Wider View

It was always nice to try new things in photography. On some of the blogs, I saw some nice shots using wide angle lens on street photography, something I was yet to try.

So, last week I decided to dust off my wide-angle Fujinon 10-23mm and took my X-Pro2 for a walk. I was pleasantly surprised with my captures.

I decided to snap in RAW mode as I felt that I might struggle to bring up the shadows using such a wide-angle lens in high-contrast environment. But the beauty carried through even in my indoors, high ISO captures. Maybe the stabilisation built into the lens helped.

It allowed my to capture the scene in perspective, giving a meaning to the composed image while giving me plenty of leeway for post-processing cropping, at the expense of loss of resolution. The 24 MP sensor coped well and the final images retained their contrast as well as their colour.

I tried the setup at three separate venues. First when I left the LRT at Central Market on the way to Urbanscapes House at Medan Tuanku. Secondly at the Urbanscapes House itself, pushing it to high ISO and testing the stabilisation. Lastly, I ventured on around Masjid India before catching the LRT back to NU Sentral where I parked.

Next step, the 42 MP Alpha 7R mk II full frame with the 18 mm Batis. My ultimate goal would be to pair a medium format body to a wide angle prime .... at least in my dreams ...

Deepavali at Pavilion

Taking my new zoom for a spin, I caught the Deepavali decorations at Pavilion. Colorful and expansive, it occupied the main entrance to this shopping complex.

The kolam extended towards the famous fountain at the Bukit Bintang entrance.

As the exhibits were quite big in size, I was able to test my zoom, cramping the perspective.

I was in a bit of a rush though as it was a work day and I have a ward round later that afternoon.

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.