quincy

Thank You Patrick, I will update the OP as soon as possible with all the new information (Lensbaby, samyang, fuji) when I come home this weekend, right now I don't have the script with me that generates the whole posting.

I'm sure the 60 is a great lens, especially for portraiture. And I think it might be even a bit better at focusing, considering the Fuji bodies are not capable of phase detection autofocus with the 56 APD. But as I said, it would not get much use, and thus I could not justify buying the 60 either. It's just that i want the 56 APD because it's so unique and interesting.

Yeah... and what lenses do they have for micro four thirds? Art AF 19mm 2.8 Art AF 30mm 2.8 Art AF 60mm 2.8 Lenses that would give us approximately the same performance regarding depth of field & noise (not brightness / shutter speed) for Fuji's APS-C system would be: 25mm, 39mm & 78mm F/3.6 Nothing I'd really care for, to be honest.

This is so great, I'm speechless! Need one for biking or something.

My door started to bulge yesterday, and the funny thing is, it's getting colder where I am, not warmer...

I've put a lot of thought into what would be the perfect lens collection for me. Below you can see an optical representation of the results of my thought process, followed by an explanation: The base setup I already have is the XF 18-55 together with the XF 55-200. Those two light, compact lenses cover a huge focal length range from medium wide angle to telephoto with an acceptable aperture range from f/2.8 to f/4.8 and great optical quality as well as optical stabilization. They are somewhat the middle way between the bigger fixed aperture zooms and the cheaper but slower XC zooms and the WR travel zoom. I’ve recently added the Samyang 12mm 2.0 to my collection to expand a bit into wide angle territory. It’s light, has a fast aperture and fits well with the other two lenses, complementing their strengths. This was actually a race between the Samyang 12 2.0, the XF 16 1.4 and the XF 23 1.4. I bought the Samyang first because it gives me the widest view, is not only good for landscapes but also for astro photography, and thus adds most to my setup. But the other two will follow eventually. I’d like to have a WR version of the 23 1.4 and might wait until Fuji releases one. The other wide angle lenses are mostly not for me. The other Samyang wide angle primes are huge because they need to work with (FF) DSLRs too. The Zeiss 12 2.8 is expensive, the XF 14 2.8 is too close to the Samyang 12 2.0. The XF 18 2.0 is optically not quite what I want, and too close to the XF 18-55. The upcoming Samyang 21 1.4 is nice, but too close to the XF 23 1.4. And the XF 10-24 is too slow for astrophotography, and I think that I would not use a wide angle zoom in the right way. On the other side of the focal length spectrum, regarding prime lenses, the upcoming XF 120 Macro will be my choice. After seeing what Fuji did with the XF 90, I don’t think anything can go wrong with the 120. One must have will be the XF 100-400 as soon as it is available. The XF 55-200 is really great, but for what I do, I often wish I had more reach to be able to take pictures of shy wildlife. Now, I often don’t take those pictures, because I don’t want to disturb them. The 1.4x teleconverter might be interesting too, but I haven’t made up my mind on that one so far. I guess I’ll buy it after I got the XF 100-400 and realize that it is too short as well. I’d like to have the XF 27mm F2.8 for its compactness, but right now I can’t justify to buy a lens only for this reason. My absolute dream lens, and the lens I’d choose if I only could have one lens, would be the XF 56mm F1.2 R APD. But as I know I would not use it much, I just can’t justify buying it, very similar to the 27. What I’m not sure about is if I will sell the 18-55 and the 55-200 when I have the other lenses. They are somewhat redundant, but to be able to fall back to this super compact and versatile kit for those days when I just want to grab a camera and go out not really knowing what to expect is very tempting.

There is no need to have a master degree in physics to understand camera gear enough to use it, and it is not about specs. But as a painter needs to understand the difference between oil paint and acrylic paint related to the handling, a photographer should have a basic understanding how focal lenght, aperture and shutter speed affect the picture (which I think the author of the review does, of course). But going a step further, when reviewing gear, you should know about gear. And the fact that a 1.4x TC eats one stop of light, and a 2x TC eats two stops of light is widely known and not hard to understand. You can either explain it like milandro did, or you think about it this way: The lens is in front of all the other gear when you take a picture. A certain amount of light (a certain number of photons) enters the lens from the front through a segment of space that is shaped like a pyramid, with the tip inside the lens. The angle of the pyramid depends on the focal lenght of the lens and the sensor size. This amount of light gets thrown on the sensor. When adding a teleconverter, you change nothing in the way of the light from the front part of the lens to the rear part, but you "cut out" the center part of this pyramid, magnify it and throw that on your sensor. So the number of photons that had to light only the center part of the sensor now need to light all the sensor, they get spread out. This makes everything darker. I'm not telling this to you, John, because I have a feeling that you already know it. I just wanted to note it here for everyone to read, and to understand why demanding a TC that either absorbs less light or offers more magnification is absurd. I'd like to see the comparison between 50-140+1.4TC @ 140 and 55-200 @ 200, too. The 50-140 without TC is better at 140 than the 55-200, and considering it being a F/2.8 lens, there's no competition. But cutting out the center of the image and throwing it on the sensor plane magnified by 1.4 might reduce the image quality just so much that the 55-200 is on par, while 4.0 vs 4.8 is just a slight advantage. And to be honest, the 55-200 is an excellent lens which is significantly lighter than the 50-140+1.4TC combination. As far as I know, the teleconverter protrudes into the lens body. And the only three lenses that have a cavity big enough for that are the 50-140 and the upcoming 120 and 100-400.

Got mine yesterday. So far, I can say: - Heavy vignetting full open - Prone to flare - Focus ring is damped too hard on mine at least - Aperture ring is perfect - Build quality, despite its all-plastic-on-the-outside - build is good. Not as good as the Fujinons, but good. The only thing I hate is the plastic filter thread, they could just have molded an aluminium ring into the body during the injection molding process. - The metal lens mount is great. - Lens hood works. - F/2.0 at 12 mm in such a small package: great! - Somehow, it renders everything very very cool. Not a big problem for me since I sort out my pictures with Capture One Pro anyway, and can do a simple white balance adjustment there. I was just surprised by the difference to the Fujinon lenses. - I really enjoy the short close focus distance that can be extended a bit further by closing the aperture. Not what I bought this lens for, but nice to have. - The 6-sided, only slightly rounded aperture, together with the lens being prone to flare is a lot of fun, for me. I always wanted to do that. - Again, the 6-sided, only slightly rounded aperture produces starbursts at F/4 already! And other than the 7-bladed Fujinon apertures, which produce starbursts with 14 very thin rays, this one "smears" more, and produces 6 very wide rays which is cool, too. I like it. I really like that lens already just after one day of playing around, and I think it will get a permanent place in my camera bag for the next weeks. In about one week from now, I'll be way up in the northern hemisphere and will try to do astrostuff with this lens. Oh and ahm, a picture: Orchid Blossoms close up 1:1 crop from above

Crazy, thank you! I'm waiting for the 1.4x TC too, might use it with the upcoming macro lens. But the guy who wrote the review seems not to know much about lenses, since he's asking fujifilm to defy the laws of physics: /edit: I actually like the pictures! And I think that the article does not deserve all the negativity. I just wanted to point out that losing one stop of light with a 1.4x teleconverter is inherent to the design of teleconverters that go between camera and lens.

To really be able to help You (OP), it would be nice if You could clarify which of the qualities the XF 56mm F/1.2 R offers are important to You. So far, we only know You want a portrait lens that should be cheaper than the 56, but You did not respond to any of the suggestions that have been made. The 56 has some properties that are themselves rare (kind of, some more than others), but together yield a truly unique lens. - The focal lenght of 56 mm is special because other than the nowadays usual 50 mm primes, on a fujifilm body it gives you the field of view equivalent to the classic 85 mm full frame portrait primes instead of about 77 mm. - The maximum aperture of F/1.2 gives this lens an extremely shallow depth of field (sometimes desired for it's special look and the softness it adds to the slight out of focus parts of skin) at typical portrait focus distances despite it's short telephoto focal lenght and also enables shooting in relative darkness. - It has autofocus on a fujifilm body. That is a feature no third party portrait lens will offer so far. - The mechanical build quality is outstanding. - The optical quality is outstanding too. - It's still quite compact, because it is built for a mirrorless aps-c system. Old manual ((D)SLR) primes might be small too, but they need an adapter to compensate for the larger flange focal distance needed for the mirror box, which adds bulk. If you only want a good portrait prime (that blurs the background), as you wrote, and the special features of the XF 56 are not important to you, have a look at the Samyang 85 mm F/1.4 & 135 mm F/2.0 primes. Both are considerably longer focal lenghts and will blur the background more than the 56 does. Or have a look at the incredible Fujinon XF 90mm F2.0 R LM WR, which is also cheaper than the 56.

I know those switches from other cameras and I like them. They look exactly like the lock button in the middle of the X-T1 ISO dial, but work different. Press once to unlock, press again to lock. Those are exactly the lock-switch mechanisms I'd like for all the wheels on the X-T2.

Thank You! Added to the OP. The magnification is calculated by me. Since it is a fixed focus lens, the lens cannot have focus breathing, and thus the calculation based on the focal lenght, close focus distance and sensor size should be quite accurate. /edit: I know I don't need the sensor size for this calculation, but I had a field of view list for all lenses anyway and went from there. Focus breathing is the reason I don't dare to calculate the magnification for the other lenses, because it might be quite off. For example, the close focus distances for the Fujinon primes, real & calculated: XF 14mm F2.8 R : 1:8,33 vs. 1:11,86 XF 16mm F1.4 R WR : 1:4,76 vs. 1:8,38 XF 18mm F2.0 R : 1:7 vs. 1:9 XF 23mm 1.4 R : 1:10 vs. 1:11,17 XF 27mm F2.8 : 1:10 vs. 1:11,59 XF 35mm F1.4 R : 1:5,88 vs. 1:7 XF 56mm F1.2 R : 1:11,11 vs. 1:11,5 XF 60mm F2.4 R Makro : 1:2 vs. 1:3,5 XF 90mm F2.0 R LM WR : 1:5 vs. 1:5,66 Especially the shorter focal lenghts must "breathe" substantially.

@alexanpda: Thank You! I did not exclude those lenses intentionally, and I have added them now. And now that you mentioned them, I remember that I read about those on Fuji Rumors quite a while ago. Do you know anything else about them? It's hard to find any information, and I don't speak (nor can read) chinese. @all: I've updated the OP. I have changed the labeling of the zoom lenses, and I have added the combination of lens+teleconverter for those three lenses that will support the Fujinon 1.4x TC. Do you like it the way it is now?

It's always good to hear that there will be new lenses. Considering that those two are not full frame compatible, it is indeed a strange choice of focal lenghts at first glance. On a µ43 camera, the 50mm will give us the field of view of a 100mm, so that might be the reason. But on APS-C, 50mm (75mm ff equivalent) was always either too short or too long for me. The 21mm will be equivalent to a 30mm or 42mm. And while 30mm is not that common, it's a cool focal lenght. On the µ43 side, it is the perfect normal focal lenght (same lenght as sensor diagonal). So I guess, µ43 might have been the priority when designing those two lenses.

@Patrick FR: Thank You! I've added them to the text and chart! @milandro: If the graph will become too crowded, I think i could make the dots smaller. And the text. Let's hope there will be a lot more lenses to come.

For me personally, it never was. As I wrote in the lens overview thread: "at those short focal lenghts, the depth of field is very large anyway, and fujifilm cameras have focus peaking to aid manual focussing." As we all know, the common application for those ultrawide lenses is to set them to the hyperfocal distance for the chosen aperture and leave them there. Of course, as always, there will be people who use them in a different way, e.g. close up shots, and then the Zeiss' autofocus might be a useful feature. And I know that the number of rays for sunbursts is very subjective, too. I just wanted to mention this fact, because for some people, it might make a difference. /edit1: (Perhaps we should open a dedicated Samyang 12mm vs Zeiss 12mm thread?) /edit2: One thing that bothers me now: In Burb's picture, there's a clearly shaped 6-sided lens flare. Samyang wrote on their product page that they have a "rounded aperture". So based on that picture, I guess they don't?

I'd like to know if the assumed new medium format camera will build upon an existing lens lineup like e.g. the Fujifilm-made medium format lenses from the Hasselblad HC system, or if it will get a completely new mount with new lenses.

Well, there is one argument that speaks clearly for the Touit. It has 9 aperture blades instead of the 6 the samyang offers, and thus renders starbursts with 18 rays instead of only 6 rays as the samyang does. Apart from that, i don't see an reason to chose the Touit over the Samyang.

I just played around with my X-T1 a bit to find out what bothers you, and I guess I did. Sadly, I think there's nothing that will help. First: trying to take just a single picture in CH or CL is possible for me, although you have to release the button so fast that it introduces so much shake to the camera that it's useless (for me). To try this, set the shutter speed of the camera to 1s and work your way up to higher shutter speeds. At 1s, you have enough time to release the shutter button, and to "train your finger". To answer your initial question, I don't think a soft release button will help. Then, on to the single shot: The camera does a lot of things before taking the picture. Measuring the exposure, closing or opening the aperture, autofocus. To see if your problem is caused by one of these, open your aperture all the way, dial in ISO and a fast enough shutter speed (1/250 or so) manually, and set your camera to manual focus. Then try shooting in single shot mode. For me, the camera shoots as fast as i can press the shutter button. This, sadly, means, that there is probably no possibility to make the camera shoot fast in single shot mode while maintaining usability (namely automatic exposure and autofocus).

@hughsaunders, ceUs, redfishingboat: You're welcome, thank you for reading! @ceUs: Nice idea. I've thought about marking the AF lenses in some way (e.g. square vs round marking), but as milandro pointed out already, only Fujinon and Zeiss lenses have autofocus. Thus, I'd only mark the lenses that are green and dark blue anyway, and that's why I didn't do it in the end.

@Patrick FR: Thank you! I truly feel honored! And I will still continue to maintain the list, depending on the feedback. @Snzkgb: Thank you for your input! The way I see it, we seem to agree on those three lenses? So far, I did not write anything about the color rendition, because that topic is a bit up to personal taste.

FYI: This lens is intended for rangefinder cameras with optical viewfinder. It is designed in a way that it does not stick into your field of view when looking through the viewfinder. Thus, the strange looking tapering to the front and the slower maximum aperture. Don't see it as a version II, rather a new and different lens to expand the existing lineup.

- added links to the manufacturer's product page for each lens - added the number of aperture blades to the stats-line for each lens - added links to reviews for (nearly) all released lenses - revised all comments to the lenses - moved non-related text parts from the OP to my second posting and marked them accordingly. - cosmetic changes Big update for the original post today! And from my side, for the time being, it is finished. I'm always open for suggestions and comments. Just leave me a message, and I will see what I can do. Again, thank you all for your help. This has grown into a bigger project than I'd thought, but I have learned a lot along the way. I will try to find out more about those SLR Magic lenses in the future, but to be honest, since the availability is so bad anyway, and their homepage is only a shop without any information about what those things are they sell, it is not on high priority for me. I think it is a pity that ryan2007 did not answer anymore, but perhaps I really made him angry with something.

- changed the aperture scale in the chart - added missing Mitakon 24 1.7 to the chart - added upcoming XF 35 F2.0 R WR to the list - made all upcoming lenses in the list grey - corrected lens naming convention throughout the whole post, they now match the manufacturers style - started adding links to reviews. Couldn't add nearly as much as I wanted to, but time is up for today. @russw: Thank you very much! Your posting, and GoodPhoto's, show exactly what I originally intended to kick off: Discussions about the lenses in a productive way. I clearly forgot those two extra mm the 16-50 (and 16-50) have over the 18-55, and what a big difference they make. (strange, considering that I thought about buying the 16 1.4) @GoodPhotos: Very good points, thank you. I have rephrased the comments on the 16-50 and 16-55 accordingly. @milandro: Thank you again! @boondoggle & milandro, about the XF 35 2.0: I think what boondoggle meant was, that I already added the upcoming 120 2.8 and 100-400 to the list, but not the 35 2.0. Corrected that now, as well as marked them clearer as "upcoming".

Ok. So I'm not sure how to start this. Uhm... It seems that many people are... let us say... 'not pleased' with the comments I wrote about the lenses, and I can very well accept that, especially since they are nowhere near to be finished, as I stated previously. However, I am uncertain about how to address that problem, since I obviously don't understand the issue in it's entirety. I guess the posting of ryan2007, which I will address more in detail later, shows what miladro said earlier: My OP seems somehow to imply that I have tested every single lens, and that I would be some kind of lens guru who knows everything, which I am definitely not, and never wanted to leave that impression. I can only suppose that it must be the language barrier, and that the original meaning of my posting, (which was to collect a list of all lenses available for the X-Mount, and to show them and the coverage of aperture and focal lenght together in one post) somehow got lost during the process of translation. So my questions are, should I just take out all the comments until this issue is solved? Should I add links to reviews, as was my original plan from the beginning? Should I completely replace the comments by links to reviews? @Patrick FR: I am somewhat overwhelmed by the way you featured my humble attempt on a lens overview prominently in a blog posting on it's own. I had expected something more in line with just a single sentence linking to the forum. @milandro: Please see the first paragraph of this posting, as I have adressed most of the concerns there. While it is common practice in science to quote things that have been quoted that have been quoted..., mostly because most people only have 3 to 5 years for their scientific work and must leave the university after their doctorate graduation, I don't see where I did that here. My long term goal for this list was always to have direct links to reviews from people who have first hand experience with the lenses. And the whole intent of this thread was to be a list for people who look for new lenses. So, for example, if someone was searching for a new wideangle prime lens in the range of 24mm (35mm equivalency), she/he could look into this thread, see that there are the Samyang 12/14/16/24, Fuji XF14/16/18/23, Zeiss 12, SLRMagic 23 and Zhongyi 24, all of which might or might not suit her/his needs, see if they have autofocus, optical image stabilization, how big, heavy and (in)expensive they approximately are, and then decide what suits them best based on the reviews linked here or found across the internet. I suppose, I got that intent verbalized totally wrong. @boondoggle: Indeed I did forget the 35 f/2.0. It was in the chart, marked with light green color, as the other upcoming Fujinon lenses are, but not in the text. Will add that one asap. @dfallsfilm: Thank you very much for your input! I originally wanted to ask you if it would be alright for you if i link to your samples in the comment to that lens in the original post, but with the situation being as is now, please understand that I can not proceed with that attempt in the near future. @ that nice guy who pointed out that I should use a logarithmic scale for the aperture as well, but whose posting somehow disappeared: I will do exactly that, asap. Equal intervals between full aperture stops are way more useful for comparison purposes, and it will give the now somewhat cramped prime area even more prominence. I originally intended to do so, but did not know how. Your post made me think, and I found a simple solution. @ryan2007: I can retrace the critique for the most part, and please rest assured that I really appreciate your honest words. On the other hand, some parts of your posting somehow suggest to me that I might have kind of tread on your toes, I just don't know how exactly. I'm not sure about this, and I don't want to impute something to anyone. But if I did, please tell me what it was. However, I will try to go through your posting step by step. Please don't evaluate anything I write as personal offense, it is not meant that way. As I said in my original post, I do own the X-T1, and I do (at the moment) own the 18-55 and the 55-200. When I went out to buy it, I was able to compare the XC16-50/50-230, the XF18-55/XF55-200 and XF16-55/XF50-140 on the X-T1 I bought in the end. I have tried many of the XF prime lenses myself over time (16, 23, 27, 35, 60), but I do not own one right now. What I do not understand is, why should someone not say that he/she is not happy with what he/she bought? Out of personal pride, or brand loyalty? And where did I say that any of the XF lenses "sucks"? That part confused me a lot. I respect your opinion on that. This one, I did not understand. I guess you are right with that. But one note on one part of that quote: What I exactly wrote was: "big, heavy and expensive compared to the 18-55". 310 g vs 655 g, 65x70 mm vs 83x106 mm. By no means is that an insignificant difference. I can absolutely not see the relevance of this. The 16-55 has exactly that role within the X-System. A standard zoom lens with a fixed aperture. Which makes it of course bigger and heavier than the non-fixed aperture 18-55. Fujifilm has big and small lenses, as well as big and small camera bodies. Do you suggest that no one should buy the smaller Fuji gear and instead buy MFT cameras? And why is that? Considering the smaller MFT sensor with a crop factor of 2.0 instead of 1.53 with Fuji's APS-C, the light efficiency and DOF possibilities should play a role in the choice of camera system, as well as many other factors like the X-Trans Filter, the handling, etc. etc. You could help to make it better anytime. @Blacksheep: Thank you very much for your kind words! Unrelated picture from my collection, just for the fun of it: (does the forum somehow compress the uploaded pictures?)