Fujifilm TCL-X100 listed at BHphoto. Still no official price listed.
Four out of five stars: that’s the rating of the recently announced Fujifilm TCL-X100 at photographyblog here. In their conclusions they say that:
“The Fujifilm TCL-X100S is another classy addition to your [shoplink 12883]X100S[/shoplink] kit, perfectly matching the camera body in both build and optical quality and usefully lengthening the focal range from 35mm to a classic 50mm. […] Image quality is a little underwhelming when the lens is used wide-open, producing a rather dreamy effect, but sharpness is great in the center when it’s stopped down to f/4, and at the edges of the frame from f/5.6 onwards. Chromatic aberrations in particular are very well controlled, geometric distortion is impressively low, and there’s little vignetting to be concerned about.”
If you really want a narrower angle of view than the X100S natively offers then the new TCL-X100S tele conversion lens is a solid choice, and a logical addition to the already released [shoplink 12893]WCL-X100[/shoplink], giving the discerning X100/S owner a very nice collection of 28mm / 35mm / 50mm lenses.”
And in case you missed it, here is Rico’s exclusive first look for Fujirumors readers at the Fujifilm TCL-X100.
13 Responses
I was thinking about the TCL as a portrait / macro extension of my X100s. As for portrait, meaning using it wide open, it doesn’t look to exciting from the samples. The TCL really does soften the image by quite a bit 🙁
For macro I wonder who is right: a Fuji or photographyblog? The former states the MFD at 14mm the latter at 10mm. In the first case it would mean the exact same magnification as with the standard lens. If photographyblog is right, than the magnification should be better…
All in all my enthusiasm has vanished for the most part. Maybe the converter will be able to bring back some of it on personal contact.
I was looking at the TCL for wide open portrait usage also. I’ll never crop down that much. But I still wasn’t happy with how soft the TCL was in the center on the samples. My enthusiasm is vanishing quickly.
That’s a classic testing mistake with the X100/X100s. The X100/X100s is known to be soft at wider apertures up close, even without the converter, and the manual even says to stop down to f4 when doing macro. Once you get the focus distance out a few feet, the TCL-X100 will be fine, just like without the conversion lens.
Correct, however I find that the X100S is always a bit soft at f/2. I avoid using larger apertures than f/2.8, which makes the softness disappear for other than closeup images.
Yeah, I think we’re saying the same thing. The X100 is a bit soft close up at wide aperture, even without the converter.
Yep, I also think we are saying the same thing about closeups, wanted to confirm your findings and add that IMHO f/2 is always a bit soft on the X100S.
I.e. f/2 is a bit soft at all distances, even if closeups makes it worse and makes also f/2.8 a bit soft.
I have used it for the past couple of days and I concur. But I am still a happy camper!
Where did you buy it so early?
In Tokyo 🙂
I guess I will go buy one too.
Soft until 5.6, huh? That kind of sucks.
Sorry but don’t like. Saw the pictures and this pretty much killed any desire I had for this teleconverter. Maybe now I get why Ricoh hasn’t done one for their GR. Too much of a sacrifice for image quality at the wider apertures.