The New Zoom

For the last few months, I have been stricter on my Thursdays. That's the only day when I have no clinics, and I have decided to devote the day for 'me' time. Yes, there were the occasional lunch meetings, or even worse, the ones which started at 5pm, but I would try to keep those to the minimum. I also tried to keep distractions to the minimum on those days and would stay away from the hospital as much as I could.

I was lucky last Thursday, when I was able to have lunch with Anita as well as took a new zoom I got last weekend for a bit of a spin.

It was a Fujinon on the X-T1 and I have been waiting for this lens for a good part of a year. The original announcement was made at the beginning of 2014 about a new pro-level standard zoom for the Fuji X-series. So, I ordered one in and was contacted by my usual dealer last week. It was the Fujinon XF 16-55mm 1:2.8. And it was a monster.

A much bigger lens than I thought, which was a surprise as it didn't carry an image stabilising motor on it. Using it on the X-T1 took some getting use to, and I had high hopes for the output.

It focused amazingly fast and accurately, and the results out opened was pretty sharp. But I had a problem. Since the beginning of the year, my main system had been the Sony A7 mark with Leica lenses. They were primes of course, and once you used the Leicas, nothing else came near them in terms of sharpness.

Although I understood the quality and the convenience of autofocus, the X-T1 with the new zoom was not the most mobile of setup. It was like carrying my EOS 7D with the 17-55 f2.8 zoom all over again. Although I must be honest, that the results from the Fujinon in terms of colour rendition and sharpness were much better.

I may take the combo for another spin this weekend, but my initial impression was somewhat flat. I was expecting a bit more. Maybe the Leica lens were poison! I am willing to give it another go though, and hopefully find a bit more joy. I will be posting more on the Fuji and Sony comparisons later ....

The Zoom Samples

As highlighted by my previous entry, the main thing which struck me with the new 10-24mm Fujinon zoom was how much contrast generated by the glass. It was more than I could handle.

Add to that the tone generated by the deep colour, it could certainly exaggerate dull palate. Luckily during the day that I tested it, the sun was out - albeit a harsh one.

Can't wait to try the lens for architectural shot and really test the perspectives. So far, I couldn't detect any barreling or vignetting. Stopped down to f5.6 certainly improved the sharpness aplenty.

The New Zoom

I have a few zooms for my Canon DSLR. They were good, but when it comes to image quality, you just couldn't beat a prime. Another advantage of prime was the fact that you could get a fast wide aperture.

My favorite lens for the EOS 7D was the 50mm f1.4. But this being an APS-C camera, you would get an 80mm perspective with this lens. That's good if you plan to do portrait. But a pain to get architecture snaps. The 35mm f1.4 for Canon was just too expensive and heavy. But lately, Sigma and other third-party lens maker had come up with some gem of lenses.

But still, fast prime lens could still be bulky and limiting.

Then I discovered the X100. A small compact but with a 35mm f2.0 lens. I fell in love with Fuji ever since. I just love the palate of the jpg coming off the lens. After all, they had been the premier maker of film negatives before the digital age. They would know a thing or two about colour rendering I was sure.

Then the X-Pro 1 was released. Now I have also added on the X-T1. But the main attraction for me as far as the Fuji lineup was concerned was the selection of lens. More specifically the primes.

Despite their spec, they were highly portable. Now, I have 4 primes in the line-up. I have the 35mm f1.4 to start with - equivalent to 50mm in full frame term - then I added on the 18mm f2.0 which cover my favorite focal length, the magic 28mm. Shane Shame that the lens wasn't the sharpest.

Next came the much anticipated 23mm f1.4 - a 35mm equivalent.

Right around the release of this lens, I heard the announcement of more lenses on the pipeline. 4 lens caught my fancy. Fuji would be releasing a fast portrait lens, the 56mm f1.2, a wide angle zoom the 10-24mm f4 with OIS, the standard zoom 16-55mm f2.8 and the tele-zoom 50-140mm f2.8. The last two only coming out later this year or early 2015.

I bought the 56mm a couple of months ago and that was permanently attached to the X-T1 lately to compliment the GR which covered the 28mm perspective. The 56mm was very sharp even wide open at 1.2 at the risk of making the depth of field too narrow for comfort.

The recent walk in Pudu convinced me that I should explore the wide angle perspective even more. The idea of owning the 10-24mm zoom didn't seem too bad after all. A quick phone call to my usual dealer soon sorted that out. I picked up the lens last week.

I only managed a single outing with the zoom so far. It was at Pavilion in harsh early afternoon sunlight. And the contrast made me jump when in uploaded the snaps onto Aperture. I had to tone down the contrast, and despite being a zoom, the snaps were sharp wide open from edge to edge. The OIS helped with indoor snaps as the amount of light the lens had to gather at wide angle was enormous.

So, going out for photowalk may pose an issue from now on as I wasn't sure which lens to take with me ... It looked like it would be the 10-24 for the next few weeks though ...

More samples from this lens here and here.

Morning Walk

The third day of Raya, and despite this not being a public holiday any longer, the city was still empty. Plenty of people were taking advantage of the long weekend and school holidays to spent time away from the office I was sure.

The tranquility was soon interrupted when we drove past Chow Kit. Bad idea to pass through there. A lot of people was around there - the majority being Indonesian. The place seemed like a Mini Jakarta this morning.

I had to settle some bills and do some shopping, so Anita and I went around Bukit Bintang this morning. We had brunch at one of the cafe - which was packed. The haze was improving and the sun was out. It started to rain however as soon as we drove home.

We did some packing afterwards before heading to the apartment to spent the evening there. Most of the stuff for the Penang trip was at the apartment and Anita felt that it would be easier to pack from there. Time to get some rest as I would be doing all the driving tomorrow morning.