A young girl reading -- Fuji 90mm f/2 lens

Ever since my Fuji 90mm f/2 lens arrived I have been chomping at the bit to try it out on some portraits and a lifestyle shoot, but I am still a couple of weeks away from being able to return to do full scale lifestyle shoots in my studio. In the meantime, I've been using every opportunity to try it out on family and friends whenever someone is around. My granddaughter, Kayla, was over last week any while reading a book on the couch became my latest photo victim.

I wanted to see what the lens would do wide open in a candid, available light situation. I also wanted to experiment some with keeping to deeper toned images. To this end I exposed for the highlight areas of the skin, which resulted in the rest of the image going dark.

This image and one other were taken with the Fuji X100T at f/2.  All the rest were with the X-T1 and 90mm lens at f/2.

  

Metropolis - multiple exposures of the city

Just after he came to New York in 1940, Piet Mondrian painted an abstract canvas of multiple squares in prime colors, entitled "Broadway Boogie-Woogie", to capture a visual jazz-like interpretation of the rhythmic energy of the city. Recently I have been playing around with multiple exposed images of the city for much the same reason.

New York is vibrant, alive, in constant flux, and can be an overwhelming onslaught on the senses -- in both good and bad ways. Recently, while playing around with multiple exposure images of the city, I began thinking the technique might be a way of reflecting the syncopated rhythm of the New York. I've done several images already with an aim to completing a series called, "Metropolis".

This is a triple exposure entitled, "Metropolis reborn".  It is meant to reflect the ubiquitous presence of never-ending construction in a constantly changing city landscape. 

Ultra high resolution images for large prints

I am still stuck at home with my recovery and getting very antsy to break out and go photograph something other than what I see from my apartment. To shake things up a bit I decided to dust off my Nikon 80-400mm zoom and put it on my D810 to force me into seeing the same scenes from a different perspective. This a trick I have always played on myself when I want to jar myself out of a shooting rut.

The tower of the Empire State Building has always intrigued me with its intricate detail, and I decided to get an ultra high resolution shot of it allowing me to see its intricacy up close. With the camera in a horizontal format and the zoom racked all the way out to 400mm, I took four photos of the tower starting at the bottom and progressing to the top. I purposely took each one a little off center so that when I combined them the frame edges would not lineup. I thought this might help to involve the viewer in the process of taking the picture. A full size print of this image would be taller than a person standing next to it, which I thought would make it quite impressive and over-powering when viewed up close.

When assembling four images from a 36mp Nikon D810 resulted in a photograph that could easily make an 8' high print. The detail is amazing and interesting to explore. You can see the actual rivets used in the construction.  I included a link to one of the high res versions, although I had to cut it down to a more manageable 40% size for downloading.

Here are three variations I did of the final assembly:

Download a high res version of this file by clicking here

Continuing my tests with the Fuji 90mm f/2 lens

I've been so impressed by the results from the new Fuji 90mm f/2 lens that I have been trying to find new applications where I can use it. One on-going project I have been photographing is vistas of New York to be used for large scale prints. Normally I shoot these scenes with high resolution, full frame cameras, like the Nikon D810, and sharp, prime lenses. I take multiple exposures  -- anywhere from three to ten -- of the scene and combine them later into one super-large panoramic photograph. Because these images may need to go to a width of 8' I need to keep the initial image quality very high.

Last night I decided to do a test using the Fuji X-T1 and 90mm lens to see what it could deliver. I did this partly out of curiosity, but also in case I ever find myself in a situation with only the Fuji system available.

The panorama below showing lower Manhattan and the financial district of Jersey City is a composite of three horizontal images taken with the 90mm at f/4 at 1/5 second with an ISO of 200.  The sunset fizzled out and the scene ended up rather drab so I did punch the colors in Photoshop and by applying the Velvia/VIVID color mode.  I did some tests afterwards and determined that this image will produce a sharp print as large as 6 feet wide. There is some slight motion blur due to a shaky tripod arrangement, but I found this initial test to be successful.

I find that super-sharp optics is one of the top criteria for achieving good results. The Fuji 90mm certainly supplies it.

Download a high res version of this image by clicking here. 

This is my Fuji panorama rig set up for taking vertical passes. It was a bit shaky with the 90mm lens so I think I'll be using something more substantial next time. 

Fuji 90mm f/2 lens -- a hands on review

This is a lens I have been waiting for to round out my pro-lineup of Fuji primes for the X-T1. It is a very handy focal length in that it is at the beginning of the telephoto range and, as such can reach out to grab close-ups in crowded areas. I am not a wedding photographer, but, if I were, I would consider a fast aperture lens like this a "must have".  Yes, the 56mm f/1.2 is an ideal portrait lens in terms of delivering a natural perspective on the face and excellent control of selective focus with its fast aperture. But there are times when you need to get in even closer and at the same time want to throw a distracting background even more out of focus. A close-focusing 135mm lens is perfect for that.

A 135mm lens is on the short side of the telephoto range, but that adds to its versatility, especially for something like travel photography.

I have become accustomed to the exceptional quality of the new Fuji XF lenses.  It is a major reason I considered moving into a Fuji X-camera system. It will come as no surprise that the new 135mm f/2 offering continues in the footsteps of this tradition. What I did not anticipate was just how exceptional this lens would be. At one point during my testing I switched over to the 18-135mm lens because I wanted to tighten the shot a bit more. Later, when I saw the resulting images side-by-side there was no comparison. The Fuji 90mm images were far superior. My results from this lens rank right up there with my other favorite 135mm lens, the Leica M APO-Telyt f/3.4, with the added benefit that the Fuji has a fast f/2 aperture and is still sharp wide open.

The Fuji 90mm does not have an image stabilization feature, and with a focal length bordering on the telephoto that is going to be problematic. This will be particularly true for photographers working in dimly lit circumstances, like wedding celebrations, where available light photograph is important. Perhaps I am spoiled by the IS abilities of most Fuji lenses, but I found many of my shots, even in daylight, had motion blur at what would be acceptable, hand-held speeds for something like the Fuji 18-135mm lens. I began setting 1/250 second as my minimum to hand hold the Fuji +90mm.

Minimum focus to a little under two feet (1.97') for a 0.2x magnification. By contrast, the Fuji 56mm f/1.2 magnification is only 0.09x, and I bump up against it quite a lot when trying to get in tight on portraits. The Fuji 90 f/2 solves that problem for me.

To give you an idea of what the Fuji 90mm f/2 lens (left) feels like on the camera, it is comparable in size and weight to the Fuji 18-135mm zoom (right), but with a smaller (62mm vs 67mm) filer size. The balance of the 90mm on my X-T1 is very comfortable. 

The Fuji 90mm f/2 R RM WR lens is a weather resistant lens with seven distinct weather seals  placed throughout the lens barrel to protect against dust, moisture, and temperatures as low as 14°F.
A new Linear motor in the XF 90mm has 4 magnets that deliver a very fast, accurate, and silent auto focus.

The lens construction incorporates three extra-low dispersion elements to minimize chromatic aberrations and distortion and a Super EBC coating has been applied to control flare and ghosting for increased contrast and color fidelity.

And now for the fun part. You can download the high res files below to see for yourself the qualities of this lens. Be fore-warned: The sharpness of this lens is incredible. Once you try it and see the results, you're going to have a tough time resisting a purchase. I really don't know how Fuji -- or anyone else for that matter -- is ever going to top this.

This building detail was photographed from f/2-5.6 to illustrate overall sharpness and corner sharpness. Download the high res files of each f/stop using the links below.

Click here to download the high res version of the f/2 file

Click here to download the high res version of the f/2.8 file

Click here to download the high res version of the f/4 file

Click here to download the high res version of the f/5.6 file

Download a high res version of this image by clicking here.

This is a test I do for color fringing by pointing the camera up into some trees with a bright sky behind them, and over-expose the shot by about 1-stop.  Pretty much every lens will have some fringing with this extreme test. The question is: How much? The Fuji 90mm f/2 had very limited fringing, all of which was easily corrected with a few seconds of post-processing. Click here to download the high res version of this file. 

Click here to download a high res version of this file. 

An attractive feature of this lens is that for a 135mm equivalent it can get in really close so it can be used for close-up subjects and tight portraits like those below. 

The bokeh quality of this lens at full aperture of f/2 is exceptional, and, due to it's close focus abilities, you can really throw the background out of focus.

The close focus ability of this lens teases you into wanting to try it out even closer. Here and below I mounted a 16mm extension ring on it. At f/2 its sharpness still comes through and contrasts nicely with the softness of the out-of-focus areas. 

If you are planning on buying this lens, you can help support this site at no extra cost to you by clicking the link and purchasing from one of our affiliate sellers listed below -- and thanks for your support.

A Fujifilm XF 90mm f/2  lens can be ordered from: BH-Photo   Adorama   Amazon  

Tackling a New York dawn with the help of Fuji firmware update 4.0 and the X-T1

I photograph sunrises and sunsets a lot. One thing that has always irked me about the Fuji X cameras is that they could rarely achieve a focus on clouds. My work-around has been to grab focus on a contrast point on the horizon, and, while holding it with a half-way press of the AF-L button, re-composing the camera for the sky shot I want.

At dawn this morning, with the camera set to the new "Wide/Tracking" AF mode, I had little trouble achieving focus on just the clouds in the sky, even though they were extremely low in contrast. It was interesting to watch the focus points jumping around in the viewfinder as the camera gathered focusing information. Sure, it missed once in awhile, but so do my DSLR;s. For the vast majority of the shots I took the new firmware held the camera and 18-135mm zoom to a correct focus.

Score 1 for Fuji.

This scene was easy to focus, and the focus points immediately gathered about the area of the Empire State Building. The tower lights usually go out at 2AM, but this morning at 5:30AM, just before sunrise, they were still on and lent some extra definition to the building. 

This scene was much more difficult for the camera because of the soft transition of overall contrast. Even so, I could see the focus points in the viewfinder as the darted about the sky and finally settled in on the most likely areas where the edges of the clouds meet the sky. 

Sunrise silhouette, New York

At sunrise this morning overhead clouds were rapidly clearing out of the area with the spire of the Chrysler Building in stark silhouette against them. It is scenes like this I love photographing of the city.

Chrysler Building and clouds at dawn, study 1, New York. Taken with the Fuji X-T1 and 55-200mm lens

Chrysler Building and clouds at dawn, study 2, New York.