Size Medium

Back in the early days of DSLRs, when full-frame sensors were rare and very expensive, I'd sometimes hear people refer to full-frame, only half-jokingly, as "digital medium format".

This is both accurate and inaccurate. Accurate in that some of the earliest full-frame DSLRs, the Canon EOS-1Ds series, were used for the sort of shooting that traditionally had been done with medium format film cameras: portraits, landscapes, studio work, that sort of thing.

When the EOS-1Ds Mark II came out in 2004, its 16MP full frame sensor inspired talk about "out-resolving" lenses. (This isn't a thing that happens, for what it's worth. What happens is you now have the resolution to notice flaws that would otherwise pass unseen.)

Inaccurate in that actual digital medium format had been around since nearly the dawn of digital photography, in the form of digital backs for existing medium format film camera systems, but those cost insane amounts of money and were almost never seen outside studios. Further, Mamiya released the first dedicated medium format DSLR in 2004, a 22MP beast with a price tag over ten grand.

It wasn't until Fuji launched their first medium format digital mirrorless camera in late 2017, the GFX 50S, that prices started to get more normal. Oh, sure, they still cost as much as a top-of-the-line pro body from Canon or Nikon, but at least it was used car money, not new car money.

Thing is, they've been on the market long enough now that the oldest ones are nearing Digital Fossils territory. Looking at MPB and Adorama, good used ones are fetching something like $1,500. That's a price where, if someone really wanted to try their hand at digital medium format, the cost is not prohibitive.

I'm kept away by reminding myself that I already have the 50MP Canon EOS 5DS that I hardly ever use.

But that doesn't stop me from kinda wanting to play with one.

Mirrorless Pics: Neighborhood people with the Fujifilm X-T2

The Fujifilm X-T2, despite being only a few months shy of a decade old, has a modern enough sensor that you don't need a screamingly fast aperture for it to be usable doing available light portraiture indoors.

The XF 16-80mm f/4 R WR OIS is plenty fast enough and has a big enough aperture to give some degree of subject-background separation.

Soulless?

I’m not really a huge fan of any one camera brand, nor am I really a hater of any. I’ve used and enjoyed all kinds of cameras, made by numerous manufacturers.

I will say that the only one that I’ve felt any antipathy toward is Sony. Don’t get me wrong, they make fine photographic appliances, but so many of them feel like just that: an electronic appliance for making photos. The only Sonys I’ve really bonded with in any way so far are the a700 DSLR, which hardly counts since Minolta did most of the heavy lifting on that one and Sony basically showed up in time to slap their name on it, and the wonderful little RX100 pocket camera.

Other than that, I’ve used Mavicas and CyberShots, NEX mirrorless bodies, as well as using an a7 and an a7 II as my work cameras for most of a year, and just never really warmed to any of them. Their menus and interfaces always feel like they were designed by someone who transferred over from the clock radio or stereo division last week.

I mean, Canons and Panasonics are pretty soulless, too, but not in that way.

You know who knows how to really nail that camera vibe? Fujifilm. They’re probably the best at it these days. Olympus and Pentax, too. They’ve got the whole camera vibe thing figured out. When you’re using one of their camera, you know that there were serious camera nerds involved in the design of the thing.

Of the big two classic Japanese camera makers, Nikon does it way better than Canon, but their attempts at retro ring hollow when compared to Fuji’s.

Lenses I Live By: The Short Portrait

Portrait lenses tend to be longer than standard primes, since this allows taking photos without having to be all up in the subject’s grille, as well as exaggerating the effects of focal length compression to not cause the subject’s features to look distorted.

The “short” portrait focal length range, in my own personal lexicon, runs from about 75mm to 105mm, in full-frame terms. (I use “full-frame terms” because the 35mm format spent something like fifty years establishing itself as the lingua franca of normie photography jargon.) 

Most of the camera systems I use have a lens that falls into this category. For instance, the Nikon 1 system, with its little 1" CX-format sensor, has the 1 Nikkor 32mm f/1.2, which has the equivalent focal length of 87mm.

Nikon 1 V2 & 1 Nikkor 32mm f/1.2

Moving up to Micro Four Thirds, there are some pretty slick choices. Panasonic goes with 42.5mm focal lengths, which is an 85mm equivalent, in an inexpensive f/1.7 version and a bucks-up Leica Nocticron-branded f/1.2. Olympus, on the other hand, favors the 90mm equivalent 45mm focal length. They, too, offer a spendy f/1.2 PRO lens, but the M. Zuiko Digital 45mm f/1.8 is so compact, light, and inexpensive that it's the one I choose.

Things are similar with the Fujifilm X-mount ecosystem. There's a honking big 56mm f/1.2 portrait lens, but again, the bargain is the XF 50mm R WR "Fujicron", for its compact size and value pricing.

Fujifilm X-T2 & XF 50mm f/2 R WR

For my full-frame Canon DSLRs, I count on the EF 85mm f/1.8 for this task.

Canon EOS 5DS & EF 85mm f/1.8

First pics with the Leica Digilux Zoom...

So, I've got a Fuji-branded 32MB SmartMedia card in the Digilux Zoom. With image quality set to "Fine", which is 1280x1024 pixels, that gives me 46 images worth of capacity.

While that resolution is comically low by today's standards (your typical 24MP camera is more like 6000x4000), remember that in 1999 most folks were still looking at images on 1024x768 pixel CRT monitors and those photos were being transmitted via dialup modems as often as not. A 760k image file was big.

I have white balance set to auto. 

The Leica's ISO is fixed at the native 125; even in Manual mode you can't change it. Indoors shots obviously require flash.

The screen washes out in sunlight. Fortunately it also has a tunnel-type optic viewfinder.

Badge Engineering

Leica's first attempt at entering the consumer digital market happened in 1998 with the Digilux, a 1.5MP camera that was a re-badged Fuji.

In late 1999 it was replaced with the Digilux Zoom, a similarly reskinned Fujifilm MX-1700 (also known as the Fujifilm FinePix 1700 in the U.S. market.)

The Digilux Zoom boasted a Fujinon 6.6-19.8mm f/3.2-5.0 zoom lens, which combined with the crop factor of the 1/2.3" CCD sensor to give an equivalent focal length range of 38-114mm on a 35mm camera, which is a useful all-in-one zoom length.

While the body was a solid-feeling construct of aluminum and magnesium, the control layout was haphazard and the opposite of ergonomic. 

The camera used SmartMedia cards to store images and had no USB ports, so you'll need a SmartMedia-compatible card reader if you want to download images.

I'll play with this thing a bit and write an actual review.

Lenses I Live By: 50mm

The basic building block of any lens kit is, or at least used to be, the fast normal prime. In full frame terms, that's generally a 50mm lens with a maximum aperture of f/1.8 or faster. I have something like this for just about every system I use.

Nikon's excellent little 35mm f/1.8G is a great crop sensor prime, letting you isolate the subject and blue the background nicely.

Fuji makes a few 35mm XF primes of varying prices and maximum apertures, but on my Fuji cameras I like the 32mm f/1.8 Zeiss Touit. If you really feel the need for speed on a budget, Sigma offers their 30mm f/1.4 Contemporary prime for the X-mount, too.

The Zeiss makes me happy...

Still, given the versatility of modern zoom lenses, I usually only break out the 50mm equivalent when I need the really fast aperture. They do see more use than my 35mm wide-ish angle primes, though.

It comes in handy with cameras that aren't great in low light, like the small-sensor Pentax Q series, which has an 8.5mm f/1.9 prime that's a 50mm equivalent.

Lenses I Live By: 35mm

I'm not a wide-angle shooter by nature. I rarely use the wide end of zoom lenses, so wide primes are not a thing I typically have in my kit.

The widest prime lens I use with any regularity is the Fujifilm XF 23mm f/2 R WR. With a field of view equivalent to a 35mm lens on a full-frame body, the compact little "Fujicron" is fast, sharp, and (like it says on the label) weather resistant.

When I'm shooting with longer glass on my Fujifilm X-T2, I'll bring the XF 23mm f/2 along, mounted on my X-E1, to handle wide interiors, streetscapes, and other similar chores.

Plus, I really love the way it looks with that retro vented hood. I keep telling myself that I'll be an ace street photographer with this setup someday... someday. First I'll have to overcome my reluctance to get up in people's grilles with such a relatively wide lens, though.

Small is Beautiful

An all-in-one "walking around" zoom lens is what's normally on my cameras. I like them because they're more versatile than a fixed focal length lens and have more reach than the typical 24-70mm pro zoom. They don't have as much reach as a superzoom. In non camera nerd speak, these are "5X" rather than "10X" zooms. 

The lack of focal length, however, is made up for by much better optics as well as larger available apertures over the most of the range of the lens. For instance, my favorite Nikon full-frame superzoom, the 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6, has a maximum aperture of f/3.5 at 28mm, while the 24-120mm f/4 VR is a third of a stop slower. But by the time you've zoomed out to 50mm, the 28-200 can only manage f/4.5, while the 24-120 will hold f/4 all the way out to 120mm.

The bigger hole lets in more light, allowing you to use lower ISOs or faster shutter speeds indoors or in the shade.

These lenses tend to be compact, but still fairly chonky, and that's one reason that smaller sensor cameras still appeal to me.

Thanks to the magic of crop factor, these are the equivalent lenses for full-frame, APS-C, and Micro 4/3rds:

• Nikon 24-120mm f/4 VR: 84x103.5mm, 710g
• Fuji 16-80mm f/4 OIS WR: 78x89mm, 440g
• Panasonic 12-60mm f/2.8-4: 68-86mm, 320g

That Micro 4/3rds lens on the Olympus, seen in the photo above, is almost an inch shorter, about a half inch smaller in diameter, and less than half the weight of the full-frame Nikon, yet it covers the same effective field of view and is a full stop brighter on the wide end, to boot. 

That's just shy of a pound's weight difference between the Nikon and Panasonic glass, and you notice that when it's hanging around your neck during a long day.

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Mirrorless Pics: Neighborhood people with the Fuji X-T2

Here are a couple more shots from the Fujifilm X-T2 and the XF 50mm f/2 R WR "Fujicron" short telephoto.

Mirrorless Pics: Neighborhood people with the Fuji X-E1

Some shots of the crew at Fat Dan's Chicago-Style Deli at 54th & College, using the Fujifilm X-E1 and the lovely little Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 lens.

Being a roughly 50mm equivalent focal length, it's about as short of a lens as I'll ever use for portraiture, and its fast maximum aperture is good for making the subject stand out against a softly-blurred background. At the same time, f/1.8 and an APS-C size sensor is less likely to wind you up in those "Oops, I only had enough depth of field to get one eye in focus" situations than, say, f/1.4 on a full-frame.

Fuji XF portrait lenses...

I really enjoy candid... well, technically I guess "casual" would be a more accurate term ...portrait photography. I'm usually relatively close to the subject, so anything in the 85mm to 135mm focal length (in full-frame terms) range generally works for what I'm doing. Probably a fast 85mm would be my favorite axe.

I would love to get a dedicated portrait lens for my Fujifilm XF cameras. I'm in more or less constant danger of winding up with their 56mm f/1.2 or 90mm f/2 if I find a deal on a used one.

The only thing that's saved me so far is that I got a smokin' deal at Roberts on a used XF 50mm f/2 R WR. While the 75mm equivalent focal length is a little shorter than I find ideal, it's compact, fast, and sharp as a tack. It sure spends a lot of time on my X-T2.

Mirrorless Pics: Neighborhood people with the Fuji X-E1

These are straight-out-of-camera JPEGs from the Fujifilm X-E1 and the wonderful Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8. This is one of my favorite combos, pairing a compact rangefinder-style body with a nice, fast standard prime.

Mirrorless Pics: Neighborhood people with the Fuji X-T2

The Fujifilm X-T2 is the least fossil-y camera I have. Despite being three generations old (Fuji's up to the X-T5 now) its release date in 2016 makes it the newest interchangeable lens camera I own.

As a result, the low-light performance is mind-boggling to me. If I'm shooting indoor candids by available light, I'll open the lens aperture wide and let the camera pick the ISO and shutter speed.

These photos were both shot with the Fujinon XF 50mm f/2 R WR lens cranked all the way open. The camera selected ISO 2000 for the upper pic and a whopping ISO 12800 for the lower.

The sharpness achieved at a five-digit ISO seems amazing, considering that a decade earlier anything over ISO 400 was an unusably noisy mess.

I really like the 50mm "Fujicron". It's so compact but offers a good focal length and fast aperture for indoor candids.

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Rounding Out a Lens Library

Fuji X-T2 & XF 50mm f/2 R WR

My lineup of Fujifilm X-mount lenses had a hole in it... Well, it had a couple holes, actually, but one really mattered to me.

I had a couple good primes: The wide-ish XF 23mm f/2 R WR "Fujicron" and the normal-length Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8, as well as a good general-purpose zoom in the XF 16-80mm f/4 R WR. What I didn't have was a dedicated portrait lens. Oh, sure, I had a manual focus Kamlan 50mm f/1.1 that I'd bought on a lark back when my income situation allowed buying lenses on a lark, but it didn't really fill the gap.

Fuji makes three lenses that would do the job I was looking for and were roughly in my price range: The 50mm f/2, 90mm f/2, and (if I really stretched and maybe traded in some old kit) the 56mm f/1.2

Fortunately a used 50mm f/2 R WR "Fujicron" popped up at Roberts downtown here in Indy at a price I could afford, and so I snatched it up.

Now I just need a longer telephoto zoom and I'll have a fairly complete shooting setup. I could do an event  with one bag, the X-T2 and the X-E1 as a backup.

Mirrorless Pics: Downtown Indy with the Fujifilm X-E1

In my ongoing quest to try and "see" better in wider angles, I switched cameras halfway through my photo walk with a friend in downtown Indianapolis yesterday.

I bagged the  Fuji X-T2 and pulled the X-E1, wearing an XF 23mm f/2 R WR lens, out of my Peak Design  Everyday Sling.

On the X-E1's 16MP crop sensor, the XF 23/2 "Fujicron" has a field of view equivalent to about a 35mm lens on a full frame camera, so it's wide-ish but not really wide-wide.

One thing I like about the Fuji cameras is their film emulation modes, so you can get that Acros or Provia look without having to do processing. Of the mainstream manufacturers these days, Fuji is definitely the camera nerd's camera supplier.

Acros emulation

Provia emulation

A Fuji complaint…

I really love my Fujifilm X-E1, but I have a beef with it.

Frequently I’ll use it as a backup body when I’m shooting my X-T2, hanging on a strap with a fast prime while I shoot the XF 16-80mm f/4 WR zoom on the main body.

The position of the exposure compensation dial on the X-E1’s top place, such that it’s flush with the rear edge, combined with the lack of a locking button on said dial, means that I’m often a couple shots into a scene before noticing that its been jostled a couple stops in either direction. This is especially bad when I find out I’ve underexposed the bejeezus out of an indoors shot or three.

Mirrorless Pics: Obsidian knife with the Fujifilm X-E1

Every year since 2018, I've made a point of buying a knife from the flint knapper in the Pioneer Village at the Indiana State Fair. This one, with a blade of rainbow obsidian, was the first.

These photographs were taken with my Fujifilm X-E1, wearing the Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 lens.

The X-E1 was Fuji's second camera in its X-mount lineup. It's essentially an X-Pro without the bulky and expensive electro-optical hybrid viewfinder. Instead, it has a conventional high-res OLED electronic viewfinder, albeit with higher resolution than the electro- part of the X-Pro's hybrid finder. It's also got a bit more plastic in the body shell than the rugged X-Pro. The 16MP APS-C X-Trans CMOS sensor is the same as the one on the more expensive camera.

Fujifilm XQ1 review: Thumbs Down

So there was this time I fell in love with a pocket digicam, only for it to break my heart.

On paper, the Fujifilm XQ1 was my perfect pocket camera: The lens collapsed flat and the whole thing was the size of a deck of cards. It had a ginormous (for a pocket cam) 2/3" sensor. It had a 24-105mm equivalent zoom lens with a bright f/1.8-4.9 maximum aperture. It had those lovely Fuji colors and could shoot RAW with the full array of PASM modes.

It took great pictures!

Alas, the XQ1 has a known bug in that the aperture blades tend to get stuck wide open, and the camera's basically bricked when that happens, because it's long past the time when Fuji could repair it.

Get a Sony RX100 instead, the original one, used. Just as good a lens, same focal length range, bigger sensor.

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Mirrorless Pics: Huck the cat with a Fujifilm X-E1

Huck, the Miniature Broad Ripple Biting Tiger

The X-E1, released in late 2012, was their second mirrorless camera, after the widely-acclaimed X-Pro1. Dispensing with the X-Pro's expensive hybrid electro-optical viewfinder, the X-E1 had a high-res OLED electronic viewfinder instead, but shared the same 16MP APS-C X-Trans CMOS sensor with its pricier stablemate.

Both photos were taken using the Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 lens.

Holden, the Northern Floofloaf

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