willie_901
Veteran
Today I got the call from my local camera shop (St. Louis MO) my preorder for the Fujinion 56/1.2 had arrived.
Here are some photos.
The first set is with the X-Pro 1, hand held, ISO 800, from LR 5.3.
Here is f 1.2. Some coma is visible as the out of focus balls are not spherical.
This crop shows how silly thin the DOF was.
At f 2.0 the coma starts to calm down.
In case you're wondering, the thin black line is on the felt to mark the table's head line.
Next I used the XT-1 on a tripod. ISO was 200 and I used the in-camera timer to trigger the shutter. These raw files were converted to DNGs using Adobe DNG converter 8.4 (which I believe is a RC) and they were imported into LR.
Here is a very ill-advised f 1.2 photo. The DOF is even thinner than above. But I thought the OOF rendering might be of interest.
I am not showing a crop because the DOF is so thin it's impossible to tell what, if any, part of the focus region is sharpest. I guess could have tried harder, but it seemed pointless because no sane person would purposely use such a thin DOF for this subject
Then I used a more rational aperture, f 8.
For what it's worth the color rendition on both my Apple Cinema display and MacBook Air show accurate color rendition of this scene.
Here is a crop from the 8.0 version.
The same focus region was used in both photos
I used manual focus because it was fun to play with the different split screen modes. I ended up using focus peaking. AF worked just as well (but using the lens collar was much more enjoyable).
The lens is a bit shorter than I thought it would be. It is thicker than I imagined. It felt balanced on both cameras. The focus collar is a real pleasure to use. If you try one you will be surprised. The aperture ring on my copy is neither loose nor tight.
Fujifilm finally delivered a decent lens hood/cap combination. The hood reverses quite nicely for storage.
AF performance was unremarkable... there's not much to report. When I pressed the AFL button the lens snapped into focus quickly with both cameras. It is slightly noisier than my smaller primes. I guess moving that much glass around quickly has side effects. I did not experience hunting or other AF issues, but I haven't really stress tested the AF. I'm sure I can find a way to make it fail if I try hard enough.
For me this lens is a 9.3 out of 10. (For reference the 14/2.8 and 23/1.4 are 9.9 out of 10, the 35/1.4 and 27/2.8 are 9.7 and the 18/2 would be a 8.8... to me.) My copy is slightly de-centered. You have to crop very tightly to notice, so it's not a concern to me. I can imagine others would be more upset since it's not perfect.
I noticed below f 2 there is green fringing on bright out-of-focus highlights. LR's Defringing controls help. This is the first Fujinon I've used where OOF highlights have a significant tint. In some cases there is no tint at all if the highlights are not that bright. And, I do not see any green-red fringing like I did with my Nikkor primes. The fringing much weaker than I saw with the Nikkors. Still, I was naive to think a f 1.2 lens at this price point would have a very low level of fringing around highly unfocused highlight areas. Because the fringing does not have a red to green behavior, I'm willing to speculate it has to do with the anti-reflective coating rather than the longitudinal CA. Maybe it's neither of these.
Anyway. I'm grateful to have my Fujinon primes lens kit finally completed.
Here are some photos.
The first set is with the X-Pro 1, hand held, ISO 800, from LR 5.3.
Here is f 1.2. Some coma is visible as the out of focus balls are not spherical.
This crop shows how silly thin the DOF was.
At f 2.0 the coma starts to calm down.
In case you're wondering, the thin black line is on the felt to mark the table's head line.
Next I used the XT-1 on a tripod. ISO was 200 and I used the in-camera timer to trigger the shutter. These raw files were converted to DNGs using Adobe DNG converter 8.4 (which I believe is a RC) and they were imported into LR.
Here is a very ill-advised f 1.2 photo. The DOF is even thinner than above. But I thought the OOF rendering might be of interest.
I am not showing a crop because the DOF is so thin it's impossible to tell what, if any, part of the focus region is sharpest. I guess could have tried harder, but it seemed pointless because no sane person would purposely use such a thin DOF for this subject
Then I used a more rational aperture, f 8.
For what it's worth the color rendition on both my Apple Cinema display and MacBook Air show accurate color rendition of this scene.
Here is a crop from the 8.0 version.
The same focus region was used in both photos
I used manual focus because it was fun to play with the different split screen modes. I ended up using focus peaking. AF worked just as well (but using the lens collar was much more enjoyable).
The lens is a bit shorter than I thought it would be. It is thicker than I imagined. It felt balanced on both cameras. The focus collar is a real pleasure to use. If you try one you will be surprised. The aperture ring on my copy is neither loose nor tight.
Fujifilm finally delivered a decent lens hood/cap combination. The hood reverses quite nicely for storage.
AF performance was unremarkable... there's not much to report. When I pressed the AFL button the lens snapped into focus quickly with both cameras. It is slightly noisier than my smaller primes. I guess moving that much glass around quickly has side effects. I did not experience hunting or other AF issues, but I haven't really stress tested the AF. I'm sure I can find a way to make it fail if I try hard enough.
For me this lens is a 9.3 out of 10. (For reference the 14/2.8 and 23/1.4 are 9.9 out of 10, the 35/1.4 and 27/2.8 are 9.7 and the 18/2 would be a 8.8... to me.) My copy is slightly de-centered. You have to crop very tightly to notice, so it's not a concern to me. I can imagine others would be more upset since it's not perfect.
I noticed below f 2 there is green fringing on bright out-of-focus highlights. LR's Defringing controls help. This is the first Fujinon I've used where OOF highlights have a significant tint. In some cases there is no tint at all if the highlights are not that bright. And, I do not see any green-red fringing like I did with my Nikkor primes. The fringing much weaker than I saw with the Nikkors. Still, I was naive to think a f 1.2 lens at this price point would have a very low level of fringing around highly unfocused highlight areas. Because the fringing does not have a red to green behavior, I'm willing to speculate it has to do with the anti-reflective coating rather than the longitudinal CA. Maybe it's neither of these.
Anyway. I'm grateful to have my Fujinon primes lens kit finally completed.
noimmunity
scratch my niche
Thanks, Willie, for the detailed description.
It looks to me like the imperfections of the lens wide open will add to its allure for portraits and night photography. At f/8 it will be perfect for landscape and architecture detail.
I hope that I can save to get one in the next year or two.
It looks to me like the imperfections of the lens wide open will add to its allure for portraits and night photography. At f/8 it will be perfect for landscape and architecture detail.
I hope that I can save to get one in the next year or two.
Frank Petronio
Well-known
This, the 23, and two XPro-2 bodies next season ;-p
bentheshark
Member
Could LR's RAW-DNG conversion process be generating this? Have you seen this on the camera's JPGs?
willie_901
Veteran
I never use JPEGs.
Anyway, I am beginning to think some of the green fringing I saw might be due to sloppy over exposure on my part. I plan to use the lens more this weekend to see if it's the lens or me.
As far as LR goes, the 14, 18, 23, 27 and 35 mm Fujinon lens have very faint (if any) color fringing in distant bright OOF objects/areas. I can't think of a way ACR could selectively affect the results from the 56/1.2 lens. My Nikkor primes on a D700/300/200 all displayed obvious red to green fringing that is typical of longitudinal chromatic aberration (using LR as well). All the Fujinon primes I've used prior to the 56/1.2 have significant less LoCA fringing... if any.
Also I don't find LR 5.3 to be problematic with XTrans raw. However one must pay attention to find the minimum sharpening parameters to get the best result. This is particularly true if you enjoy evaluating renderings at extreme magnifications. And in some cases the color temperature can play larger role than you find with Bayer raw.
Anyway, I am beginning to think some of the green fringing I saw might be due to sloppy over exposure on my part. I plan to use the lens more this weekend to see if it's the lens or me.
As far as LR goes, the 14, 18, 23, 27 and 35 mm Fujinon lens have very faint (if any) color fringing in distant bright OOF objects/areas. I can't think of a way ACR could selectively affect the results from the 56/1.2 lens. My Nikkor primes on a D700/300/200 all displayed obvious red to green fringing that is typical of longitudinal chromatic aberration (using LR as well). All the Fujinon primes I've used prior to the 56/1.2 have significant less LoCA fringing... if any.
Also I don't find LR 5.3 to be problematic with XTrans raw. However one must pay attention to find the minimum sharpening parameters to get the best result. This is particularly true if you enjoy evaluating renderings at extreme magnifications. And in some cases the color temperature can play larger role than you find with Bayer raw.