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Santa Cruz and the Fujinon XF 18-135mm

We took a road trip to Santa Cruz last month and I thought it would be a good opportunity to rent and try out the Fujinon XF 18-135mm lens. Even though I generally prefer prime lenses, the XF 18-135mm intrigued me because it's the first weather resistant lens from Fuji and because it covers a very useful focal length range. Being someone that spends a lot of time shooting near the ocean, the idea of having a weather resistant lens that covers most of my shooting situations sounded quite appealing.

During the week I spent with the lens, I was impressed with almost everything about it. While it's bigger and heavier than the lenses I'm used to shooting with, it didn't feel as unwieldy as I expected. In fact, it felt quite well balanced with the X-T1. I don't have the battery grip for the X-T1, but I think those that do will find that they pair nicely with the XF 18-135mm lens. All the images I captured with the lens were plenty sharp for me and the image stabilization came in handy on numerous occasions.

The only issue I had with the lens was with vignetting while using my Lee Seven5 filter system. With the lens zoomed out to 18mm, there was noticeable vignetting in the corners when I had the filter system mounted on the lens. Zooming in to about 24mm seemed to have taken care of the vignetting in my images. This wasn't a huge issue for me since I had the XF 14mm for my wide angle images, but it's definitely something to keep in mind if you plan to use this lens for long exposures. With that, I'll leave you with a few images shot in and around Santa Cruz using the X-T1 and XF 18-135mm lens. 

Stanley Park Long Exposures with the Fujifilm X-T1

Stanley Park is a beautiful destination in the heart of Vancouver that is frequented by visitors and locals alike. During our time in Vancouver, we explored the park in our car, on foot, and by bike. The fact that the park is mostly surround by water made it an ideal place for me to shoot long exposures. Having the luxury of time also meant I could scout the locations I wanted to shoot and return later with my tripod and other long exposure gear. Here are three of my favorite long exposures from Stanley Park shot with the Fujifilm X-T1 and XF 14mm lens.

Siwash Rock - 125 seconds at f/16

Siwash Rock - 125 seconds at f/16

Lions Gate Bridge and North Vancouver - 90 seconds at f/11

Lions Gate Bridge and North Vancouver - 90 seconds at f/11

Stanley Park Seawall - 85 seconds at f/11

Stanley Park Seawall - 85 seconds at f/11

Vancouver and the Fujinon XF 27mm

I ordered the Fujinon XF 27mm pancake lens at the beginning of April when Fuji was having their latest round of lens rebates. Unfortunately, the lens has been backordered since that time and I wasn't going to have it for our trip to Vancouver. Since I was hoping to use the XF 27mm in Vancouver as a general purpose, walkaround lens, I decided to rent one.

Having read numerous reviews, including this one at photozone, I knew that the XF 27mm was a well regarded lens amongst Fuji X users. Now having spent a week with it, I must admit that I too am quite impressed with this nifty little lens. In fact, the XF 27mm was on my X-T1 most of the time during our trip. I only switched to the XF 14mm or XF 35mm when I needed to go wider or wanted images with a more shallow depth of field. Essentially, I used the X-T1 and XF 27mm combination in the same way I normally use the X100S. 

In all honesty, I didn't really miss the X100S (which my wife was using) during our trip. On a few occasions, I would've liked to have the built in ND filter on the X100S or to be able to shoot at f/2. But in general, the X-T1 and XF 27mm worked out very well as my light, general purpose, walkaround kit. To give you an idea of what I used the XF 27mm for, here are some of my favorite images shot with it from Vancouver. If you'd like to see more, check out the images in my Granville Island and Lynn Canyon Park posts, which were all shot using the X-T1 and XF 27mm.

San Francisco and the X-T1

As I mentioned last week, I sent back my first X-T1 because of the light leak issue. Well, thanks to a timely post on Fuji Rumors, I was able to order a second X-T1 in time for our trip to San Francisco. The X-T1 I received from Amazon has a serial number higher than the ones noted by Fuji here and I confirmed before our trip that the light leak issue has been fixed, at least for my camera. In addition to fixing the light leak issue, I was pleased to find that Fuji seemingly addressed the issue with the 4-way directional pad buttons. While there is no confirmation of this from Fuji, the buttons on the directional pad of the camera I received have noticeably more feedback than the original X-T1 I returned. I wasn't able do a direct comparison since I sent back the first X-T1 before ordering the second, but I definitely find changing focus points less challenging.

With that, I'll leave you with some images from our time in San Francisco shot with the new X-T1 and XF 14mm, 35mm, and 60mm lenses . By the way, all of these were edited in Lightroom 5.4 using the newly available Fujifilm camera profiles. I'm really liking the new profiles so far and I have a feeling I'll be using the VSCO Film presets less and less going forward. If you haven't updated Lightroom yet, I suggest you head on over to the Adobe website to download the update now. 

Fujifilm X100S and Sony A7 Comparison

With my X-Pro1 out of commission and my X-T1 headed back to B&H because of the light leak issue, I thought I would shake things up a bit by renting the Sony A7 and FE 35mm f/2.8 lens. To make things even more interesting, I decided to compare the Sony A7/35mm lens combo with the Fujifilm X100S. Not a scientific comparison based on sharpness and resolution, but more of a real world comparison based on how and what I shoot.  

Each pair of images below were shot back to back with me standing in the same place. I also tried to compose each pair of images to be identical, but this turned out to be much more difficult than I anticipated. All the images were shot in RAW and then processed using Lightroom 5 and VSCO Film 04. While I didn't use the same VSCO preset for all the images, I did use the same Fuji and Sony variations of the selected preset for each pair of images. 

X100S - 1/640 seconds at f/2 (ND on)

X100S - 1/60 seconds at f/8

X100S - 15 seconds at f/8

X100S - 1/60 seconds at f/8

X100S - 58 seconds at f/8

A7 - 1/2000 seconds at f/2.8

A7 - 1/80 seconds at f/8

A7 - 10 seconds at f/8

A7 - 1/60 seconds at f/8

A7 - 30 seconds at f/8

As you can see, there are noticeable differences between each pair of images. Most notably the white balance selected by each camera's auto white balance meter. This is especially apparent in the final pair of images. The other difference is more subtle, but expected. And that is the slight difference in field of view due to the 23mm lens on the X100S versus the 35mm lens mounted on the A7. While both setups yield a 35mm full-frame equivalent focal length, the wider lens on the X100S does result in a bit more of the scene being captured within the frame.

So what conclusions have I drawn from this comparison? Mainly that for how and what I shoot, the APS-C sensors on the X100S and X-Pro1/X-T1 are good enough. Based on the results of my completely unscientific comparison and the fact that I rarely make large prints, I really can't find any reason to consider a move to Sony. It's not that the Sony A7 (and A7R which I haven't used) aren't great cameras. It's just that for my needs and preferences, the Fuji X Series cameras and lenses simply suit me better.