Dress Rehearsal for Hedwig and the Angry Inch at Zach Theatre, Austin, Texas
Fuji 55-200mm at 200mm. Wide open aperture.
As a working, professional photographer I sometimes feel almost duty bound to buy only zoom lenses that have the specification: "f2.8" in their names. There seems to be a pervasive belief in the minds of photographers and lens reviewers that a faster lens is always a better lens. There is an additional corollary to this which is a more expensive lens is always a better lens. I think this is mostly the false construction of a last gasp barrier to entry by people who feel like their chosen careers are in jeopardy of being overrun by the unwashed. I feel duty bound to inform such folks that the barrier-to-entry train left the photo station more than a few years ago....
My experience has been that some slower lenses perform as well or better than their faster and more expensive peers; at least for the things for which I use lenses. A case in point is longer zoom lenses. I've been photographing stage shows for a long time and have used the 70-200mm f2.8 lenses from Nikon, Canon and Sony for some of this work. All of them have been good enough when used wide open and as sharp as you'd want at f4.0 and beyond. Had I imagined I was going to burrow into Fuji's X system as quickly and with as much gusto as I have I probably would have reflexively bought the faster and more expensive 50-140mm f2.8 but, then again, I may have still made the same choice and selected the 55-200mm instead.
Why? Well, I had the idea that most of Fuji's lenses were pretty good. Better than average; at least. At the price of $699 ( I paid retail at a bricks and mortar camera store in my own city) I figured it was sure to be a cut above the mostly plastic, mostly slower kit lenses (you know, the 18-55 + the 55-200 variety) offered by the big two camera makers. I also trust my local merchant and if the lens wasn't up to my expectations I knew they'd take it back, no questions asked, as long as I hadn't tossed the packing materials for the lens, or filled out any warranty cards. The store is good that way.... But the biggest reason I chose the 55-200 f3.5-4.8 over its faster sibling had to do with the extra reach the slower lens offered.
But that's where a bit of trepidation seeped in. I kept reading in online reviews that the lens was really good for the most part but scraped its knees a bit at the longest focal lengths. One reviewer estimated that one would need to work with the lens at f8.0 to make it "acceptably" sharp. I cringed when I read that. But then I tested the lens at a couple theater productions and all the angst of the web failed to materialize; failed to match my reality. If you live in the real world you can use this lens wide open through its range of focal lengths and get very good sharpness and contrast. The data is right there in the files if you know how to handle your camera, how to focus accurately and how to hold your camera system still enough to eliminate user-inflicted issues. You can stop reading here; that's the gist of my review.
But, of course, I have more to say about the lens...
The 55-200mm is a dense lens and is heavier than it looks. It offers image stabilization so it's a good choice for Fuji camera bodies like the XT2 and XT3 which don't have IBIS. The promotional material indicates that you'll get about 4 stops of stabilization when using the lens only but about 3.5 stops of stabilization when used on an XH1 body. The camera menus allow one to select whether the image stabilization is on all the time (continuous) or just works when you click the shutter. I tend to work with it in the "just when you click" mode for normal and shorter lenses but always use the continuous setting with longer lenses because I believe the additional stabilization helps the camera to focus quicker/more accurately. That may or may not be true but the stabilized viewfinder certainly helps me do a better job composing...
The lens has a 62mm filter diameter and a huge, long lens hood. I won't complain about that because I value what lens hoods do; kill flare, increase overall contrast and help increase image saturation.
Do you walk around with your lens hood reversed on your telephoto zoom lens and even actually shoot that way? You are under-informed and need to correct that bad habit. Use a lens hood for every shot. You'll like your images better. Also, you won't look like a dork.
I shot about 1200 images with the 55-200mm lens last night at the dress rehearsal of the musical/play: Hedwig and the Angry Inch. I found that using the smallest focusing square in AF-S mode was the best way to always nail focus in the exact spot I was aiming for. I did shoot the lead walking toward camera and walking across the stage using AF-C, and the entire frame of focusing sensors, and the XH-1 I was using locked on and nailed focus even though half the time I was shooting with fog on the stage, and with lots and lots of backlighting. I don't shoot a lot of sports but imagine that in good light the continuous focus would be even more tenacious.
With the XT3 and XH1 (with battery grip on the XH1) cameras you can enable a "boost" mode which speeds up focusing, increasing the read speed for the LCD/EVF and, in general, makes those cameras feel more responsive. This increase in performance worked for me; I had very few frames ruined due to focusing issues. For calm, slow photo days I turn off the boost and that makes my batteries last 25% or more longer.
So, the lens works well and even wide open I can see the texture of the actor's skin and the granularity of his make up, not to mention individual, well defined blonde hairs, with the lens handheld at 1/125th of second, at 200mm, at f4.8, shooting at ISO 1600 and 3200. But, in reality, it's never the lens alone doing all the work, without a good camera all the great optical performance is mostly meaningless. I like the handling of the XH1 bodies a lot. I've yet to see a big difference in image quality between the HX1 and the XT3. It may be there but if a difference exists I suspect that we'll see it mostly at the base ISO.
A wider view of the stage at Hedwig, taken with a Fuji 18-55mm, also used wide open.
Another handheld 55-200mm shot, wide open at 200mm.
You might not see it in a file that's 2048 pixels wide but
in the original 6000 pixel wide Jpeg image one can see the striations in
the actor's iris and amazing detail in the eyelashes.
I wouldn't ask for more from a lens.
Upon entering the Fuji system, as an amateur and not a working pro, I traded out all of my Nikon kit, including the Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 that had been my go-to tool for any theatre or ballet work. With the Fuji 50-140 f/2.8 out of reach, I was in a waiting game to get a long zoom for our XT2. Then I saw your post late last year with your initial rehearsal shots using the 55-200, and about a month later picked up a mint used copy for under $500 at Robert's Camera here in Carmel, IN.
ReplyDeleteI've used the lens on just a couple of shoots, but in both cases it exceeded my expectations by a wide margin. In combination with the XT2 it can easily outshoot my old D610/Sigma combination, in both focus performance and quality of the resulting files. I'm very pleased with the sharpness, color, and contrast for a long zoom at this price point. Like you, I couldn't ask for anything more.
I do have one question, Kirk, do you leverage the XT3/XH1 auto ISO at all, or do you manage ISO manually? I primarily shoot in aperture priority with ISO set to a fixed value, but find at times I would benefit from auto ISO, but I haven't yet played around with it enough to understand how it behaves. You've talked at length about how you shoot theatre, but I don't recall if you ever said if you're leveraging auto ISO at all.
Hi William, I'm glad your findings match mine. It's really great lens. I'm old fashion about auto ISO. I shoot in manual because so often the stage background is black and I can't trust cameras to decide the exposure. I did 'ride' the ISO dial a bit last night; going up to ISO3200 from my base of 1600 when the frames look a bit too dark. I'm also sliding around the shutter speeds, trying to say between 125th and 400th. The manual exposure method quickly becomes subconscious with practice. Thanks for the comment. Have fun shooting the Fujis. I am.
DeleteOne of the many reasons I always visit VSL is your theater photography. It's tough to do right, and you are brilliant at it. The theater group I work with has started hiring outside "professionals" to do publicity photography. The latest results were horrible-terribly overexposed due to the dark background, bizarre colors because she didn't do a custom balance, and static and uninteresting because she didn't know the play and stayed in one, center-of-the-audience spot. To top it all off, she used a couple of prime lenses on separate bodies that her assistant handed her on demand so the framing didn't match the action. I guess pros don't use zooms! I was in the light booth and couldn't see her bodies, but I'll bet anything that they were full frame. Thanks for showing us how it's done by someone knows what he's doing!
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