Astigmatism

I've wondered the same thing. Years ago I learned that some very long lenses can focus slightly past infinity, for the reasons that temperature and other variables can move the mechanical location of infinity focus around a little bit, and IIRC using IR film can require focusing out further than the position that's best for visible light. I've focused on birds on distant towers, and the autofocus worked for that. Still, I'll be watching this thread for further developments.

I'm sympathetic. My first Fuji was an X-T30 ii, and I would have preferred that it be a little larger, with more room to operate controls. Then I bought an X-T4. It is bigger and the controls are easier for me to operate with my clumsy hands. It also put more settings on dedicated knobs and switches rather than in menus. Moreover, the Q menu on the X-T30 operated from a button that was too easy to activate accidentally, and the X-T4 has a much better placed button so this issue went away. Since then I got an X-T5 which I like even a little more (besides the huge pixel count increase). I still use the X-T30 occasionally when I need the smallest camera possible, especially with the same 27 mm pancake you mention, or when I think there's a slight chance it will get damaged, and I lend it to my spouse to use in full AUTO mode. But my main camera is the X-T5, or sometimes the X-T4, and I'm quite happy and impressed. Neither. I think you should try the X-T5.

Wow, I never did get to try that! Though, I spent summer '79 exposing and developing astronomical glass plate negatives.

This brings back memories! You started a dozen years before me, but tri-x was still my state of the art (along with plus-x and pan-x). That was a lot of fun. But now I sure do like setting my "film" speed to suit every shot, and letting the camera focus, and the faster sharper lenses. And I love how much less a desktop computer smells, compared to the wet darkroom. Welcome!

I have the Fuji 80 mm macro and really like it. It's very sharp and I use it for macro but also for general photography. If you find yourself zoomed to 55, this may land in the right spot. Also, this lens is very good with magnification distortion (pincushion or barrel), which is probably important if you're doing product photography and the product has straight lines. It is autofocus. I hear you don't prioritize that, but there's something else you gain when you have autofocus. You can combine multiple photos taken at slightly different focus distances, using stacking software, and autofocus lets the camera automate the process of taking all these, using focus bracketing. It even calculates how much the focus should change between these exposures. This lens, new, is above your stated budget. Maybe you can find it used? In any case, options are always nice to have, and others may like this option too. So, just a thought. One more thing: I've never used the Laowa macro you mention, but I do have their circular fisheye. I love circular fisheyes, and also have two other brands, and comparing them I find the Laowa is considerably better than the other two. That's a vote for Laowa.

Been experimenting with panoramas with the built in panorama function on the Drive dial of my X-T5. I'm surprised how fussy the camera is about how fast I pan. So far I haven't found any reference that specifies the panning speed range that works. I've searched the manual, the Tony Phillips book, and this forum. I get errors on some shots for going too fast, and other shots for going too slow. I actually have difficulty hitting a speed between these two limits and sometimes the error message isn't the one I would guess. I do have a turntable with preset speeds and have tried placing the camera on it to take a panorama with an accurate steady speed. The highest speed available is 25.03 seconds per rotation, which works, and 31.95 seconds per rotation works, but 36.13 seconds per rotation gives an error for being too slow. These experiments were with a Fuji 14 mm f/2.8 lens, ISO 640, f/5.6, 1/60 s. Camera is horizontal, set for horizontal left-to-right scan, turntable sweeping camera left-to-right. I haven't yet tried other lenses to see how focal length matters; the manual says it should be 35 mm or less. I'd like to take more panoramas but apparently need a motorized panning head with a speed that is compatible with the camera's needs. However, I don't know what the camera's needs are, at least not very precisely for different lenses (which I could continue experimenting to find). Moreover, the motorized panning head options I've looked at so far don't even state the available speed settings. What panning speeds does the camera work with, and how does lens focal length affect these? What motorized heads work with the camera? Or -- is the built in Panorama mode not worth trying to make work, and should I instead use external software to stitch stills together? Thank you!

Glad to hear the light coming in from the left is just what gets around the lens cap. I think lens caps are just for protecting the lens, and don't promise to achieve total darkness for experiments or whatever else. As to bad pixels, well, I don't know. I kind of ignore the issue and hope the camera is managing to hide them from me, as otherwise it's just going to make me mad not being able to fix them. I'd be interested to hear how expensive it is to "fix" them (meaning replace the sensor). Also, I think of them as something that only happens during sensor manufacture, but I wonder if there's anything the user does that influences having more or fewer of them.

Any chance light could be leaking around your lens cap? What if you repeat this test, but holding your camera under dark towels or coats or something, and maybe with the room light off? Not sure your sensor isn't damaged, but I'm having a hard time imagining sensor damage that would look like THAT.

Just as a general strategy, I think the Custom Settings are good for recovering from the frequent problem of some unknown setting getting accidentally changed. Don't know aboutXH2S, just X-T3,4,5 cameras. I have C1 set up as my typical use setup, and could just hit that to get most settings back where I expect/understand them. C2-C7 I reserve for special uses. Any thoughts on this, folks?

I never followed up on this. I did get one. It's pretty amazing. Every shot I've taken with it is sharp, handheld or on a tripod, at least somewhere in the photo. I have experimented with it at home, but I live in woods and don't have very long sight lines; if there are trees in the photo, some will be sharp, but depth of field limits this. Handheld, it's a little hard for me to aim accurately (I'm pretty shaky). Just now it's occurring to me I should have tried Continuous autofocus, but I only tried Single shot. I can't control what point will autofocus as a result. This is all the more true with the 2X extender. On a tripod all of this is perfectly fine. I need to try a better environment, where perhaps handheld will work well. I live near the Conowingo Dam on the Susquehanna River, famous for its bald eagles, which make for great targets. One unusual feature: the lens can be programmed for a focus distance. You get it focused on something and press a button on the lens to set that distance. Then, whenever you want to return to that distance, you press one of the four buttons arranged around the barrel a little behind the front of the lens. I haven't done much with it. Attached is a photo of a little monster figurine, 5" tall. Picture was taken with the 2X from 104 feet away with tripod. ISO 6400, f/11, 1/2000 s. I had to shrink the file size to upload; there's better detail in the photo I actually got.

What an interesting thread! It’s been quiet for years, but let’s revive it. Here are some accessories I’d like to see and would almost certainly buy: Lens caps that are easier to grip (my fingers tend to slip off of the Fuji ones, and I haven’t found a source of aftermarket caps for all the sizes 39 mm to 95 mm of my Fuji lenses). Three mounts allowing the camera to sit on a horizontal surface, one each for shooting in landscape or portrait orientation or straight up, and each one allows the absolute minimum distance between camera body and horizontal surface. A tiny handheld device you look through to see the field of view of each of your prime lenses, to speed making the best choice. Could go in the hot shoe or be handheld. Though, I’m calibrating a tailor’s cloth measuring tape to be held at arm’s length, which may work great. A frosted pane to handhold in front of the lens, so you can turn and look toward the light source and use the camera as an incident light meter. It would of course be calibrated (some known number of stops to compensate it). A blowing or sucking nozzle with a crossbar at the correct distance from the tip, for cleaning the glass sensor cover, so you can get it very very close to the sensor cover without ever touching (the crossbar touches the lens mount just before the tip would touch the sensor cover). Two replacement viewfinder eyecups that are intended for users who always wear glasses, and who never wear glasses, instead of the compromise design. After all, does everybody go back and forth? An optical quality clear glass "filter" that fits directly on the camera body rather than on the lens. It would protect the sensor for optics experiments, unusual lens configurations, use with bellows for macrophotography, and similar purposes.

There are three things that surprise me about taking HDR photos. 1) Even though the camera is set for HIF images, and does save HIF images for ordinary “S” shots, on “HDR” it saves a JPG instead. 2) The HDR JPG image is zoomed in slightly, compared to the HIF. 3) In HDR mode the display says it’s storing the image for a couple seconds, a surprisingly long time. This is from a quick experiment with a fixed focal length lens on a tripod, manually set at ISO 320, f/2.5, 1/320 s. I shot a contrasty scene with bright highlights and dark shadows. All this was with XF33mmF1.4 R LM WR on an X-T5. I looked around in the manual and in the excellent Tony Phillips book for hints but came up empty. Can anybody enlighten me?

I agree with the lens flare suggestion. For one thing the bands appear oriented exactly the same direction as the edges of shadows, to the extent that that's visible. For another, it beats me how something could go wrong with image rendering to create bands that are NOT perfectly horizontal or vertical.

I read that is is designed to work particularly well handheld (an impressive goal for such a long lens). Perhaps they mean the OIS built into the lens is unusually good. SJW, do you have any opinion on that?

f/8 and Don't Be Late!