corposant wrote:
I need a workable 28mm too - I will reserve judgment until the camera and lens are used by practical users for a while.
Yeah, I'm not dead set against the Fuji yet. I'll wait for a couple of serious reviews first. But the early reports from users aren't going in the right direction in my opinion.
kidtexas wrote:
Yeah, I'm not dead set against the Fuji yet. I'll wait for a couple of serious reviews first. But the early reports from users aren't going in the right direction in my opinion.
I don't see how it's going to be any better than what we've seen already. Dodgy corners, purple fringing... if you're looking for edge/corner perfection.
One thing I wonder about is how much voodoo Fuji is applying in software to these images, to compensate for distortion and vignetting? They said they're doing this, and one feeling I have with many of the samples I've seen is that they're too 'perfect' and clean corner to corner. Kind of sterile actually, in terms of vignetting. If Fuji was to let the 18 go darker in the corners, my bet is some of the obviousness of the lens's faults would be less noticeable. This is a difference I've recently noticed a lot with the M9 compared to what I was used to with DSLRs. Leica seems to intentionally allow a lot of vignetting at wide open with its lenses. Very much so with the 21 Lux and 28 Cron, and I like how it adds to the 'character' of the lenses. That said, the Fuji 18's corners still aren't so hot stopped down, so there's only so far its issues can be hidden with vignetting.
Spyro P. wrote:
Yep, I think Petteri stuck this lens's dirty underwater out in the open and is airing them in common view
I'm imagining the conversation around the table at Fuji when the specs were being hashed out... and they probably came to the conclusion that the camera would be aimed at street and people photographers, hence what seems to be optimization of the 18 and 35 for nearer working distances with non-planar subjects.
For the 28mm equivalent fans, there is still hope that Fuji's UW zoom, which I think will be 12-24(?) will be good at 18mm... just wonder how large it will be, though at f/4, hopefully not too big.
This is where I could see myself using the Fuji, with the 12-24 and the 35, though I'm still enjoying the M9...
Interesting. Also interesting the variety of locations of his XP1 samples. Either he's traveling around a lot, or he's pulling images from other sites. There are a couple that are definitely from other XP1 reviews. The winter train station scenes also appeared on Lens Tip, though these are from the same press event, but different images...
Yes, I read the whole thing and it is very balanced. What worries me are those small camera operational glitches, I know them from the X10 as well. They come and go and seems to indicate buggy software. Since my X10 is not my go to camera but more of a side kick I can live with the minor frustration. But as my main camera it would drive me nuts and it does not inspire confidence.
The 18/2 seems to be a lens that I would never be completely comfortable with. Corner sharpness fall off at f2? I can live with that. Corner sharpness fall off stopped down? No, this means it would fail as a landscape/cityscape lens for me. High CA both wide open and stopped down? Again, no, I would not want to spend more time in post pro than I do already. I think software solutions to optotechnimechanical problems are poor solutions. Especially since there are lenses that does what the Fuji lens fails to do; keep them corners sharp and clean from CA.
Basically the Fuji 18/2does nothing spectacular or even great, it is a fast lens with worse CA than most other and nothing that puts it leaps and bounds over the competition. And it is the lens that would have sold the system for me, had it been as good as it could have been. Hence my disappointment. I think Fuji can do better.
The 35/1.4 I could easily live with as it is. The 60? Don't know yet, seems great, AF seems sluggish and how is that MF working in real life with that lens? Fine? Awkward?
Thee 18 is fast and tiny and its wide open oof rendering is not offensive at all. Based on these attributes and reasonable price (for an f2 wide) i can see why i would want to throw it in a bag and make it part of a nice small kit.
But.
Ideally I would want to have my wide corners covered with something else, for landscape. And here's the rub, i dont think i have seen corner to corner sharp wide samples from this camera yet, with any lens. That's not to say that the right landscape lens for this camera doesnt exist.
and if it does, i'm sure we'll find it
Just not sure if it will be non-retrofocus though.
I too like the way the 18/2 renders an image, it's just that I was hoping for that lens to do more than just one thing right. As it is now it is as much a compromise as the alt lenses are, though you can argue that the alt lenses are often only compromised by f stop and not image quality.
Retrofocus wide angle lenses might be the ticket, but then the options are generally larger and not so well corrected in other areas. To me it is like replacing something that is pretty good, but not perfect, with something else that is pretty good, but not perfect.
I still have hopes that Fuji might pull something off with the 14/2.8 or the scheduled zoom. If those fail then the technology, as implemented by them, isn't better than that.
aleksanderpolo wrote:
I think Petteri's review has been one of the more objective one and he is not afraid of pointing out the weakness of 18 at the corner stopped down.
+1
This review seems the most realistic and balanced one I have read. Unfortunately, I agree with others that the 18 indeed seems to be a disappointment. Worse than a Canon 24 2.8? Yikes! The 35 is again confirmed to be pretty amazing though.
From Petteri's post on the lenses:
"The 18/2.0, on the other hand, is a bit of a mixed bag. The contrast and color are great and it's very nice in the center at all apertures too, but the edges are noticeably worse, enough that it makes a difference in real-life shooting, not just test shots. There's noticeable coma and chromatic aberration of the purple fringing variety, and it doesn't completely disappear even stopped down. This is unimportant for situational shooting, and indeed it makes for a really nice close-quarters lens, but more landscapey types might want to check it out before taking the plunge, or wait for the upcoming 14 mm to see if it's better. I'd rate the Canon 24/2.8 I shot with as better overall, although I think the Fujinon is contrastier and has better wide-open center sharpness (and it's a stop brighter too, natch).
It's good to hear the growing general appreciation of the X-Pro 1 lens lineup. The comments on the XF 18/2 R don't bother me, as I plan to use it primarily for "situational" shooting. I don't plan to replace my DSLR kit with the X-Pro 1, and so I'll continue to use my 1DsIII for scenics and other styles where you want sharp and clean images across the whole frame.
I'm definitely in the camp that agrees the Fujifilm XF18mm can be a useful lens. Lens speed and autofocus alone
guarantee its usefulness. Maybe Fujifilm got it right in the balance of cost and feature design. Myself... I wished they'd made a slightly slower but more uniform lens at this focal length. Had they produced a better but max f/2.8 18mm lens at the same price point, few would complain I bet. Maybe instead of protecting X100 sales they should also have brought out an uber 24 or 25mm lens of relatively higher speed, as that is easier to produce at a given price point than the same at 18mm.
While the XP1 seems like it may be a favorite of street photogs if AF works for them, you'd think that many of these will end up in the hands of upgraders looking for a smaller system than a DSLR, or as second cameras for those who own other, bigger, equipment. It looks to be a fine travelling system, and a great holiday camera setup as opposed to a much bigger DSLR system. As such you can predict what sort of images will be made with a wide angle take-it-all-in lens. Sure, not every "landscape" shot demands a wide angle lens or any lens focussed at infinity, but many shots will be taken in just such a manner. It'd be nice if the lens were more kindly to such situations at the edges.
Not every shot I take with an 18mm lens on an APS-C camera needs to be edge to edge perfect, but at that focal length a greater proportion of images I'm likely to make will benefit from being more uniformly crisp across the frame. If I want to soften up images made with such a lens, and can't do it simply by shooting wide open, there's always post. But post can't solve mushy edges where the detail was never captured in the first place. So I can't help but wishing they'd made the lens a little slower and a little more uniform, but that's me. I'm finding a max aperture of f/4 on my 18mm doesn't get in my way; I use other lenses if I want to get up close and bokelicious wide open.
The problem for me is, even if I did buy an XP1 and the XF18, I'd need another 18 (or 14 or something in the general area) that does what the XF18 cannot do.
So now the question becomes whether an alternative 18mm (or 15 or whatever) adapted and mounted on this camera will perform as we'd expect and that remains an open question so far.
Looking at this from as balanced a perspective as I can as a someday potential buyer of a camera like this (I did own an X100 after all... it isn't out of the question that the optical finder could sway me once more), if say an adapted Zeiss ZM18 works great on this camera, then the XF18 being what it is wouldn't keep me from buying into this system. However, if an adapted ZM18 looks awful on this camera, that - and the XF18's characteristics - would keep me from buying into this system as I'd have no good alternative to cover my needs.
Mar 18, 2012 at 11:11 AM
Steve Spencer Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: On
I am not that surprised by the performance of the 18mm. It is f/2 and a pancake, so it is not surprising that some compromises had to be made. Such a small lens with such a wide aperture is going to lead to some compromises. My guess is that the 23mm f/2 that comes out next year will be bigger and have better performance--afterall the 23mm f/2 in the X100 seems to have very nice performance. Personally, I am thinking about an X Pro 1 kit with the 14mm, 23mm, 35mm, & 60mm. This would nicely mirror the full frame kit I am putting together with a ZE 21mm, 35mm, 100mm and a Rokkor 58mm. No the Fuji kit wouldn't have the IQ of the full frame kit, but it would be a lot smaller and would be very nice for travel. I also don't have to be an early adopter and if the X Pro 1 doesn't pan out or if the lenses aren't that great I can go another direction.
If all photographers / potential Fuji X-Pro 1 customers were as balanced and grounded in their thoughts on how cameras and lenses are supposed to be designed and how their performance is to be weighted (lens speed, optical performance, girth, etc) as in this very thread, I think Fuji would have had to cater to the audience and do a couple of things differently.
I'm a little confused by their resolution chart for the 35mm - the corners look much better at wide apertures than the 18mm, but the 18 scores roughly the same or even higher at f/2 and f/2.8.
Zack Arias wrote:I’ve seen people bitching and moaning and complaining about the Fuji X-Pro1 on photography forums. They have no idea what they are talking about.
I hope he is just not being a shill on the Fuji Payroll. I so want to like this system. The shots in his blog from India and Dubai have me a step closer.
The linked lens test seems to be in accordance with the early consensus of the 18/2 performance.
Snippet:
"Optically this lens is capable of delivering superb clarity in the central portion of the frame when stopped down a little. It is a shame that sharpness levels drop off towards the edges of the frame, and doubly so that this optic suffers from noticeable chromatic fringing towards the edges of the frame."
The 35/1.4 gets very high praise.
The macro 60 also scores very high in almost every aspect. Shame about the internal reflections - which is both surprising and annoying. Almost seems like they forgot some internal baffle or anti reflective treatments.
