all the things you've listed. In fact, those three + the 18-55 is what I'd almost always recommend for anyone; the primes for when you can take your time, and the zoom for speed. I see all the other Fuji lenses as being more speciality. Those three primes and the standard zoom are your best bet for all-round use and variety, which is what you sound like you need. Landscape through to events and portraiture is a lot to ask from just a handful of lenses, and I'd be wary of buying anything which was only suitable for one of those things and useless for the others. (90mm, I'm looking at you.)

For shots of the kids, I'd go for the 56mm. It's not a good lens for adult headshots—a bit too wide—but for kids it's really appropriate. The 90 obviously requires more light and if you've not used a 135mm (equivalent) before, you'll be surprised at how tight the framing is. The 56mm will give you fewer problems in terms of room and light, and it's still long enough for some significant subject/background separation. That said, the 56mm is a weird beast. Some people treat it like it absolutely has to be used at f/1.2 at all times, but other people will tell you to always stop it down to f/2.8 or f/4 to actually get the sharpness out of it, which is what it's become more famous for. Some people will tell you 85mm is too wide for even kids' portraits, other people will tell you 85mm is too long for practical use outside of a studio/stilted portrait environment. The 56mm is absolutely beloved by some people, but then other people doing the same kind of shooting will use it and think it's a bit pointless. 85mm came along as a portrait focal length because it is more casual than the old standard of 105mm but more intimate than a 50mm, but not everybody was happy with that compromise. Personally, I've had four copies of the 50-140mm, two 56mms, and one 90mm. In terms of objective image quality, they're all equal; the 56mm is noticably softer wide open than the 90mm, but that's the price you pay for a-stop-and-a-third more light. For sake of equality, if you stop them all down to f/4, they're all the same. There is no objective reason to pick one over the other. Your own preferences for a certain focal length are all that matters. You have a 50mm and 60mm on your Sony system, which has the same crop factor (1.52x). Look at your photos with those two lenses and see if you're happy with that ballpark, because the 56mm is obviously in the middle of those two.

If you can wait a little bit, Cactus RF60 and V6 triggers are being updated to support HSS for ALL brands, including mixed brand shooting. In other words, you could use a Fuji body, one Canon flash, one Nikon flash, and with the Cactus triggers, you'll be able to use HSS. For those unfamiliar with the Cactus system, the Cactus flashes themselves have the triggers built-in, and the trigger for your camera allows control of power down to 1/10th increments—even with flash units which don't normally support such fine control—and can make every brand of flash all work together as one consistent system; your choice whether they all fire at their own power levels, or if you bring the more powerful units down to match the power of the weakest units. The HSS functionality will come with all new V6 triggers in the future—be aware that some shops may sell their old stock first—and existing V6 triggers and RF60 flashes will be able to have their firmware updated to use HSS, too. The only problem is there isn't a set date for when this update is going to roll out. It's expected "soon", but nothing specific. That could be a couple of weeks, it could be a couple of months, or, for some parts of the world, it could be half a year away. We just don't know. But if you can afford to wait, and you need HSS, that's the system to look out for. I'd also add that if you can't wait, consider buying Cactus units now anyway. They will lack HSS, but so does every other flah system with Fuji, and you can still get full use of every other benefit of the Cactus system in the meantime, then just update the firmware once HSS is available. And do spread the word on other forums and such that HSS is coming! (Sources: Around this time last year, Cactus staff told me, in person, that they were looking into supporting HSS, but didn't know when it would be available, if at all; today, Damien Lovegrove made a blog post about an X-Pro2 shoot, in which he says he knows HSS will be coming soon, both as new V6 trigger units and as a firmware update to existing V6 & RF60 units. Considering he's the main dealer of Cactus units in the UK, I fully trust his insight.)

That's how it's meant and advertised to work. Part of the high performance mode function is it puts the camera to sleep, for about five minutes, when you turn the camera off. This enables it to start back up again quicker. After that time the camera does turn off fully and turning it on will require a full system start, which, as you have noted, takes a few seconds to fully initialise. Older cameras simply gave you nothing for a few seconds after turning them on, while Fuji have now opted to exchange more immediate shooting for a few additional seconds required for all buttons to respond. You can take a picture sooner after turning the camera on than you otherwise would, but yes, certain buttons won't do anything for the first four to five seconds.

Honestly, this is why I just wish image stablisation didn't exist at all, anywhere, on anything.

I'll +1 the recommendation to check out Damien Lovegrove. Whether you look at his Canon/Nikon stuff or his recent Fuji work, his style of slightly more environmental portraiture with minimal additional light and quick, efficient working will be right up your alley, from the sound of your description. I'll also add that I've seen the man at work in person and he's just as fast with his old X-Pro1 as he is with the Canons he used to use, if not faster. I can't say I find the Fujis slow for portraiture myself, either. I'm typically working indoors in dim conditions where flash is not permitted and I'm expected to get solid single and group portraits, posed and casual alike, of bands and artists in whatever few minutes they have available before getting on stage. It's pretty normal for me to have <2 minutes to do something in a room where ISO 3200, f/2 and 1/125th still leaves me underexposed. (And god forbid I lower the shutter and induce the dreaded subject motion.) These images don't get scaled down before they're viewed; the majority of the time I have to send files off at their original size and that's how they're used, so I can't rely on scaling and noise reduction to deal with the noise or make up for a lack of sharp focus. Even so, the Fujis have become my go-to for this kind of work. I'm now using SLRs strictly outdoors when the weather dictates tougher gear or I need the speed and longer reach of a DSLR with a big prime, my 6x7 medium format lives in the studio and my Fujis are ruling my indoors, on-location work. Speed has never been an issue, no matter how pressed I am for time. I will not pretend to know the ins-and-outs of your exact style of shooting and subject, but if you are finding the Fuji cameras too slow to get portraiture done in a few minutes, I can tell you no other mirrorless system is going to be faster—Sony and Leica are both slower in operation—and it also really makes me wonder what it is you're doing to take up so much time. If I'm not set up, shot, torn down and left within 120 seconds, I've usually screwed up the job and pissed a bunch of people off. I can't imagine what kind of 7th circle of hell job would be so tough on time as to make mirrorless impossibly slow to use, at least in terms of portraiture. Again, not saying you're wrong for wanting or thinking you need something faster, I'm just having trouble wrapping my head around the idea of such a task. Sounds like you could do with getting some more relaxed clients!

You've got the lens' image stabilisation turned on. That's what the noise is and that's what's draining the battery down. The more powerful X-T10 feeds the IS a little better and more consistently than the old X-E1 does, which is why you notice it less with the X-E1. The X-T10 is a little more 'active'. The quicker drive also tends to make a little more noise when autofocusing, same as it does with the X-T1. That's just to be expected when you make the lens shift so much glass faster. Of course, you may also have high performance mode turned on, the X-E1 inherently has slightly better battery life than the newer Fujis and using autofocus with any zoom lens shortens battery life compared to the primes. (Though only very slightly.) The X-T10 actually has slightly better battery life than the last few Fujis—assuming you use a fresh and fully-charged battery—when set up and used in the same fashion. It's not much, but it should be giving you an extra ~50 shots or so over the other bodies.

Depends what your standards are. If video is a casual, occaisonal thing for you, Fuji does fine. You're getting the same kind of thing a stock 5DmkII gives you, and that thing revolutionised the industry when it was released. The problem is that things have evolved a lot since the 5DmkII was released, and these days, for people who are serious about video, that standard no longer cuts it. You need to have some kind of image stabilisation somewhere in the system, you need good audio monitoring support, you need a flat image profile, you need good external monitor support, you need every combination of 720/1080/24fps/25fps/30fps/50fps/60fps/120fps shooting, you need stepless aperture adjustment, you need 1:1 lagless manual focus and, very soon, you will need 4k. People who are serious about video don't use SLR now. Actual video cameras re-took the lead a few years ago. That new Sony A7 has a lot of features to make it competitive, though it's still going to find a home more in the hands of people who primarly shoot stills and dabble with video; anyone who mostly does video has already moved into a proper video system. Canon's Cine line and Sony's system video cameras are blowing everything else out of the water and dominating that market. So, is Fuji's video as bad as everyone says? Depends on how much you need to get out of video and what your standards are. If you're shooting video for a BBC documentary, Fuji—and every other SLR-like camera—is so unthinkably bad that you'll never consider them. If you're shooting a 2 minute clip of your grandkids running around the garden, Fuji will do everything you need. If you're tacking a little video of the cake cutting on to the back of a digital wedding album, Fuji will get the job done but you'll probably wish you had something better.

What you want doesn't really exist. There are a few compromises which you may find more appealing than the X-Pro1, though. Switching to Leica will give you higher resolution. That's it. Image quality at equivalent size is no different, noise performance is no different and the current Leica line-up are slightly larger and slower then the Fujis. Sony will give you higher resolution and about 0.5 stop better noise performance. They don't look like rangefinders, they're not smaller then the Pro1 and they don't have a good native lens line-up; they take adpaters well, though, so you could use Canon or Nikon lenses on them, though that'll also add to the size. Wait for the X-Pro2. I have it on good authority it'll be somwhere north of 20mp and it's reasonable to assume that noise performance will be 0.5-1 stop better, as falls in line with the usual body upgrades. If you don't like the X-Pro1, though, the Pro2 likely won't serve you well, either. The Fuji X-E2 won't solve any of your problems other than it's the only rangefinder-style camera which is smaller than the X-Pro1. Eh, if you can't get something you're happy with, you might as well at least save some weight. As far as flash goes, nobody does what you want. That kind of flash doesn't exist any more. It's kind of surprising Fuji even bothered to put a clip-on flash in with the X-T1. People these days are happy enough bumping the ISO up (if they even give ISO a second thought), or if they are into flash then they're really into flash and will use flashguns or flash heads off-camera with manual control. The kind of clip-on box flash you're after died out many years ago. The few that exist now are no different to the pop-up flash you get on the X-T10 or any entry-level SLR. You're either going to have to live without flash, move up to a full-size flashgun or live with things like the EF-X20. There's nothing like that but better. (I'll also add that the fad for overexposed direct on-camera flash portraiture has already run its course and become unfashionable, so I'd have a good long think about whether this is something you really care about.)

Yeah, the dials on the T10 are a bit loose and easy to knock accidentally, but I simply adjusted my grip—kind of necessary since the smaller body is a little awkward for my large hands anyway—and now it's not a problem. I do end up changing the drive a lot by accident with the T1, but like I said, large hands. Those stacked dials are a nightmare for me. I actually would rather have a proper ISO dial on top and I wish they had gotten rid of the drive dial, instead, but alas~

Well duh. But f/8 is a helluva thing indoors. I do events in minimal light—the settings I listed before are very common for me to use and I still end up pushing the files half a stop or so in post—and if I'm looking to get a whole room reasonably in focus, we're probably talking about f/3.2-4 on a 28mm lens or wider. In fact I'm often left cursing how large the depth of field is, even at f/2.8, on some of the wider lenses to get a whole room in shot. There's a reason why the 14mm never needs to be stopped down. I'm not saying it's wrong/impossible/whatever, I'm just trying to get my head around the concept of a 'low light' situation which calls for such an aperture.

I really have to question why anybody would be trying to shoot at f/8 in 'low light'. Maybe my definition of 'low light' is different to yours, but for me, 'low light' means ISO 3200-6400, f/2 (or faster) and 1/125th is still underexposing by more than a stop. Yes, the aperture stopping down to f/8 will reduce the light coming into the camera dramatically and induce some EVF lag, but if you're in that dark a space with that small an aperture, I wonder what on earth it is you're trying to photograph.

I did mention the additional dials. I also thought this would be a problem, before I used a pre-production X-T10, but when I did with the ISO mapped to one of the command dials, I didn't find myself missing the ISO top dial. In fact because it's not stacked up, I find myself not changing shooting modes accidentally like I do with the X-T1. I'd agree that the T10 feels cheaper, but that's to be expected with a camera that is half the price and not weather sealed. Again, as I I don't see much use for mirrorless cameras in conditions where toughness is an issue, I personally do not consider this to be a problem. I've not met many casual shooters who keep their camera in high speed continuous burst, and few who even use viewfinders when there's a decent rear screen to use instead. The buffer can be a problem, hence why I highlighted it. I have run it out twice on jobs, where the T1 wouldn't have run out. Still, two short instances on two minor jobs out of a couple of months is not bad going, and the buffer of the T10 actually isn't any smaller than the buffer I used to live with all the time on my (then)£4,000 1DsmkII. The T10's buffer is small compared to the T1, sure, but in the grand scheme of things it is good enough. Again, I wouldn't say the T10 is the better choice for everybody, just that in my—entirely subjective—experience as a working professional, the T10 has, so far, done a fine job of replacing the T1 and my T1 now is just gathering dust until I write that eBay listing and buy a second T10.

I'm a people-person and pay almost no attention to landscapes, so I'll only comment on the second image. RE processing: I wouldn't change how you process your images. At least at this resolution, I'm not seeing any way it could be sharper without it having terrible halos and artifacting. It looks like it's already sharpened as well as can be. I'm not a fan of Lightroom's standard sharpening for screen—I find setting it to low always looks better, to my eye—but that could just be me. What I like about this image is it looks very similar to how I shoot medium format film. I shoot Kodak films underexposed by one stop then pushed half a stop in development for more grain, contrast and saturation. 'Proper' exposure would wash out the sand and the sky. It's a nice look, to me. I like that you've got actual black in your images, rather than the lifted grey tones that are fashionable these days. The only thing I'd like more is either a very slightly wider frame or a very slightly tighter one, and maybe taken from an inch or two lower. It kind of bugs me when peoples' hands are almost in shot but just cut out, so I'd either go a little wider or tighter to include her hands or fully cut the frame off at her waist. I'd lower the camera very slightly because it looks like a kind of "5'6"" shot, i.e. just taken around eye level. I'm of the opinion that the further you are from somebody the lower you should dip the camera to keep a flattering perspective, so at that distance—what looks like three or four feet?—I'd just lower the camera more to around neck/shoulder level. But then, I shoot portraits to make people look their prettiest and don't do anywhere near as much 'documentary' type stuff as I'd like. If documentary is your thing then the height isn't a problem. Going through the other images on your site, I'd say the same thing for most of them. Like the processing as it is, I just want the camera to be lower by an inch or two and either get that tiny bit closer or that tiny bit wider.

The X-T10 is smaller and lighter and has a pop-up flash, but the X-T1's bigger shell fits in moderate weather sealing, two more physical dials, a larger EVF and a very, very slightly higher-resolution screen. The X-T10's buffer is a lot, lot smaller and it doesn't support the faster memory cards that the X-T1 does, but the X-T1 eats through battery very, very slightly faster. Unless you're crazy and trying to use a mirrorless camera to shoot wildlife in a rainforest, there's no practical difference. In regular day conditions shooting at a normal speed, they will do the exact same things. I'm actually considering selling my X-T1 and replacing it with a second X-T10, because for my purposes they are identical but I can sell the T1 for more than a new T10 costs.

(Disclaimer/background info: I gave both lenses a solid day of real-world testing, but as I decided neither suited me perfectly enough to justify the cost, I do not actually own either lens. As such, I do not have extensive samples to provide, 'lab' style testing, etc. I've used 'em, didn't keep 'em. People who have actually bought both lenses will have a better frame of reference for how they compare.) It depends on how you're using them. The compression of the long end of the zoom provides more background/foreground separation than the 90mm can, even if you have the 90mm at f/2 and the zoom on f/2.8. That one stop only really makes a difference when the zoom is around the 90mm mark. This is true for all manufacturers' lenses of this type. If you want those really blown-out, completely blurred backgrounds, the longer focal length is almost always going to do a better job. However, you said you like what the 6D and 70-200 f/2.8 gives you. The problem there is that f/2 on a crop body (Fuji) looks like f/3 on a 35mm body (Canon 6D) and f/2.8 gives you a look like f/4.2. So, if you want to match the look of your Canon lens wide open, the zoom is going to struggle. In terms of the look of the image, it will always look as though it's one stop down compared to the Canon. The 90mm prime, on the other hand, more or less matches the look of the Canon zoom, if you compare the zoom at a similar focal length. So what you basically have is a choice between not quite the same background blur but the same subject compression and flexibility (50-140mm), or roughly the same background blur but only at a specific range (90mm). In my own shooting (typically portrait of various types) I tend to find the difference in background style between f/2.8 and f/4 isn't that much, and though I'm usually a prime shooter, I find myself leaning toward the zoom in these cases. The Canon 135mm f/2L is in fact one of the very few <500mm L lenses I never liked, for this reason. All that said, the bokeh of both lenses was close enough, when I was using them, that I wouldn't base a purchase on it. Most people are reporting the 90mm's bokeh is a little less busy, when you compare both lenses at the same focal length and aperture. In my use I found the zoom to look a little smoother and have less of a catseye effect, but I happily acknowledge that my use was entirely subjective and won't necessarily reflect the use of every other shooter out there in the world.

If I could get hold of some sparkly purple material, I'd finally buy a black Fuji and really go to town on it. Love me anything in black & purple. That colour-changing paint that TVR cars use would be cool, too. I've often thought about buying a second hand Pro1—since that has the most clean surface area to mess with—just to experiment modifying. A side business and hobby of mine is building and customising guitars, and I have many friends who work in special effects and prop making for the film and TV industry, so I'm confident I could get some pretty extreme stuff done either myself or through friends. LED inner wraps, heat resistant paints (practical!), glow-in-the-dark, etching. I have some ideas... But alas, second hand prices of the Pro1 still haven't fallen far enough for it to be 'throw away' money.

Again, I will say that in my subjective use with each lens, the zoom has performed better. I tend to keep the shutter above 1/400th and IS off, so no, I know camera shake isn't to blame. I don't have MTF data to back that up, like I said, I simply used them both and the images from the zoom came out sharper to my eye. Maybe one of them is a dodgy unit. Maybe I shifted the camera 0.2mm forwards after locking focus. All I know is, in real-world use, for me, the zoom won the sharpness war. Well this is where we get really subjective, but for me, the 90mm's bokeh is very clumpy and distracting, even at the apertures where it should have an advantage over the zoom. (And assuming you use the zoom at around 90mm for an even comparison.) It's a lot like when you look at the 56mm vs the 60mm, where sure, the 56mm goes faster, but once you stop it down to the same aperture, the bokeh of the 60mm is smoother. With primes this still puts the advantage toward the 56mm, but in the case of the 90 vs the 50-140, the one stop aperture advantage really isn't so great; it's not a big leap to the zoom's aperture and the compression the zoom can offer can compensate if you don't mind/can go longer. But hey, some people think the Canon 85 1.2's bokeh is the best on the planet and other people think it's a horrific nightmare of haloed catseyes. Some people think portraits should always be taken with the lens wide open and others always stop down either to a certain point for every photo or a different amount depending on the subject context.

They do different tasks. There is not "best". Capture one is lovely for tethered shooting and it is pretty good for working with presets and batch-exporting multiple copies of the same image for different purposes. It's not very good for cataloguing and organising all of your photos, however, and it's not as robust for full image editing as Lightroom and Iridient. Generally you use Capture One alongside other software. I don't know anybody who uses Capture One by itself. Iridient is the most robust raw file processor. If you like to shoot raw and play with wildly different exposure values and highlight recovery and everything else like that, Iridient is what you want. It's not too hot for anything else, though. Lightroom is a solid all-rounder with the most expansive organisation options. The raw processing isn't quite as good as Iridient in terms of the extremes you can go, but it's more than good enough for people who like to get everything how they like it in-camera and don't make too many corrections to their raw files later. The preset and export functionality isn't as powerful as Capture One, and the tethering ability is far behind Capture One, but its editing tools are more expensive. Many professionals will use all three. Capture One to shoot tethered, Iridient to actually process the raw files and then Lightroom to organise everything. Most amateurs will only use Lightroom since it can kind of do a decent-enough job of every task by itself. I wouldn't advise anybody uses only Capture One or Iridient by themselves because they're not really meant to be all-in-one solutions like Lightroom is. If you can only get one piece of software or only want to use one, go with Lightroom. Then if you do a lot of studio shooting, pick up Capture One, and finally if the things you photograph require lots of fine-tuning—something like fashion, for example—get Iridient. For Fuji cameras specifically, I'd say don't bother with Capture One at all because Fuji's tethered support is awful anyway. For Iridient, it's a draw with Lightroom. If you like or need to spend a lot of time tweaking your raw files, Iridient is more robust. If you shoot .JPG or you don't edit your raws all that much, go with Lightroom. You'll probably find you end up using both.

Please explain to me the personal or business connections I have with any piece of software. I'd love to know how you know more about my career than I do. You've already stated you know and did some form of work with the development of the Iridient processing, and you've a book to flog, so we know the bias you have. My connections in the photography world are strictly in hardware and marketing, so I'd love to know why and where you think I have connections and reason to push any software agenda. That's the result, but not how it works as far as the actual process is concerned, though. DR underexposes the image using Fuji's misstated ISO numbers and then pushes the shadows up to match what the ISO should be. I.e., DR at 400% gives you the highlights of ISO 200 with the shadow exposure of ISO 800. In many cameras this would be somewhat hard to duplicate with software, but with Fuji it is easy since Fuji's sensor is essentially an ISO-less sensor and all exposures are pushed to simulate the ISO even in-camera, let alone in software; ISO 200 is being pushed up from the actual ISO of 140, ISO 400 is simply doubling that push again, etc. It's why the noise holds so consistently across ISO values. What this means is that when it comes to replicating the dynamic range function, you just repeat the steps the Fuji system sets up: underexpose by 1-2 stops and push the shadows accordingly, bearing in mind that even at ISO 200, Fuji is pushing the shadows a little to fake a wider natural dynamic range. For topic relevancy, I was walking past this old boat being used as a planter and took a quick picture with RAW+L. Classic Chrome, NR -2, sharpness -1, DR at 200% and colour, highlight and shadow all at 0. White balance set to 5600K with no tint bias. Lens is the 35mm f/1.4 at f/2.8 and I use a Tiffen Black Mist 1/4 filter always, so that's on there adding a little diffusion to the look. Processing the raw image just now in Lightroom, all I did was simply switch the film simulation from Pro Neg. S (my LR default) to Classic Chrome. NR is at 0, sharpening at 15/0.7/25/20. WB, exposure, contrast, saturation, etc, all left at defaults/0. Highlight, white and black all left at 0, shadows at +25 to match the DR setting of the camera's file. If you can tell a difference between the camera file and the raw file, your must have Superman's x-ray vision. Dead centre Corner, which vaguely shows a very, very slight difference in the shadow contrast if you really squint at it hard And here is the full image, ONE and TWO. You can try and work out which is the raw and which is the in-camera .jpg yourself. Point is, you're not going to get a better match any quicker with any other software. If you want to spend more time on it then you could match the top corner shadow exposure slightly better (though I won't say in which direction; that woudl give away which file is which) but that's a fringe case and in 99% of situations, hey look, all I had to do is select the matching film simulation and my LR defaults had everything else matched already. Import, one click, export, job done. You can't match the in-camera look any faster or easier than that, which is the point of this thread.

What can I say, I've used them both and the images I got out of the 50-140 seemed sharper than the 90mm's files. I don't see how "I took photos with them both and one looked sharper than the other" can be "wrong", unless you're suggesting my eyesight is somehow, in opposition to all human physiology, selectively disingenuous. I did not say that the 90mm isn't sharp. Of course they are both sharp. But the 50-140's photos, as far as my own use of the lenses has indicated, have been sharper. As for the bokeh, the 90mm only provides more separation at f/2. With the 90mm at f/2.2 they should be, if my maths is correct, virtually the same at medium distances, with the 90mm having a slightly more dramatic effect at very short distances and the 140mm end of the zoom having a more pronounced effect at further distances. At f/2.5 the 90mm will have a noticably larger depth of field, at most distances, than the 140mm at f/2.8, and the background is noticably harsher. By the time you take the 90mm to f/2.8, of course the zoom's extended range gives you much stronger separation and smoother backgrounds. Of course the zoom also gives you more compression for more flattering portraits, and, as I said before, the IS is efficient enough that, when light becomes a problem, the zoom can lower the shutter by more than three stops to let in more light while remaining shake-free, while the prime lens is pretty much stuck at adding just one stop via the aperture. As a prime user myself, I personally would still put the Samyang 85mm f/1.4 forward as the top choice for image quality; the fact it's another stop faster is really just a bonus. The Samyang kind of makes the 90mm irrelevant unless you really can't do without autofocus, and jamesbernard already said the only thing they're worried about is image quality, not cost or focusing. But that's why I brought up the zoom. The 90mm is rendered pointless in this particular situation, so the zoom is the only remaining relevant choice* compared to the Samyang. *not counting adapted lenses

So, I've done some testing of the dynamic range before, and in terms of visual results—I don't know the exact way around Fuji is doing it, but the final image looks the same—simply setting the shadow slider to +25 gets you in the ballpark of 200% and +50 for 400%. For some images you don't get so lucky and a more precise adjustment using the tone curve is required, but nine times out of then, the shadow slider has you covered. After all, all Fuji are doing is overstating their ISO so the image is inherently underexposed, and then they have the camera push the low tones up by a certain amount depending on the dynamic range setting. Given the dynamic range option produces a less and less authentic result as you increase the ISO, you can be safe in the knowledge that leaving it at 100% and pushing the shadows later will give you a sharper and cleaner image with more accurate colours, if that's your thing, or if you do want to just replicate the in-camera .jpg files then hey, just use the shadow slider, it's not absolutely perfect but it's close enough. Shadow contrast is the same thing. For colour, blue used to be a problem but that does seem fixed now, as my previous colour testing showed; blue is barely different in 'lab' testing and indistinguishable in real world examples. Yellow and orange tones do show some differences in lab-esque tests but it's not that they shift towards red (in fact the Classic Chrome simulation actually shifts yellow very slightly more toward green), it's actually just that they come out a touch lighter. In real world examples, however, no such difference can be observed. My testing suggests that it is only primary yellow which ever shifts. Red itself can shift a little more on a couple of film simulations, being quite obvious in controlled tests, but it's still barely noticable in actual photographs and again, very easy to fix with a small slider adjustment which can then be set as the default for all of your Fuji raw files; change it once and then you never have to worry about it ever again. Point is, replicating the look of the in-camera .jpgs is not only possible with Lightroom, but easier and quicker with Lightrom than any other program. The few differences there are are very, very simply 'fixed' with a couple of sliders, and once you've done that once you can simply set Lightroom to always apply those adjustments to every Fuji raw file on import. From that point on, all of your Fuji raw files will match the in-camera .jpg results without a single additional click; they're literally matched the moment they're imported from the memory card. I've given Iridient and Silkypix a go and they bother require a little more effort to get looking right and they're not as efficient in terms of the necessary adjustments being made immediately. I have heard Photo Ninja can do a better job, but for whatever reason I can't get that bastard program to run on this Mac properly so I've not been able to test that as fully as I'd have liked. And unlike Rico, I don't have any kind of personal connection to any particular software or books to flog, so I don't have an agenda to push particular programs, I just advise what works most effectively.

If image quality is your priority, either the 85mm or the Fuji 50-140mm are the way to go. The faster aperture of the 85mm gives you the chance to keep your shutter speed higher, which is really important with these longer lenses and the pixel pitch of the Fuji sensor; obviously it also gives you a chance to keep the ISO lower if you ever find yourself shooting in lower light, too. The 50-140mm is a big and expensive lens, but optically it seems to be sharper than the 90mm—though I've not had as much time with the 90mm as I'd like—it gives you more compression and subject/background separation, backgrounds are smoother and it has image stabilisation effective enough to give you more light and less shake than the 90mm's one-stop faster apeture gives you. edit: just remember that the 85mm—and for that matter, the 90mm—isn't going to look like it did on your D3s. They're going to be more like a 128mm and 135mm lens would be on the D3s, respectively, but with a depth of field similar to about a stop and a third slower.