Thursday, September 19, 2013

Shooting the Fuji X-E1 with long lenses

In my last blog post I editorialized about the need for long telephoto lenses in Fuji-X mount to expand the pro capabilities of the system. To explore this theme, over the past few days I have been using the Fuji X-E1 and the Fuji 55-200mm zoom, and adapting some long Nikon telephotos to gain some super-tele effects.

I used the Fuji 55-200mm zoom alone to do these stark compositions of some of New York's bridges in black and white.

Abstract detail of the Manhattan Bridge shows how really sharp the Fuji 55-200mm zoom really is.
Abstract composition of cabling on the Manhattan Bridge

The Brooklyn Bridge framed by highway girders. In this shot and the one below I blasted out the sky by increasing the contrast to provide a high contrast graphic composition.


The Manhattan Bridge framed by some highway support girders.

The Brooklyn Bridge
Shipping cranes along the East River  frame the Verrazano Narrows Bridge off in the distance

Continuing with my theme of shooting long lenses on the X-E1, I used a Nikon-to-Fuji-X G-lens adapter to mount a Nikon 80-400mm lens plus teleconverter to photograph the full moon we had over Manhattan.

Taken with the Fuji X-E1 and Nikon 80-400mm zoom with a 2x converter.

This image of the full moon with a passing airplane was taken with the Nikon 80-400mm zoom plus a 1.4x converter mounted on the Fuji X-E1

For comparison, this is the same scene with the Fuji 55-200mm zoom set to 200mm focal length.
 Using long lenses on something as small as the X-E1 was quite comfortable, and convinced me even more that some third party lens options would be a welcome addition to the Fuji-X system.

2 comments :

  1. Your images are just stunning! Thank you for posting. It might be difficult for alot of people to find this thread so the lack of comments is not indicative of the quality of your photos. All of your photos are just awesome. I have a bias towards black & white photos but that color photo of the moon and airplane is just so poignant. I have never seen a photo like this before. It makes me think of a quote by Pablo Neruda, "I am but a fish caught in the net of an empty wind."

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  2. I recently purchased an XE-1 and also wanted a long reaching lens for it so I adapted my Minolta AF F/8 Reflex 500mm lens to it and it worked perfectly, images are great. I have also picked up and Olympus OM adapter to use some of my older Zuiko lenses. The little XE-1 has so far turned out to be quite a little camera.

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