Great for street: X-Pro1 and M-mount wide angle lenses

[Jamie Pillers]

I enjoy sunny-16, zone-focused style of street photography. I like trusting my intuition about meter setting and subject distance. When I got the X-Pro1 in my hands, with the Fuji 18mm lens, I found I couldn't easily use the kit that way. The Fuji lenses are outstanding, image quality wise, and auto focus with the latest firmware update is superb. But the lenses don't have distance scales on the body, making zone focusing a much different process than I'm used to with my film cameras. And I like a 35mm focal length lens best for the streets. So.... the excellent little Voigtlander 25mm M-mount lens is now in my kit, and I'm loving it. Set it at f8 and everything between about 1.2 meters and infinity is in focus. And the lens is sharp with no noticable distortion, and great color saturation. (I used the screw mount version of this lens years ago on the Bessa L and loved it then as well.)

A concern I had about using an M-mount lens on the Fuji camera was that there's been a lot of talk on the web about how using lenses designed for use with film would not work well with digital sensors without some serious new sensor redesign involving micro lenses to redirect light in a more perpendicular path to the sensor surface. The common opinion (based on I'm not sure what) seemed to be that using M-mount lenses on the Fuji would result in softness around the edge of the image. But I wasn't seeing anything troubling when I looked at images on Flickr made with the XPro1 and legacy wide-angle lenses. So I thought I'd give it a try.

I've started using the CV 25mm lens now and I'm really liking what I'm getting from it. Here's an example, with a couple of 100% crops:

ISO 800, 1/40 sec., f8:

100% crop from lower left:

And how about being able to read the phone number on the bus stop across the street:

 

[doncraig]

Hmm, makes me wonder about my CV 28mm Ultron on the XP1. I'll give it a try this weekend...

 

[Jamie Pillers]

Hmm, makes me wonder about my CV 28mm Ultron on the XP1. I'll give it a try this weekend...

If you decide you don't like it, I'll gladly take it off your hands... I loved that lens but it got sold in one of the many GAS adventures I've experienced since joining RFF. 🙂

 

[Kavenzmann]

Looks very promising!
Thx for sharing.

I just ordered the X-E1 and will try my beautiful M-Rokkor 28/2,8 for zone focussing. It would be something like a long dreamed solution for me. I also had the CV25/4 in mind, but as I already own the M-Rokkor, I use that one first. If it's nearly (technically) as good as the CV seems to be, I'll be in heaven.

It's now even more hard to wait for the camera until November with your pictures in mind. Thanks for that! 😉

 

[semilog]

I've been very happy with the performance of the 35/2.8 ZM C-Biogon on the X-Pro1. I'd use it even more if it weren't for the excellence of the XF 35/1.4...

 

[MaxElmar]

Don't the Fuji's have a distance scale in the finder? Do you find a scale on the lens just better in some way? Not meant to be snarky question at all. Just considering an X-E1 and I would think the scale in the finder would be very useful.

 

[Kavenzmann]

If I do zone focussing, I like to do so becaue it's faster and more "stealthy" than anything else I know.
So it's not good if one must look on the display or viewer to see the focusmarks. Another point is, that these are not even accurate and easy to read in bright light. The dof-marker is more or less useless for me - way to accurate...

 

[MaxElmar]

Ah, I see. Then a manual focus lens solves that problem - and others have written about the DOF indicator in the finder. Thanks.

 

[semilog]

If I do zone focussing, I like to do so becaue it's faster and more "stealthy" than anything else I know.
So it's not good if one must look on the display or viewer to see the focusmarks. Another point is, that these are not even accurate and easy to read in bright light. The dof-marker is more or less useless for me - way to accurate...

I've used M-mount lenses as well as the XF 18 and 35 lenses for zone focusing on the street, and they all work. For the XF lenses I leave the display on eye control and set focus on the back panel. Works great. YMMV of course.

 

[Kavenzmann]

I never tried with the XF lenses but it should be the same with the X100 lens.

It works, yes. But I like to have distance marks on the lens. The new XF 14/2,8 will have them. Perfect!
But a little on the wide side for street work. I'll be a lucky guy, if the same happens with the 27/2,8 Pancake. It's so tiny that it won't fit, I guess. 🙁

 

[Ronald_H]

Good to see that the 25mm Voigtlander works well on the X-Pro1. It is not a myth that wide angles designed for the Leica M don't work well on mirrorless cameras though. On my Sony NEX-3 the very same lens causes severe vignetting and color shift. A real shame, because I was intending to use it the way you do. Why the Fuji doesn't have a problem I don't know, but it is of course a completely different sensor to the Sony.

 

[willie_901]

I don't believe the in-camera distance scale works for adapted, analog lenses.

 

[Kavenzmann]

It doesn't. Of course not.

But you have a distance scale on the lens itself which is way easier to read and pre adjust for zone focussing.

 

[Jamie Pillers]

I've been very happy with the performance of the 35/2.8 ZM C-Biogon on the X-Pro1. I'd use it even more if it weren't for the excellence of the XF 35/1.4...

I feel the same. I love 35mm M-mount and LTM lenses, but the Fuji 35/1.4 is so good, I don't bother thinking about adding any other.

 

[Jamie Pillers]

Don't the Fuji's have a distance scale in the finder? Do you find a scale on the lens just better in some way? Not meant to be snarky question at all. Just considering an X-E1 and I would think the scale in the finder would be very useful.

Any non-Fuji lens has no way to connect to the internal scale. The only information that registers in the viewfinder when a non-Fuji lens is mounted is the shutter speed.

 

[Jamie Pillers]

I never tried with the XF lenses but it should be the same with the X100 lens.

It works, yes. But I like to have distance marks on the lens. The new XF 14/2,8 will have them. Perfect!
But a little on the wide side for street work. I'll be a lucky guy, if the same happens with the 27/2,8 Pancake. It's so tiny that it won't fit, I guess. 🙁

Do you know if the 23/1.4 is going to have a distance scale on it? That would be GREAT!

 

[Jamie Pillers]

Good to see that the 25mm Voigtlander works well on the X-Pro1. It is not a myth that wide angles designed for the Leica M don't work well on mirrorless cameras though. On my Sony NEX-3 the very same lens causes severe vignetting and color shift. A real shame, because I was intending to use it the way you do. Why the Fuji doesn't have a problem I don't know, but it is of course a completely different sensor to the Sony.

This Fuji sensor hasn't been analyzed much yet on the web. I haven't read any details about its design/physical layout. But it seems to work well... I'm happy so far. 🙂

 

[Jamie Pillers]

I don't believe the in-camera distance scale works for adapted, analog lenses.

That's correct. There is no electronic signal path from adapted lenses to the Fuji internals.

 

[rxmd]

That's correct. There is no electronic signal path from adapted lenses to the Fuji internals.

It would be possible to make one if the adapter could read out the position of the rangefinder cam on the lens.

 

[Jamie Pillers]

It would be possible to make one if the adapter could read out the position of the rangefinder cam on the lens.

Make it so, please; there are buyers here! 🙂