X100S
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-FR-reader Olaf continues his coverage of the Fuji X100s. This time you’ll find a clear list of thoughts about the camera and the files it produces: “JPEGs straight from the camera continue to impress us. The prints from JPEGs are gorgeous (11×17) and from TIFFs they are even better. The fun factor, portability, is unlike anything on the market now.” Read the whole list here (and see his beautiful shots of Vancouver).
image courtesy: Olaf
– The most popular digital cameras or April according to digitalcamerareview? The top three are: 1) [shoplink 11190]Nikon D7100[/shoplink] 2) [shoplink 11808 ebay]X100S[/shoplink] 3) [shoplink 11551]Canon PowerShot SX50 HS[/shoplink] . Check the whole list here.
X20
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– amateurphotographer X20 preview here. “Although it handles almost identically to its predecessor, the X20 could be a significant leap forward due to its use of the X-Trans sensor. If this type of sensor has the same improvement in resolution that we saw when it was used in the X-Pro1, then it could push the X20 into the same bracket as the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100. The X20 has the potential to be a very exciting compact camera.”
– danbaileyphoto X20 sample shots and impressions can be checked out here. “The X20 holds its own because OVERALL, it’s a great camera with solid quality, lots of usable features and a really cool design. Without at doubt, it’s one of the best compact cameras on the market today.”
Zeiss Touit
– The riflessifotografici guys Max and Donato are two of those photographers chosen by Zeiss to test the two new X-mount lenses. Seems that they are already working on it, as they announced that the review is coming soon. Looking forward it.
– Zeiss touit hands on + photos at findingrange (Zeiss press event).
“I love the Fuji lenses but from the limited time that I was able to use the Zeiss Touit lenses, I feel like there’s more life to the images. I really feel like images look less clinical than images shot with the Fuji lenses. The 32mm f1.8 will definitely be a hot little portrait lens because of the way it draws. It’s a little slower than the XF 35mm F1.4 R lens but that’s perfectly ok by me. The bokeh is ultra smooth and inviting. The 12mm f2.8 is priced at $1250, which might seem like a hard pill to swallow but think about it this way; the XF 14mm is already priced at $899. You’re already at the $1,000 range, so if it was me, I would just jump for the Zeiss. You’re getting a better built lens with all glass, and again, the Zeiss look and image quality. Plus, don’t forget; you probably bought the Fuji (or the Sony) because of the image quality. If that’s the case, then it only makes sense to put top quality lenses on it.”
Zeiss Touit 32mm pre-order: USA: Adorama / BHphoto / Uniquephoto / Pictureline / Europe: AmazonDE / ebayUK / PCHstore Brussel
Zeiss Touit 12mm pre-order: USA: Adorama / BHphoto / Uniquephoto / Pictureline / Europe: AmazonDE / ebayUK / PCHstore Brussel
XF14mm
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– “A walk on the wide side, …or how I use ultra wides like the Fujinon 14mm.” Read the article at wideanglecafe.com. Here just an extract… and if you read it all, George will tell you the 4 golden rules for ultra wides.
“The obvious impulse is to go large and look for grand vistas. I find this is invariably a mistake. With a field of view of 21mm on the X-Pro1, the Fujinon 14mm is still a 14mm lens and its perspective reduces even the mightiest of mountains to hillocks in your images if you are not close enough. My wife took me up a mountain recently to show me the perilous route she took across the mountain on horseback. The image below was shot for fun with the X-Pro1 panorama feature and the 14mm lens. The mountains in the background are not that far away and they are over 1200m high. Where I am standing is at around 600m. The image is….well…rubbish really and gives no sense of the dramatic route that she took. A better way to take this shot would be to stitch multiple shots using a lens that is closer to the perspective of the human eye, say 50mm or so.”
image courtesy: wideanglecafe
12 Responses
Perspective distortion is not focal length dependent, only the lens to subject distance matters…
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_distortion_(photography) )
No need to be so pedantic. You know what he meant …
And i agree. People assume it’d make landscape photography easier, but it’s actually the opposite. It takes some experimenting, it’s a very different way of shooting, because unless used properly (keyword:foreground) all it really does is make everything smaller. While with large vista’s, things being too close is usually not the problem is it. 😉 In confined spaces however, that is exactly the problem.
This is why this kind of ultra-wide lenses is usually recommended for architectural and interior photography. Nevertheless, with a bit of skill (i.e.: a strong subject very close to the photographer, and some kind of line going from close to far and eventually arriving to the background) UWA lenses are also the way to create spectacular landscape pictures that would be otherwise impossible. Pity the guy didn’t know about it…
“The 12mm f2.8 is priced at $1250, which might seem like a hard pill to swallow but think about it this way; the XF 14mm is already priced at $899. You’re already at the $1,000 range, so if it was me, I would just jump for the Zeiss.”
Makes perfect sense. 😛
😛 Street price of XF 14mm is only $ 740 USD. Isn’t that make the Zeiss more than 60% more expensive, no? You will save yourself 510 USD, enough to buy a mint XF 35mm f1.4.
Sadly it’s €900 (incl. tax) here and doesn’t look to be lowering any time soon. 🙁
Sadly, most users think that all lenses must be priced exactly the same. Even if you discount the fact that Zeiss is a top-flight name and don’t have to pander to cheap asses, you should consider at least that their XF lenses are mechanical, not electronic. They have helicoids, and manual aperture rings. Nothing has been cheapened like the Fuji lenses. Likely, the Zeiss would still work on a different mount while the Fuji wouldn’t.
If you like everything to be priced the same, you had better live in a plastic house wearing all Walmart and in no way have any luxury item in your arsenal of collectibles. Zeiss can price things according to what they think the market will bear. They can also price things according to what’s inside.
To be honest, non-mechanical lenses such as Fuji’s are priced way too high. Sure, they perform very well, but they are hollow tubes without proper mechanical spines.
When a “reviewer” writes things like the following: “I love the Fuji lenses but from the limited time that I was able to use the Zeiss Touit lenses, I feel like there’s more life to the images. I really feel like images look less clinical than images shot with the Fuji lenses.”
… one has to reduce expectations that the review actually means anything significant.
The Fuji lenses don’t lack “life,” nor do they produce images that “look clinical.” As lovely as the Zeiss lenses may be – and they are probably fine lenses – making up stalking horse problems with alternatives so that you can make such pronouncements about the lens that is the subject of the review is just plain silly.
+1 I totally agree! Having been using Fujinon and Zeiss lenses (on Sony), I have not seen how my Zeiss lenses could give more life to the images, than the Fujinon. And I can say Fujinon image quality is up there at the same level as the Zeiss I have used. Zeiss lenses are clearly much better than most Sony lenses but the same is not true when compared to Fujinon.
“The 12mm f2.8 is priced at $1250, which might seem like a hard pill to swallow but think about it this way; the XF 14mm is already priced at $899. You’re already at the $1,000 range, so if it was me, I would just jump for the Zeiss.”
Another way of saying this is the Zeiss is 40% more (okay 38.8%). The above is stupid, markets logic. One is 90% of 1000, and the other is 25% more than 1000. It is not like it is 950 vs 1050. What this is really about is 12 vs 14 which is not much but definitely noticeably wider. So I suggest, assuming the Zeiss is as good as we all hope, to start by selecting the FL that is right for your needs.
Personally, I am waiting for the fuji 10-24 zoom but it will be a long wait. In the meantime I picked up a Used Voightlander 15mm which I love. A Zeiss 12mm would compliment that nicely but then I would be carrying 2 lenses instead of one which sort of defeats the overall idea of mirrorless is to shoot great pictures without the bulk the SLR’s brings. I would love the Zeiss but it is too expensive for me at this time.
From reading the comments above it seems that everyone was left with the same impression of the Touit review as I was… that it was just a lame attempt to hype and sell a Ziess lens that has no real benefits, other then name value. I will also wait for the 10-24 as well and will probably pick up the Samyang 8mm to give me some ultrawide perspective to play with.
I have every lens for the Contax G2 made… for sure they are beautiful lenses and I have no doubt this offering for the X-mounts will be equally as good… But, Ziess should take notice of what is happening to Leica.. Leica have pushed themselves into a very niche market catering to the “boutique” camera crowd. Ziess would do well for itself to start manufacturing more reasonably priced items…. Or else they could start selling T-Shirts and Ball Caps to supplement their lost revenue do to over priced, over hyped glass.
Generally, I agree with your assessments, but here I disagree. Perhaps it is because I grew up with parents who wouldn’t purchase something for its performance alone. Had we done that, we’d never have gotten a Miele vacuum cleaner. We would have picked a cheap National or something and bought another in ten years. The Miele has been going for over forty years.
Performance alone is a horrible metric to base price on. And performance of what? Of sharpness? of vignetting? of bokeh? of distortion?
Again, the Zeiss lenses are mechanical. They don’t need electronic connection to work with a camera. Putting your 12mm Zeiss on a MF camera should work, no problem. No need for an expensive adapter. And, twenty years down the road, even after heavy use, it will work.
The current market is disgusting: people assume everything should be priced the same. Why? Assuming that prices real engineers, real artisans completely out. Living in Asia, you should understand that. Japan is rife with cheap cheap cheap. Everything is either a copy of something else, or else an improvement to a copy way down the line.
There is little creativity, little pushing of boundaries other than technical here. I live in a plastic effing house because people expect only one thing from their purchase: to be cheap and to compete on price alone.
Look at cars, at anything here: nothing distinguishes brand from brand. They all look the same, or exist in a line of forty cars that differ based on placement of lights or dashboard elements only.
There NEEDS to be a European manufacturer still in the race. Why? Because every other manufacturer started out copying and exist now only producing elements that compete on price and binnability (the ease of throwing something away because it is cheap and all electronic or plastic and soon usurped in features).
The current Zeiss are not the amazing Zeiss of the past – but they can’t be. Prior to WWII, they had all the top tech and the best engineers. Their designs weren’t great, but they made the best stuff. Now, they make great stuff that, generally, is a cut above the rest. But, after WWII, they lost all their patents, and cheap ass Japanese companies copied it all from helicoid to bolt.
We consumers are now used to a commoditised world of cheap that was made possible by copies and anti-creative thinking. Sure, if price and cheap were the only thing necessary, the world would live in plastic houses and drive Toyotas and live on freezer food stepping on Nike shoes with shaved heads and wrapped in grey clothes.
Asking Zeiss to cheapen itself to match competitors who got their starts as copies or spin offs of copies, is an indictment against today’s world. The future belongs to shit products that are designed, ground-up by computers. Humans can retire their talents now.