XF56 APD: USA: BHphoto / AmazonUS / Adorama / EUROPE: WexUK / WexDE / PCHstore / AUSTRALIA: CameraPro
Nathan Elson and Patrick La Roque tested the brand new XF 56mm f/1.2 APD lens. And what do they think about it? Did Fuji succeed in its difficult challange to improve a lens that is already almost perfect?
Keep in mind, both are testing prototypes… this means the overall performance of this lens can still be improved until its launch later this year.
Nathan Elson (first look) says in his first thoughts about this lens that “it’s not a huge leap […] the original 56mm lens lets in roughly 1 stop of light more than the new APD version which could be a good or bad thing depending on the shooting situation […] the new APD version does have slightly more contrast […] slight improvement to an already awesome lens“.
Patrick La Roque (first look) thinks that “this filter [APD] adds a slight vignetting effect. And I do mean slight […] you’ll notice [with the APD] a bit more blurring breaking up the pattern. […] So given the slightly more pleasing bokeh, common wisdom would dictate that the APD is the better of the two right? Well, I’m sticking with different. Because there actually are trade-offs with the apodization process: Less light gathering capabilities & No phase detection AF, resulting in slower focusing. […] Does this mean you should immediately sell your 6 months-old standard 56mm? Well, I won’t — and I certainly won’t feel cheated. What this amounts to is choice, not replacement, upgrade or deprecation. As far as I’m concerned, neither can disappoint.”
Go for the 56mm f/1.2 APD if you need:
– improved bokeh
– slightly more contrast
Go for the 56mm f/1.2 if you need:
– faster AF (phase detection)
– more light gathering capabilities
– slightly less vignetting than the APD
This is just a very early PROS & CONS list. We will have to wait for more reviews and final production XF 56mm APD.
XF 56mm f/1.2 APD: USA: BHphoto / AmazonUS / Adorama / EUROPE: WexUK / WexDE / PCHstore / AUSTRALIA: CameraPro
XF 56mm f/1.2: [shopcountry 21554]
44 Responses
Speaking purely as a hobbyist who doesn’t earn from photography. I can’t tell the difference in a blind test so I’ll be happy waiting for those wanting to upgrade to the APD version to sell me theirs 🙂
I agree with you dave… even though i use my x system for weddings… the upgrade i think is not that big…
I have to say that I haven’t seen much of a difference that is compelling enough to sell my 56 f/1.2 “Classic” ( makes it sound rather Voigtlander-ish). Most of the time the background (or foreground if that was your desire) can be adjusted in postprocessing to achieve similar results.
I’m in the same boat here…
It appears neither of these guys seem to really understand what this APD filter is supposed to be doing, as no effort is made to really find it’s (new) limits. They’re great images and all but could have been taken with any short tele. Where is the experimenting with backgrounds that would otherwise be a bokeh-disaster, and where are the stopped down images (not even one?), see if those bad heptagonal shapes have been fixed or not. Come on .. torture this APD.
ummm.. that’s probably because they are using a portrait lens and camera as intended, for beautiful portrait photography. If we wanted a series of shots of walls, bricks, grass, random objects at random lengths then I’d wait for an amateur blog or tech site.
I for one am very happy what professional photographers Nathan and Patrick have done and very well too.
Oh come on, and fujirumors is what .. pro photographer hangout? Don’t be such a baby. Like i said the images are great, but that is completely irrelevant as we’ve learned near to nothing about the APD aspect of it all, the one thing they were asked to put to the test. Yes that’s right, test! They didn’t get this free prototype to promote their own work, it’s about the lens! And yes you can test this APD aspect in practical use perfectly well, in fact it is the only way to really test a lens in my opinion .. nobody mentioned brick walls but you.
oh come on? Don’t be such a baby?
I think I just called you out for being a big baby since you’re complaining about free information on the internet that didn’t meet your ‘standards’. Get off your high horse, if you want to test APD, then become a professional photographer enough to get the attention of global manufacturers and get yourself a review copy. These guys just tested a lens, a 85mm 135 equivalent one, in a real world situation they would’ve have done for any other job (and probably much better than you could do I presume).
Get off your high horse and deal with it. Nathan and Patrick have done a fine job at testing a lens in a real world situation, not a feature of a lens in some random testing trial that has no bearing in the real world.
Really?
‘Nathan and Patrick have done a fine job at testing a lens in a real world situation, not a feature of a lens in some random testing trial that has no bearing in the real world.’- that may be true, but guess what? There’s a reason that this lens is 500 USD more than another already existing lens, and that reason is the ‘feature that has no bearing in the real world’. As such, I want to know WHAT EXACTLY DOES THAT PARTICULAR FEATURE DO, since I’m being charged 500 USD for it alone.
Let me put it this way: if you had a non-OS lens at 500 USD and a OS lens at 1000 USD, all else being equal, and you’d test the OS lens, I’d want to know most of all how the OS works, because that’s what should justify the difference in price.
Understood?
Ah yes, revert to making it personal. Always a fine way to make to make your point when you’re out of options. Something about high horses ..
I’ve shown nothing but objective curiosity, simply expressing genuine disappointment that with such great potential (not to offend the sacred pro’s) this turned out to be as you say a “random testing trial that has no bearing in the real world.” – the world where enthusiasts and professionals alike do wish to know if this new addition has any value for their type of use or not.
One would think Fuji had only invested in something like this if it actually makes a difference at some point, but i guess my standards are just too high.
Well… If you look at the top left corner of this image, for example: http://www.nathanelson.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/FUJI-56mm-APD-03(pp_w950_h633).jpg, you will see a classical Fuji bokeh-disaster, I call it “hysterical bokeh”. Under certain conditions, like shooting against a dense backlit foliage, it can be a real problem. And it seems that APD won’t fix this issue.
PS: Nathan, if you disable the right click on your review/first impressions page, at least number your photos, so people can reference a particular one in the comments. Just a suggestion.
Little to do with Fuji bokeh there. That is both distortion from the window in the back (if any), and the doorpost in the middle-left that creates this weird cross-eyed effect … whatyoucallit. Like shooting through a wired fence, but focused on the background. The wires disappear, but the light bends in all kinds of ways.
If I understand APD correctly, what happens with the out of focus parts in the front is, that their falloff is actually decreased, or increased in intensity, relative to the in focus parts.
I think that is also what makes the mirror in this image of vincent laroque appear a bit uncommon to me: http://static.squarespace.com/static/5007141bc4aa2550d7b13a5b/540f41d9e4b02e5bf0bd66fc/540f41dde4b08db42e609460/1410286047455/LAROQUE-always-crashing-04.jpg?format=1000w
I don’t like the definition from Wikipedia, it seems that it’s been written by people who don’t understand what they’re talking about (often the case with Wikipedia). Much prefer the description written by people who actually sell apodizing filters to optical manufacturers. Quote:
“Apodizing filters are used to create an even illumination profile in an optical system. Bull’s Eye type filters feature a high optical density in the center which decreases continuously to an uncoated edge, and are commonly used to flatten the intensity profile of Gaussian beams. The Reverse Bull’s Eye type features a high optical density coating on the filter’s edge which decreases continuously to an uncoated center.”
That’s it, an even illumination profile. How many diaphragm blades has a famous Meyer-Optik Görlitz Trioplan? 15. That’s right, fifteen perfectly rounded blades and… extremely busy bokeh. Any OOF specular highlight turns into a shiny bubble.
It seems that the function of APD is to make that “bubble” effect more gaussian, with bright center and an exponential falloff (as opposed to Trioplan’s shiny outlines).
Frankly, I don’t see this kind of problem with “old” 56mm Fujinon design, at least not to a degree that requires an urgent release of the special APD modification. However, sometimes, for example with the backlit OOF foliage, fast Fujinons paint a weirdly busy bokeh. XF 60mm Macro is the most vulnerable to this effect (that’s why I sold mine), but sometimes I’ve seen it with the 56mm too.
But frankly, I’m no longer sure that this is an optical effect. It changes with almost every firmware iteration.
I agree. I would like to have seen some night time shots with lights in the background to see how they look with the APD filter. I had assumed the main purpose of it is to soften the bokeh in those sort of shots.
Off topic. Patrick, there’s something seriously wrong with your site. It’s unreachable most of the time, sometimes requiring 10+ refreshes to get any content at all.
This is totally weird, as it scores 89/100 on Google PageSpeed… or 0. Or 89. Or 0.
I suggest checking your DNS configs.
My guess is that RattyMouse is behind it all
Nonpartisan trolls are seldom capable of DDoS attacks.
Hanlon’s razor in this case suggests that most likely the outages are caused by a greedy owner of the shared hosting, not some external evildoers.
it was sarcasm…….but thanks for your insight
Oftentimes on the interwebs, sarcasm might be dressing exactly like Captain Obvious himself.
Just experinced the same issues….
It’s probably using the same server as other rumor sites, which is under heavy traffic tonight due to new product announcements, nothing new from Fuji tho.
Here are the sites that share not just the same server, but same IP (!) with Fujirumors:
43rumors.com
sonyalpharumors.com
canonwatch.com
cubestories.com
thenakedcamera.com
greekdiaries.me
alphacameradeals.com
frametheatre.com
I just hope that this is not Cloudflare’s free hosting plan…
Nobody that wants bokeh is going to consider the Fuji series anyway, the sensor is just too small. Serious bokeh photography is going to *start* with 35mm full frame, even that is tiny. Bokeh happens put on a 70-200 L series lens at f/2.8, not a tiny little APS-C sensor. You just have to look at the samples to see this. Fuji are trying to eek out some blur, but it’s just not happening.
I have to say I disagree. The sensor size difference between full frame and APS-C isn’t as significant as everyone thinks. I shoot a full frame Nikon d800 and a Fuji X-T1 and purposely choose to shoot the 56mm f1.2 from Fuji over the Nikorr 85mm f1.4. You are correct in the sense that it is more difficult to create bokeh with the smaller APS-C compared to the full frame sensor, but claiming “nobody that wants bokeh is going to consider the fuji series anyway because the sensor is too small” is simply innacurate. You must not have used the 56mm or the 35mm for that matter. The only reason I still own my DSLR kit is the autofocus capabilities.
You are not talking about bokeh, but depth of field.
It’s quite simply impossible to take you seriously.
Well, at the moment, the real hot buzz is going on elsewhere, right ?
i.e. the LX100 should be the X-30 (I know off-topic).
And the X-PRO2 should have at least the same specs as Samsung NX1. Okay, nobody’s listening now and I am completely out of focus with my outstanding bokeh, I’m going back now to the real party. See you.
The LX100 is $200 more than the X30 but kind of blows it away and seems like way better value.
The LX100 didn’t borrow dials from any modern manufacturer. It merely adapted dials that have been around since yonks on hundreds of auto-exposure cameras from all manufacturers, for a new camera.
True, but I’ve not seen another modern manufacturer do away with the PASM dial as elegantly as Fuji does (by adding an automatic setting to both aperture and shutter speed).
And that’s what Panasonic appropriated in the LX100. But perhaps it has existed prior and I’m not remembering it. Regardless, it is a great idea.
“I’ve not seen another modern manufacturer do away with the PASM dial as elegantly as Fuji does”
Fuji was obviously “inspired” by the Leica M as they introduced the X system but unfortunately didn’t implement the shutter speed dial as good as Leica does. Specially the need to use the rear dial to adjust shutter speed in less than full stops defeats the whole purpose of a traditional dial and inhibits one from seeing the real settings by only looking at the dials. Leica’s dial OTOH can be adjusted in half stops to match their lenses and allows this way for changing shutter speed/ aperture combinations just by feeling.
Using the same sensor from GX7 and processor from GH4 makes LX100 more interesting. Plus, it features Pana’s lighting fast AF, famous Pana’s 4K, and much bigger sensor than RX100mkIII and X30.
If the final price is right, it will impact both X30 and X100. Maybe a big game change in hi-end compact camera segment.
It would help to have a side by side sample comparison. I can’t tell anything without.
Any relevant link?
Very strange product. I think I’d still pick the “classic,” even if they were the same price, just for the light transmission, and because punching up contrast is so trivial.
The “bokeh improvement” is still not that obvious to me, although the two photographers did very nice work using the lenses.
Great news for anyone who already owns the “classic,” and a nice option for those who can see the difference and want it, I suppose. (As long as it didn’t delay the rest of the lens lineup, like the 90mm, that is.)
i have decided to stay with the original version. I usually need more light and the better AF.
So far I haven’t seen any images that clearly show differences between APD and non-APD. Moreover, Fuji low light focus still needs some improvement. The loss of light for night portrait will make it more difficult. I too prefer to stay with the non-APD one.
The effect is pretty subtle imho… I think it would’ve been better if they put the research into stuff with more impact like putting 1:1 macro into the upcoming 90mm…
will X-E2 get electronic shutter?
There is a rumor of a december firmware update for the x-e2
that would be terrific, making the xE2 a great street camera with interchangeable lenses for a lot less than xt1…yes, it’s all about the evf, I know, I know. I need another great xt1 sale before I can even think about that.
Xt-1 is fine & dandy – and I am very tempted, but I guess I will get a 56mm first. It is about the same budget and I think I’ll have better results with my xe-1 + 56 rather than xt-1 + 18-55
Very interesting to see which shot by Nathan Elson is in the official samples:
http://www.fujifilm.com/products/digital_cameras/x/fujinon_lens_xf56mmf12_r_apd/sample_images/img/index/ff_xf56mmf12_r_apd_004.JPG
Would be very intersting to see a comparison of this one with the standard lens, because here it would make quite a big difference with the very busy fore- and background.