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cug

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Posts posted by cug

  1. Which is better? 

     

    The one you'd use more. If you have all your photos in something like Lightroom or such, take a look at which focal length most of your photos are shot. Then think about whether a faster lens (more background blur, faster shutter speeds at lower light levels) would REALLY help you. Using a prime is not for everybody. It's a different experience than a zoom. If you tend to use your zoom all over its range, don't get a prime unless you are actually missing something. If you tend to cluster your photos (like most people) at the ends of the zoom range or at specific "points" (let's say you see that you take lots of photos between 18 and 25mm, you might want to think about getting one of the 23mm lenses), you can think about whether getting a prime in that specific focal length would help you in any particular way. 

     

    I'm a prime shooter generally, but I do enjoy having only a zoom when on vacation where photography is not the main topic. 

     

    Frequent lens changes are big pain for you and for whoever is with you at that time, so think about the social aspect as well. If you tend to shoot two different but distinct focal lengths, like you have a 40:40:20 distribution of using your zoom at 18mm, 55mm, and "other", than having just one prime will annoy you. If your cluster approaches 70% towards a narrow range of focal length, that might not be a problem. If you have two distinct ones, two bodies with primes will be what you might end up with. 

     

    Personally I currently use a X100F with it's native 23 and have an X-T2 with me that either has the 14mm or the 56mm mounted. So, with one grab I can get "the other" focal length I have with me, no changing, no delaying and so. 

  2. I wonder how my father ever got a photo of me ... ;-)

     

    Regarding 23/35/50 quality, I think there is general consensus that the quality hierarchy is 50 > 23 > 35. The 50 is really, really good and for me a total alternative to the 56 if you don't need f/1.2 for something, it also has much more consistent performance, meaning it's great wide open, while the 56 is soft and low contrast up to f/2 to f/2.8 and close focus distances. The 23 is really a 21mm lens, the extrem corners can be pretty soft, but it's a great lightweight lens which has a better resolving power than the 1.4 version – and it is much smaller. The 35 isn't properly optically corrected, so the corners never get as good as a good 35/1.4 even though it might be slightly better at f/2.

     

    Having owned the f/2 trilogy I compared them quite a bit with the 23/1.4, 35/1.4 and 56/1.2. Personally I consider the 23/2 and 50/2 good alternatives to their faster, larger, heavier siblings, but the 35 just doesn't hold up to the same standard. 

     

    Now, let me get this straight out: this is comparing on a very high level, they are all very, very good lenses and are all (except the 35/2) in the same league as the Canon L glass I own (35/1.4, 50/1.2, 85/1.2, some older zooms) and are generally more affordable. The one thing the Canon glass gives is nicer OoF rendering due to the same or higher speed and the larger sensor at the cost of being generally twice the weight or even worse (body + lens).

     

    You can't go wrong with either of these lenses, but I really believe people need to stop thinking the 35/1.4 or 18/2 are slow focusing – most of this is because of comparisons drawn to experience with X-Pro1, X-E1 or even X-T1 and X-E2 class cameras with old firmware, which were all absolutely terrible in focusing speed. Make comparisons on the same modern body and you'd be surprised. Might you be able to measure a difference? Sure. Is it relevant in real life? Nope. It's like comparing the 0-60 times and saying a 3.2s run is soooo much faster than a 3.4s run, when in real life it's irrelevant.

  3. WR? AF speed is an old problem that is in the past go for it. But the lens does like the light and doesn’t fare quite as well in the dark!

     

    How does this make sense? AF motors are a bit slower than on the f/2 version, but AF speed isn't really a problem with any camera that has the X-Trans III sensor (X-Pro2, X-E3, X-T2, X-H1). 

     

    In lower light, the 35/1.4 is actually better here as it lets in a full stop more light and therefore more contrast to the sensor to actual focus properly. 

     

    I have owned the 35/2 and did some shoots with it, but sold it again in and kept the 35/1.4 which I had for some years now. The 35/2 is optically the weakest of the f/2 lenses, not well corrected, in real life not much smaller than the 1/4, so the only real life advantage is WR. I prefer having it, but optical performance and creative options are more important, that's why I kept the 23/1.4, 35/1.4, 56/1.2 and sold the 23/35/50 f/2 I also owned.

  4. And what makes you believe this piece of nonsense?

     

    Actual practical experience in a situation where we dealt with billions of photos. Daily.

     

    Might not be up to your standards, of course, we only had to get it right for a few hundred million people out there in the world, so who am I to understand this? 

     

    Maybe you take a lesson in appropriate discussion behavior and come back and make your argument without insulting people you have no frigging clue about?

     

    It seems that you are completely forgetting that probably 99,9999% of all photos taken never make it to anything bigger than a phone screen. The next bigger one is a low resolution computer screen. If it gets super fancy it's a high resolution retina display. And even fashion magazine and billboard shots are just fine with 16MP. Only freaks on the internet obsess over the difference between a 16 and 24 megapixel APS-C sensor resolution.

  5. It's not the lossy compression generally. It's what it actually means. You lose a lot of leverage for adjustments, being that local or global exposure correction or even color recovery. Acros isn't a problem for color, but the color simulations are of course.

     

    Lossy compression does by definition drop information along the way. When you end up with a photo that has great composition and content, but was baked fully into a JPEG only you might regret not having a raw at hand that you can use to work on the things that weren't setup great when you took the shot.

  6. The viewfinder is a bigger difference than what you'd think at first. It's a lot bigger in the X-T1, it also has a much longer eye point, meaning it is a lot easier to use with glasses. And you can actually see the whole viewfinder without smashing your eye against it. 

     

    It also make for different ergonomics with the center placement and the controls on both sides. 

     

    4k video will likely come, but really the Fuji cameras aren't that great for video anyways and 4k is more hype than anything else. Most people couldn't even play or edit the files on their computers or would have the storage to keep the recordings. 

     

    It's also likely that the X-T2 will be slightly bigger than the X-T1 for better ergonomics and heat management (new hardware and 4k), so ergonomic comparisons between X-T1 and X-Pro2 might not be fully valid for the X-T2. 

  7. The kind of photography that seems to live off angry videos with foul language and claims repeated something like 20 times in a single video, spending 70% of a video repeating unrelated bullshit before getting to the actual topic of the video. So, yeah. He certainly got an opinion. Do I care? Not one single bit.

  8. Have you tried the new AF-L button on the X-Pro2? What other reason, apart from weather sealing, would they make a rear command dial so recessed, that you have to vigorously mash your finger into it to activate it?

     

    So that you can distinguish it by feel from the Q button? It's just a non-optimal design choice for you, but has absolutely nothing to do with weather sealing. 

  9. This has been discussed to death on this forum, other forums, the general internet and pretty much every bar in the world that has seen a Fuji camera. 

     

    There is some variation between XF35/2 copies, but it also plain isn't as good across the frame as some other Fuji lenses. The two I tested here aren't nearly as good across the frame as some excitement from other people seems to indicate.

     

    All available 50mm equivalents have their respective downsides.

     

    I tested two XF35 f/1.4 and three XF35 f/2 and the 1.4s were optically better from f/4 on. Better sharpness and micro-contrast across the whole frame, the corner recovered much better from initially stronger softness. The Zeiss 32 seems better in sharpness but has sometimes weirdly busy bokeh, depending on focus and background distance. 

     

    Generally, I tend to grab the XF35 f/1.4 here if my shooting needs consistency across the frame and aperture will stay from f/4 to f/11 or needs f/1.4. After using both lenses for about 4 months now, I like the old lens actually better. 

     

    I don't own the Zeiss right now, but have had a chance to shoot with it once. It's a great lens and if I come across a used one at a good price, I'll get that one as well. 

  10. As said in other places: 

     

    The lenses are close in end results, but they are different enough that it should be fairly easy to pick one over the other depending on your needs/wants. 

     

    If your goal is optical performance, creative options, and purity of optical lens design, there is no question, it has to be the 1.4. It offers one stop bigger max aperture, which means better low light, more creative options, better blur, it also recovers better in sharpness across the frame from f/2.8 on up which means you get better balanced sharpness and contrast across the frame from it.

     

    The new f/2 lens is mechanically the clear winner, although I find the aperture ring actually a bit too tight, maybe that will losen over time though. The WR is welcome to keep dust out of lens and body, the AF performance is marginally better, hunting is more of a body than a lens problem anyways (the body tells the lens where to go) and people often compare old firmware experience with current firmware experience instead of comparing actual apples to apples. 

     

    A lot of the reviewers make money when people use their "Buy now" links. Therefore, they often don't offer a clear opinion, but try to make those who don't own either lens buy at least one, and get those who own one already to buy the other as well. It's not that they are paid for the reviews or for a specific opinion, it's that they get money if any of the reviewed products are bought. 

     

    I own both lenses because we go out as a pair (my wife and I) and we both like the XF35 field of view. Therefore having two of them makes sense for us and therefore we have the opportunity to compare the lenses themselves as well as the results later on. 

     

    My personal recommendation: the XF35 f/1.4 is the better allrounder due to the qualities mentioned above, the XF35 f/2 is a very worthy contender if you have a tighter budget and benefit from WR. The new XF35 f/2 is great lens for everything where consistent across the frame contrast/sharpness/look from f/4 to f/11 isn't as critical.

     

    The tiny problem I have with the f/2 is that even without pixel-peeping, the print results in the extreme corners I get from it, are sometimes (very rarely) not satisfactory from f/4 to f/8 – a range I use a lot for my photography. It doesn't affect many photos in a way that I notice it but it happened a few time to me now so that my first choice between the two is the f/1.4 if that isn't already taken by my wife (she has first pick of course).

  11. Looks too big for my personal taste. I use a standard daypack, non-photographic backpack and put a hydration bladder inside. Yeah, I know, some people are worried about flooding their equipment, I've never heard of that happening though, but of course, there is always a first time.

     

    The problem is, no matter what I do, my wife looks like a tourist even when we are just walking to the local shopping center, while I look out of place in many places as well, just not as a tourist. 

     

    Overall, people tend to over-complicate things a lot and then come up with "solutions" that are just as dorky and obvious as running around like a photo journalist on assignment. You'll likely have a camera out. To a petty thief that means that every pocket on you has the potential for high value camera gear and your wallet will be full of cash to buy artisan water and Starbucks soy lattes. The more you fight that, the more the impression that you have something to hide is there. 

     

    Live with the fact that people will recognize you as a tourist but make it in a way that they consider you a target that isn't worth bothering with. Be aware of your surroundings, be alert, don't behave like a stoned out druggy on seeing that "once in a lifetime photo opportunity" that is, just that moment, also photographed by a thousand other people.

     

    As bad as it sounds, but when it comes to surviving, you don't have to outrun the lion, you only have to outrun a single other person around you ... and there are enough out there to make that one easy in the "urban jungle".

  12. Yep, it depends on available resources. So maybe later.

     

    It's kind of a bummer. I had an X100T, sold it, bought another one after a while as I missed the small size and "simple pleasure shooting" it gives. I don't use many of the features that make it unique like fast flash sync or the silent shutter to a degree that make the camera total love affair for me, but what I do like overall is the feature set in the given size. 

     

    But I absolutely positively hate the differences in use between it and the X-T1. There are so many that make no sense at all and that make using the two cameras at the same time a pain for me. I've decided to use them never together but as individual kits, but it still totally pisses me off how different they can be in so many little things. It feels like the firmware was done by totally disjoint teams. Maybe it was, but it's super annoying that this wasn't caught before release. 

     

    In my opinion, the X100T doesn't really need a "feature release", it needs an "alignment release" where someone goes through all the little things here and there and just makes the camera behave the same way as the X-E2/X-T10/X-T1. There aren't that many things that really need work, but if you use them regularly, they are just plain annoying. 

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