It’s that time of year, when you get all reflective and look back – fortunately with Instagram you can be lazy and use 3rd party websites to check back and report how your images were received during the past year. For a few years I’ve simply posted the result, but this year as I’ve gone a bit Instax mad I thought I’d get creative…….
Instagram – Kebablog – Best Nine
There you go, 9 Instax prints, a Fuji X-E3 with external flash and a bit of Photoshop later the result I think is quite pleasing. If you think it’s awful, let me know. I’ve posted it on my Instagram feed to drop me a note there 🙂
I’ve been looking for a while to pick up another lens, but was waiting for the right time etc. However the marketing people at Fujifilm know this so a well timed £100 voucher and the winter cash back tempted me.
I was looking at picking up the XF18mm to accompany my X-E3 and 27mm. Unfortunately the 18mm (along with the 23, 35, and 50) was excluded in the £100 voucher offer so I had to look elsewhere (I could’ve simply just not bothered, but a £100+Cashback saving is hard to turn down).
Why the 14mm? I’ve toyed with a few different lenses such as the 56mm and 90mm. The 56mm is a choice of many portrait photographers (matches roughly the 85mm on a Full Frame sensor) – but as I don’t really shoot portraits it’s probably not a great choice at the moment.
The 90mm is a bit of an odd size (similar to the 135mm on FF), but having previously owned the Canon EF135 f/2 L it’s a type of lens I loved. Still at this moment I consider it to be a nice to have lens rather than something that would get a lot of use.
Fujifilm X-E3, XF14mm f/2.8 R
Package wise, the XF14mm is a small compact unit – although not as small as the 18mm or the 27mm lenses. It’s compact enough to fit in my small bag which I take to work in my rucksack. The hood adds a little to the bulk, but it’s an item you’d need to carry around as being a wide lens you may get a bit of flare in the sun light.
Fujifilm X-E3, XF14mm f/2.8 R
One of the annoyances with the 27mm pancake lens is the lack of the aperture ring, its a welcome addition on the 14mm. Feature wise the 14mm is a little sparse, no IS and no obvious manual focus option. The latter is available – the switch is actually the focus ring. The ring can be pushed forward to enable auto focus and pulled back to switch to manual. It’s a bit odd, but you do get used to it.
14mm vs 18mm
Unfortunatley I purchased the lens on one the most miserable days of the year so far – hence testing have been limited. The above image shows the what the extra 4mm gives you. Granted it’s not a super wide angle (around 21mm on FF) but for most of my street/architecture images it’ll allow me to get a bit more in.
Close up BokehLens cap vs 27mm
In the end after the discount I picked the lens up for £644, plus after 30 days I’ll be able to claim back an additional £135 – so £509 for a nice wide angle was worth it. Initial testing looks good, but I’ll be a better position to do some real testing next week when I’m back in the city centre.
My intention at the Photography Show wasn’t to pick up another camera body, but anyone that follows the blog will know that often other things get purchased instead of the original item. My recent Fuji pondering was pretty much centred around the 100-400 and 1.4 TC – which I did pickup. I could’ve been sensible and saved some of the money, but no not me (actually I’m generally being sensible with my money – just this Canon to Fuji swap left me with unallocated cash!).
I do have a preference for primes – but I’ve yet to make this happen on the Fuji system. My Canon primes were generally 100mm plus (apart from the 15mm fisheye) so the 100-400 covers most of that range. So the thought of shorter primes was one thing I was looking at. Mainly the 18 or 27mm lenses. My intention was to pair the X Pro 2 with a smaller prime – but then the X-E3 came to my attention, it’s almost a mini X Pro 2 – albeit with a few compromises size wise. Both are rangefinder style – for me this represents a move from the SLR format – there’s nothing wrong with SLR’s but I like the rangefinder style and handling.
Double Trouble?
From the back the missing bits are obvious, the sort of wheel button arrangement is missing but all of the settings can be adjusted using the Q menu. The Screen on the X-E3 is a touchscreen, but I don’t like the sensitivity of it – so for the moment it’s disabled.
Rear Differences
The compact size means this is now my carry to work camera – I’ve managed to pick up a small bag to drop in my rucksack for the cycle to work. I’m still a little worried about it bouncing around the bag – but I’ll look to securing it some how.
Lowepro Format 100 – Discontinued range
A surprise for me with the X-E3 was in the inclusion of the mini EF-X8 flash unit. It’s a tiny flash that was supplied with the XT2 model but not the X Pro 2.
It works fine on the X Pro 2, in time it’ll prove useful or useless as it’s so small. The unit (not referring to it as a flash gun!) is powered by the X camera’s internal battery so I guess we’ll use it with caution (or whilst carrying spare batteries).
On the subject of batteries it uses the same W126 type as the X Pro 2, so there was no need to unbox the charger.
One obvious omission is the Optical View Finder, to be honest whilst that is a nice idea, for the X-E3 its a logical removal – I do find on the X-Pro I’m using the EVF for most things – mainly due to the film mode being replicated in the electronic view finder.
Below are a few samples from my first walk around Brum. Nothing has been done to the images. They are shot in Fuji Acros + Red Filter mode, transferred to my iPhone and then copied to my WordPress server.
Trams 1/250 – f/8 – ISO 400Distracted 1/120 – f/2.8 – ISO 400Cracks are appearing in Birmingham’s facade 1/2000 – f/2.8 – ISO 400
The following image was taken Thursday 22nd March and corrected a little on LR/Nik Efex (looks better large – click on the image to check).
Colmore Building 1/350 – ƒ/3.6 – ISO 400 – Acros + R mode. Perspective corrected in Lightroom and contrast adjusted via Nik Efex
Overall I’m pleased with the little X Series, it’s the sort of thing that I should have tried years ago.
