Walking around the West Campus area and walking around on the University of Texas at Austin campus.
At least on campus there is ample shade....
When I got the Fujifilm 50Sii from my friend it came complete with a Tech-Art Nikon F to GFX lens adapter. Just so happens that I have two Voigtlander lenses in Nikon mounts; the 58mm f1.4 Nokton and the 40mm f2.0 Ultron. Both are very, very good lenses when used for their "native" format = 35mm. I wondered if either of the lenses would project a big enough image circle to actually cover the full width and height of the 33mm by 44mm sensor in the MF camera.
Today I decided to find out. Well, I decided to find out how the 58mm performed. I'll try the 40mm next time.
Here's the TB:DR (too bored, didn't read) version: The lens has a very small but very severe bit of vignetting in all four corners. I'd be more concerned if the vignetting occurred in just one corner...or two. Stopping down makes the vignetting smaller in size but denser in its core. Focusing close reduces the size of the vignette.
At wider apertures the corners and about 5% of the edges of the frame are soft. Stopping down to f5.6 the whole frame (except for the far corners) gets nice and sharp. I think it's a laudable performance since we're using the lens here far outside its design parameters. For portrait work it would be fine. Hate the vignetting? A slight crop into the frame will fix that right up.
The focus peaking in the Fuji 50Sii works really well. The lens focuses really well. I am now considering adding the 90mm f2.8 Voigtlander lens in a Nikon mount to round out the mix. Nothing certain yet. Hesitating because I know myself and if I end up liking and keeping the Fuji I'll probably go out at some point and buy the vaunted 110mm f2.0. But with my luck I'll decide to make the purchase the day after it goes off sale. If I push "buy" today it's $2200. If I wait it will be four or five hundred dollars more. Another first world dilemma to worry about...
Still f-ing hot here. Not getting better. Cabin fever sinking in every day after lunch....
Take a gander through the images. From what I can see both the camera and the lens are worth having. Keep in mind that my intention is to use the Voigtlander 40 and 58 (and other 35mm format lenses) with the camera set to the square format. In that configuration there is no vignetting and no noticeable softness in the corners. Yay!
Hard to tell if it does or doesn't. Some frames look free of any corner shading, others seem to have a tiny, tiny bit.
ReplyDeleteI agree with John Krumm. I wouldn’t be upset with the tiny vignetting that do see.
ReplyDeletelooks like there is some vignette at some apertures/distances, but one of the nice things about the square format is that it becomes so symmetrical that it seems much less objectionable
ReplyDeleteMid-60s tomorrow, maybe ¼" rain for cowlitz co WA. Hope that cools your thoughts a bit!
ReplyDeleteThose images are freakishly sharp! Colour, contrast etc. looks good all around to my eyes on my monitor.
ReplyDeleteEric
Just think of it as your Hasselblad replacement only better featured. You can cover the corners with a frame or rounded corners for a personal look. You may have just become a target user for a Leica S4 mirrorless!
ReplyDeleteCheers Pierre
I prefer vignetting. I even add some in post to isolate the subject. Highly subjective. the bigger pixels look good.
ReplyDeleteOh, you should absolutely get the Voigtländer 90mm. I got the 20, 40 Ultron and 90 3.5 APO at a bargain many years ago. They are all pretty amazing. The 90 3.5 APO is just as good as my Nikon 85 1.4 AF-S at compareable apertures. I still use the 85 more because of the added versatility of the large aperture and the AF. The Ultron was with me to Iceland 10 years ago and I ended up shooting most of my trip with it. I later got the PC-E 45mm Nikkor, it is superior in every way and has got movement, something I appreciate a lot nowadays. Its very large and bulky however. And why can't anyone make a high performing 35 PC lens (with shift only). like the compact Nikkors of old. I have got one of the old ones but the performance on modern sensors (45MP +) is lacking.
ReplyDeleteIf you attempt to strip out any professional photographer emotional needs (mine is bigger than yours) what is the quality you see in the images that you can't get from your Leicas? Is the difference clear and distinct to you? If you shot portraits with both in square format and printed to the same size, would the sitter see a difference?
ReplyDeleteYes. Different. More experience with the bigger pixels convinces me that MF is on the right track re: quality.
ReplyDeleteYou are a bad influence! Very bad.
ReplyDeleteI have gone for nearly five years without buying a new camera! Well there was that Nikon Z5 to see how my old Nikkors performed on it ( and by old I mean AI nikkors) I've even convinced myself that I should sell my medium format film systems ( even the Hasselblad, which I haven't used in nearly ten years) But now you've planted this idea of Fuji, used square- which I crop to A LOT, with my "old" lenses! Totally not needed! I like my fuji APSC cameras and lenses for the way their files convert to B&W.
Common sense says just keep cropping! But then theres the adage..... Its not the heat, its the stupidity!
Hi jw52tx, how did the old
DeleteNikkors go on the Z5?
Is the FTZ more painful to use with aperture control? Conversely, are they easier to focus with peaking etc?
I’ve got a small bag full of them too, and am tossing up a D780 vs Z5 + FTZ. I’ve chipped many of the manual focus lenses, to get the extra functionality out of DSLRs like D750 - command dial for aperture control, metering options & exif data.
Southern Europes been gripped by a heatwave but UK has been fairly cool so far, 46 celsius in Madrid, same as 1995 when I was there, people were dying in Seville, we did have a few 40 degree days last July but none so far this time, friend of mine was due to come back from Greece or somewhere but the airport was on fire, all seems comically bad now, I've been sorting some pictures from last year, the shortlist is 700 images now which has been dampening my interest in taking as many pics as I have been, it's normally about 70 for a small book, but am still enjoying deliberately finding new angles etc on subjects that I photograph a lot en route
ReplyDeleteIs there a reliable resource on what lenses cover the GFX series cameras' image circle? I picked up a GFX 50R recently and I would love to put some non-Fuji lenses on it.
ReplyDeleteRyan, Not that I know of. Perhaps a more tenured Fuji GFX user can chime in.
ReplyDelete