More on the Fuji 18-55mm zoom lens

After reviewing my images from my outing on the streets of New York, one thing is very clear to me. I need more time with this lens to get my zoom/longer focal length chops back to snuff.

Drat it! I guess I'll just have to go out and shoot a lot more. Just to recap what I said yesterday: the focus speed is very good at 18mm and 35mm but a little slower (not by a big factor) at 55mm, the IOS (image stabilization) works extraordinarily well so that I can hand hold at 1/30th second and get good shots, I miss not having the aperture indications on the aperture ring but as this is a variable aperture lens (f2.8-f4) those indications would be meaningless, and the lens hood mounting leaves something to be desired in terms of a secure fit on the front of the lens.

The images below were shot RAW, processed minimally in Lightroom and then put through my workflow with NIK filters. The first two shots below were at a focal length of 18mm, f6.4, and 1/125th second. Since I keep my camera set on auto ISO it varies - the first shot was at ISO 5000 and the second at ISO 6400. In my film days an ISO of 6400 would have resulted in practically no definition in the small details. The first NIK processing is with Dfine to manage the contrast noise, then into Color Efex Pro 4 to optimize the color contrast with my special (wink wink) tweaks, and lastly into Silver Efex Pro 2 for the conversion also with my special (wink wink wink) tweaks.

In the first two images, the woman on the right was quite striking looking (nothing gets my camera finger more twitchy than a pretty lady) and yet so sad.

After playing with focal lengths all afternoon I noticed on the barrel of the lens that 23mm was specifically indicated. I thought that was a bit unusual, and then I realized that the fixed focal length Fuji X100 has a 23mm lens. Many X series Fuji fans (should have been Fuji series X fans, but the alliteration wouldn't have worked) have been clamoring for an equivalent lens for the XP1. It corresponds to a 35mm focal length on a full frame camera. That and 21mm were my favorite Leica lenses to use, so I played for quite a while at that focal length. C'mon Fuji, let's get that 14mm lens out already! The image was shot at 1/250th sec, f5, ISO 2000 and put through the same processing as above.

Fuji 18-55mm Zoom Lens Test Run

I received my lens on Monday and did some preliminary shooting with it, but today was the first day I had a chance to hit the streets of New York with this lens. First some caveats: my testing is by no means scientific, I'm not a pixel peeper. I can only attest to how the lens performs given the kind of shooting at which I am adept and love to do - street. What's important to me is how the camera and lens feels in my hand in the field, and the extent to which the quality of the images they produce satisfies my expectations.

That said, after one afternoon on the street in Manhattan I can easily say I love this lens.  I haven't shot with a zoom lens since I put down my Nikon D700 (I mean put down as in laid it on the table, not as with a pet). Since I got my XP1 I've shot exclusively with the prime 18mm and 35mm lenses. It's a totally different mindset. I've got a lot of practicing to do to get up to snuff with a zoom lens again.

The minimum focusing distance with this lens is about a foot, give or take a few inches (Fuji says 11 inches). When I first unpacked the lens I noticed a little noise when shaken gently (not stirred). So I called the Fuji support line and the tech with whom I spoke confirmed he heard the same noise when he  gently shook his lens. Don't know what that is, but apparently it doesn't adversely affect the lens performance. I found the camera and lens feels very different in my hand. I'm used to the lightness and shortness of the two primes, this lens is heavier and extends further out so my right hand had to work harder over the hours of handling the camera. I'm a little disappointed with the lens hood. No matter that it's plastic (the prime lens hoods are metal), when it snaps into place on the front of the lens the connection doesn't feel very secure, and in fact it can easily be dislodged. But in the grand scheme of things it's a very small matter.

I looked for chromatic aberration at 18mm, and found it. It's about the same as the CA on the prime 18mm lens - so that's no big deal, easily corrected in Lightroom. I turned off the image stabilization on the zoom (more about the IS later) and took a few test shots at 18mm and 35mm so that I could compare the sharpness to the two prime lenses. At 18mm it's pretty much the same. At 35mm the prime has a thick hair's advantage.

I didn't have any complaints about the focus speed of the prime lenses right out of the box, clearly this wasn't a clunky DSLR with huge, heavy lenses so I had realistic expectations. After the firmware updates the speed of focus was a non-issue for me. At 18mm and 35mm the auto focus speed of the zoom lens is the same as the primes. The response is a little slower at 55mm, but I don't have the 60mm prime to compare.

I had only one lens for my Nikon D700 with image stabilization, a 70-300 f3.5-5.6 zoom. I rarely used the lens, so I have nothing to which I can compare the Fuji's IS. I am, however, totally impressed with the increase in flexibility that the IS allows. I have been able to hand hold the camera and shoot comfortably at shutter speeds down to 1/30th second. I pushed some shots one stop slower - to 1/15th sec. - and the results are quite satisfactory considering that the slower shutter speed buys some ISO speed and lower noise in the image.

The first of these shots was taken at 1/60th second, f4, ISO 5000, these are jpegs, generated from raw data by Lightroom, without any processing.

This second shot was taken at 1/15th second, f4, ISO 1250.

If you were to pixel peep, you could argue that there is some slight blurring in the second shot, but the difference in the pixel noise makes the first shot seem a little soft at the edges of lines. So I guess if you want to shoot in low light you have to pick your poison.

One of the pleasing surprises for me in using this lens was that there is a 23mm focal length marking on the barrel. That puzzled me at first, but then I realized that it translates into about a 35mm equivalent. So I tried shooting at that focal length. If felt much more comfortable than the (approximate) 50mm equivalent of the Fuji 35mm lens. I've always been more comfortable shooting at wider focal lengths, so learning to shoot at the longer end that this lens provides is going to take some patient practice. I'll suffer through it.

The next time I post, I hope to have some real street shots from today's outing.

The Kids Are Smiling

I attended a mini-photo-expo on Friday at Unique Photo in New Jersey. I had been invited to have a show in their gallery space and needed to see the space and work out the logistics for the show. I'm planning to exhibit a series of photos that are part of the 'I Hear A Voice Calling' collection on my website.  

My visit to see the space at the same time as the expo was really coincidental. Honest ..... Really .....

But I found a camera bag that takes my current configuration (incuding my iPad) and is 1/4 the weight of my current bag. And then, I happened to stop by the Fuji counter to chat with the national sales rep. I had a chance to play with the real 14mm lens which won't be available until the end of January, 2013. And I tried out the 18-55mm zoom lens which is now available in limited supply. Mine is coming tomorrow and I hope to post images from it later this week. 

Yippeee!!! A new toy! Maybe that's why those kids are smiling.

The World as I See It!

The title for my blog entry for today is the same as that of my blog page. I wish I could have italicized the word 'I' but text formatting wouldn't allow it. My point is that this is my blog site, and the title was carefully chosen to permit me the flexibility to say what is/was on my mind about a variety of subjects which are always buzzing around in my head - I guess I have way too much time on my hands, hey that's retirement! If however I were to have titled the blog site Musings of a Street Shooter, anyone who came to this site would reasonably expect to find subject matter pertaining to street photography. If one of my wild fantasies were to come true: that through my expertise and artistry as a street/documentary photographer I were to garner a very large following of acolytes who flocked to my website, bought my books, attended my seminars, and joined my organization to glean all they could through my teaching based on my experience as a photographer, and I were to abuse that trust and expectation by using my position to espouse a philosophy of life, that might well be called (in the words of our esteemed onetime progressive Republican president Theodore Roosevelt) using my position as a bully pulpit. If a blog is entitled Photoshop Insider, I don't think it is unreasonable for readers coming to the site to expect to find information or a discussion about something related to digital processing or photography.  

But there's gems to be found out there in the blogsphere. I was surfing around over the past several days and came across this blog. In particular there was a quote by Ted Grant (an outstanding Canadian photojournalist whose work can be seen here) regarding b/w photography: When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their souls!

Expressions and gestures are everything to me when I shoot street. I can think of a dozen different captions for this image, each one is a story in itself.

Elvis Redux

I've been waiting for too long to get my 14mm lens for the XP1. As I was reading my daily round of blogs today, there were several that discussed the first of the Fuji zoom lenses - 18-55mm - and showed sample images. This lens too is not yet available in New York. I have until now resisted the temptation to order it because I already have the 18mm and 35mm lenses, and the zoom would just be redundant. 

Or would it be the other way around? Would the zoom make the two primes redundant? Notice that in the previous paragraph I said that I have until now resisted the temptation? Well ..... so much for self discipline! Now I have to exercise extreme patience while I wait for two lenses to arrive. 

The zoom is a variable aperture lens going from f2.8 at 18mm to f4 at 55mm. That's only one stop difference and with the image stabilization that has been touted as superb I should be able to shoot comfortably at 1/125th or even 1/60th second which more than makes up for the variable aperture. 

Still, the IQ of the two primes is so great that they will be difficult to leave behind on any particular outing. Wonderful, more gear to carry around.

I saw Elvis on Fifth Avenue the other day, trying to hail a cab by waving his cell phone in the air. 

You ain't nothin' but a hound dog .......

Don't bite your tongue!

One of my favorite photo blogs, which I read daily, is the Online Photographer. Today's entry talks about the opinion of Bill Jay regarding photography and the current art/gallery business and is very much to the point regarding the commercialization of a photographer's work. It's well worth a few minutes read.

I'm spending this rainy Monday afternoon updating the images on my 'commercial' website, so I don't have anything thoughtful or pithy to say. I like this photo. The composition is not great, but I like the characters and the juxtaposition of the two slick guys on the right with the blue collar guy and his son on the left, and the gritty New York streets.

Don't bite your tongue!

Enlightening Exhibit

A new exhibit has opened at the Metropolitan Museum in New York featuring pairs of paintings by Henri Matisse, the exhibit is entitled In Search of True Painting. I sometimes have a problem with exhibits such as this because they are so stimulating that I get sated before I can see the whole presentation. I definitely need to go back and spend more time in the last room of the show. The premise of the show is that Matisse made paintings and then experimented with techniques he saw other painters use - especially the pointilism ofCamille Pissarro and the flat colors and geometric shapes of Paul Cezanne.   

Seeing how a master creates a composition in a painting, how he uses outlines and edges, and how he emphasizes the geometry and weight of the objects/people with color - and then viewing another work of the same scene and objects but with an entirely different palette and technique, made this show really special. The curators provided interesting explanations of the similarities and differences but I generally find that reading the intellectual verbiage distracts me from responding intuitively and interferes with my own personal explorations. 

Painters have such a luxury to have the time to create their own composition from scratch. Street shooters need split second timing to read a scene - the characters, light, and drama - as it unfolds and grab that special moment. 

Just what do you think you are doing?

Seriously!