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.

Daddy Got a Brand New Lens

Yes. I deserved it. I decided to dive in and get the lens I had been waiting for for the last six months - ever since Fuji announced that they were releasing it.

It was the Fujinon 23 f1.4 for my X-Pro1. An X mount lens which on the camera would translate to 35 mm. The length I always wanted. The X100 cane with that as standard, but only recently that Fuji announced the X mount version.

Getting hold of one was a challenge. I had to put in an order and last week, I got the call that it was finally in. Went to pick it up after work yesterday, but still didn't have the chance to put it through its paces. Was hoping to be able to do that this afternoon but my boys wanted to stay indoors.

The lens was heavier than the other two I have - the 17mm f2.0 and 35mm f1.4. It also had two features which I had only found out.

First, it came with a neat and eye-catching flower-shaped hood. Due the size, I could see the hood obstructing my field of view if I peer through the optical viewfinder. Although I could just switch to electronic viewfinder, I still prefer the optical. It was one of the main reasons I upgraded from the X100.

The second feature was the MF-AF mechanism - switching between auto and manual focus. It was built into the focusing ring. You pull it in to activate manual focus, and tug it out to go automatic. It was surprisingly sturdy and reassuring. In fact, the whole lens was well-built.

With the three prime lenses, I got the 24mm, 35mm and 50mm (although closer to 53mm) covered. The f1.4 allows for some proper bokeh although it would be more prominent on the 35mm.

Can't wait to try it out on my next outing .... which may be later tonight ...