Tag Archives: wide angle

First Look at Fujifilm’s New XF16mm f/2.8 WR Lens

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I’m a huge fan of Fujifilm’s awesome f/2 WR prime lens series. The XF35mm f/2, XF50mm f/2 and the incredible XF90mm f/2 are among my favorite and most used lenses, so I was very excited to hear last year that the next lens in the series would be the XF16mm f/2.8.

Now that it’s been released, I’ve been able to shoot a few photos with it, and I can say, this was indeed the lens I was waiting for.

Back in the day, when I was a budding adventure and outdoor photographer, my favorite wide angle lens was the venerable Nikon 24mm f/2.8. This piece of glass saw more action in my early shooting days than any other. To me, it had the perfect meld of size, weight and view angle, and Fuji’s new 16 2.8 brings that classic combination to the X Series.

Even though the other lenses in the series are f/2, Fujifilm opted to shave size and weight and make this one an f/2.8. That’s plenty fast for most wide angle uses, and besides, if you really need a super fast wide, you can always spring for the XF16mm f/1.4.

However, that 16 1.4 is quite a bit bigger, heavier and much more expensive. Whereas the 1.4 version comes in at 13 ounces, which is just three ounces shy of a full pound, the new 16mm f/2.8 comes in at just 5 ounces. In addition, it costs under half as much: only $399, vs $999 for the 1.4.

Yes, speed is nice, but as I said, 2.8 is plenty fast for most wide angle photography, and for the size and weight difference, the new XF16mm f/2.8 is a fantastic little lens.

I just think that wide angle lenses are so versatile in the world of outdoor photography. They’re indispensable for shooting landscapes, action/adventure scenes and astrophotography, but also great for environmental portraiture, because you can get close enough to feature the subject and still show enough of the background to tell the story.

Having used a variety of wide lenses over the years, I’ve always found this focal length to hit a real sweet spot. If a lens gets too wide, you can start to get distortion at the edges, and by the nature of the design, ultra wide glass is usually bigger, as well.

Fuji has the tiny XF23mm f/2 lens, but that classic 35mm “photojournalist” focal length has never really been my cup of tea for regular use. It’s just not wide enough. The 16mm with it’s 24mm view angle yields an excellent combination of wide, small and relatively fast, which in my book, hits the target for everything I want.

Just like the other lenses in Fujifilm’s compact WR series, the new XF16mm f/2.8 follows the same classic “Fuji-cron” design, with a lightweight, compact build, a numbered aperture ring and a slightly tapered front. It comes with a small, very unobtrusive hood. The kind you have no problem leaving on all the time.

Lens quality is amazing, with gorgeous color reproduction, no visible distortion or softness at the edges, and very quick and responsive autofocus. It allows you to get quite close, with a minimum focusing distance of 6.6 inches.

(The photos of the poppies above was shot at the closest possible distance.) Compare that to Fuji’s 16mm f/1.4, which has a minimum focusing distance of 5.9 inches.

Compared to my other favorite wide angle, Fuji’s XF14mm f/2.8, the new 16 f/2.8 has a slight edge in size, minimum focusing distance, and again, it costs less than half as much. And it’s weather sealed, which the 14 is not.

I don’t have a single bad thing to say about the 14mm f/2.8, it’s been a mainstay in my bag since my first days shooting with the X Series, but I have to say, the smaller build of the new 16 is pretty nice. It makes it that much more appealing for use on an ultralight weight bike trip or hiking trip in the backcountry, especially if you anticipate bad weather.

And what about the original 18mm f/2? That’s a fun little lens, but this new 16 is just way better on every level.

I love these little Fuji primes, and if you look in my bag on any given day, you’ll find at least two or three of them in there, the 35, 50 and often the 90. Add in the 16, and I’ve got an ultra compact, ultra lightweight kit that covers an extremely workable range.

Traditionally, photography has been a rather expensive activity. However, since the introduction of the X Series, Fujifilm has done an incredible job giving us a number of very high quality lens choices at reasonable prices, which allows a greater number of people to enjoy great photography.

The new XF16mm f/2.8 fits perfectly into the line and offers Fuji shooters an exceptional and very affordable wide angle lens. Given its size, weight, speed, sweet view angle and the fact that nothing else even comes close in this price range, this is surely one of those no-brainer lenses for just about every X Series photographer.

A Look at Tokina Lenses for Nikon, Canon and Sony

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Tokina lens

I realize that not everyone has the budget for a full arsenal of dedicated Nikon and Canon lenses. I was there once. That’s why there’s a big market for third party lenses. There’s nothing wrong with using a third party lens on your DSLR, but as with anything, you get what you pay for. Not every lens or lens brand is equal.

I really like Tokina lenses. Always have. I bought a Tokina AT-X 17mm f/3.5 back in the late 90s and proceeded to beat the heck out of it for the next decade or so. I loved my Tokina 17mm, it was built like a tank, it could withstand tons of abuse, and it made great looking images. In fact, many of my favorite adventure photography were made with that lens.

Eric Parsons throwing the rappel ropes into the fog on The Throne, Little Switzerland, Pika Glacier, AlaskaZac Wiebe and Heath Mackay skiing up the McGill Shoulder. Rogers Pass, Selkirk Mountains, CanadaCloseup of a woman's feet and shoes trail running, Glen Alps area, Chugach Mountains, near Anchorage, Alaska

Tokina has a great lineup of lenses for Nikon, Canon, Sony, Micro Four Thirds. They also have a line of lenses designed with PL mounts for Epic Red and Arri motion picture cameras, and they have a selection of Cinema lenses as well. They’re all built in Japan and use SD Super-low Dispersion glass, for maximum optical quality and minimized chromatic aberration.

Currently, they have four series of glass for still/video photography:

  1. AT-X Pro FX: Designed for full frame DSLR cameras
  2. AT-X Pro: Designed for APS-C DSLR cameras
  3. AT-X: Small lightweight fisheye zooms
  4. AT-X V: Built for DSLR videography for use with follow focus gear, but can also be used as an AF still photography lens.

While there are two many to list in this post, here are a few models I would highly recommend to budget minded photographers. If you’re looking for high quality, professional-grade, yet affordable glass, you should give this line of lenses a serious look. With every model, you’re getting a comparable lens to the same brand name equivalent, but for a fraction of the price.

If you read the reviews, you’ll see that Tokina lenses consistently get high marks for build quality, distortion control and their ability to produce high quality, sharp images with good contrast and reduced chromatic aberration.

Also, many of the Tokina lenses have rebates right now. Check out the current savings.

Tokina Full Frame Lenses

AT-X 17-35mm f/4 PRO FX – For Canon and Nikon

The Tokina 17-35 f/4 is a compact wide angle zoom designed for full frame cameras. With Super-Low Dispersion glass and one aspheric element, this is a an excellent and versatile lens for a wide range of styles and shooting situations. It’s ideal for travel, shooting wide expanse landscapes and working in tight spaces.

Rated to be as sharp as Nikon’s 17-35 f/2.8, at a fraction of the price, the Tokina 17-35 has very little distortion compared to other ultra wide zooms in all price categories. It’s also weather resistant, which contribute to it’s versatility and build quality.

AT-X 24-70mm f/2.8 PRO FX – For Nikon and Canon

For many photographers, the 24-70 f/2.8 is a workhorse universal zoom lens for shooting a wide variety of subject matter. While the Tokina 24-70mm f/2.8 is not an inexpensive or small lens, it still costs about $700 less than the comparable Nikon and Canon models, making it a very affordable alternative for shooters on a budget who don’t want to sacrifice quality.

With a fast, fixed f/2.8 aperture, fast Silent Drive-Module autofocus, SD glass three aspherical elements, and high quality construction, this lens has excellent optics that will hold up with even the highest megapixel DSLRs, including the Nikon D810 and Canon’s 50MP 5DSR.

AT-X 70-200mm f/4 FX VCM-S – For Nikon

Another workhorse zoom lens, the Tokina 70-200mm f/4 is comparable to Nikon’s excellent 70-200 f/4 VR lens, although the Tokina version costs about $400 lens.

Designed with solid build quality, 3 stops of VR, a fast ultrasonic AF motor and SD glass elements, this lens produces very sharp, crips images that will hold up on any of Nikon’s DSLR bodies. One reviewer said it produced some of the best bokeh he’s seen from a zoom lens of this style. Pairing this with the Tokina 24-70mm lens above would give you a workhorse professional quality two-lens kit that would get you through just about any photo shoot.

AT-X M100 AF PRO D – For Nikon and Canon Full Frame and APS-C

The Tokina AT-X M100 is a thing of beauty. Not only is it a macro lens that’s capable of shooting 1:1 closeups, it also makes for a incredible short telephoto for shooting portraits and mid-distance subject matter. And, it’s less than half the price of the Nikon 105mm macro lens.

DxOMark tested this on the Nikon D800 and called it a “Solid Performer.” It has good sharpness throughout the range, minimal vignetting and great distortion control. Also, being a true macro, it’s capable of shooting with full 1x “life size” magnification, and it makes a wonderful portrait lens. This is one of the real standouts in the Tokina line and I’d highly recommend it to any photographer.

Tokina APS-C Lenses

AT-X 11-16mm f/2.8 PRO DX – For Nikon, Canon and Sony

With an all new internal silent focusing motor, and updated optics, the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 is an award winning and very popular ultra wide angle compact zoom lens for crop sensor cameras.

Featuring a fixed f/2.8 aperture and SD glass, this lens yields excellent contrast and sharpness at a price that’s friendly to budget minded photographers.

AT-X 12-28mm f/4 PRO DX – For Nikon and Canon

Less than half the price as Nikon’s 12-24 lens, the Tokina 12-28mm f/4 is one of the most popular and highly rated lenses in their line. For good reason. It’s very sharp, it does a great job controlling distortion and it has very close focus, which means you can shoot dramatic close ups with lots of background detail.

With a very solid build, internal zoom elements and a fast silent autofocus motor, and their standard focus clutch, which allows for easy manual focus control (this feature is incorporated on many of their lenses), this is a fantastic wide angle zoom for DX and crop sensor cameras.

AT-X 14-20 f/2 PRO DX – For Nikon and Canon

This is Tokina’s fastest lens. With a very fast maximum aperture and the optical performance of a fixed lens, the 14-20mm f/2 is an ultra fast, wide angle zoom that’s great for shooting in low light. It’s almost like having a trio of high performance fast primes (equivalent views of 21mm, 24mm and 28mm) at your disposal in a single lens.

An awesome landscape and travel lens, it achieves excellent image quality, contrast and distortion control. With four SD elements, great built quality and a relatively compact design, the Tokina 14-20 f/2 is an outstanding lens that costs about half the price of the Nikon 14-24 f/2.8, and it’s a stop faster.


Review of the Fujifilm XF 14mm f/2.8 Ultra Wide Angle Lens

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Fuji14mm I love wide angle lenses. Always have. As far as I’m concerned, the wider the better, so long as it’s a fixed lens. That’s one of the main reasons I’ve stuck with my full frame Nikon and still use the D700.

I prefer primes over wide angle zooms for a couple reasons. Fixed lenses are always lighter and more compact, which means that they pack more easily and are that much more non-conspicuous when you’re out shooting in the world.

Also, it’s a very easy lens to shoot one handed with, which I often do while riding bikes, hanging off of a rock face, blocking the sun or directing my subjects with my free hand or shooting while driving/flying. Note, I would NEVER recommend this kind of reckless activity.

Wide angle lenses are great for shooting just about everything. They’re ideal for landscapes, travel and shooting indoors, and if you want to get right in the middle of the scene and shoot immersive, first person action, then wide is the way to go.

They’re also really effective for portraits because you can get up close and persona with your subject matter and still show some environment, a technique that lets you build a more comprehensive narrative for your image.

However, my fixed Nikon 14mm f/2.8 ED is heavy. All my Nikon gear is, hence my excitement about the little Fuji X cameras, which let me go light and fast. And even though they have APS-C 1.5x crop sensors, Fuji’s got that covered with a lightweight, ultra wide angle lens that makes me feel like I’m shooting full frame.

I’ve been using the Fujifilm XF 14mm f/2.8 ultra wide angle lens solidly for about 8 months now, mostly with the X-E1 and X-E2 and now the brand new Fujifilm X-T1. (Read my review of the awesome new X-T1 here.) In that time, I’ve found it to be an essential part of my compact, mirrorless photography rig. Last summer, I took it on a bike tour over the Alps with this lens and I’ve used it in a wide variety of outdoor photography situations in Iceland and here in Alaska. Here’s my review of the lens and some images examples that illustrate what you can do with it.

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Construction and Features

First of all, the Fujifilm XF 14mm f/2.8 is a rock solid lens. It’s built with a combination of metal in all the right places, and plastic in places that help it save weight (235 grams.) Inside, are 10 elements in 7 groups (includes 2 aspherical and 3 extra low dispersion elements). As far as durability goes, I’ve knocked this thing around quite a bit and it has yet to show any kind of scratch or dent. After all this time, it still looks brand new.

The plastic lens hood fits very tightly with a bayonet-style twist and stays locked. I’ve never had it come loose. In terms of size, it’s about an inch and a half shorter than the Fuji XF 18-55mm lens when the zoom is retracted.

This lens also has three additional features that most of the other XF lenses don’t have- a real aperture ring with actual f/stop numbers on it, a depth of field scale with distance markers and a manual focus option right on the lens. In other words, it looks and functions just like a classic SLR lens.

The aperture ring has a range of f/2.8-22, plus A for auto. The depth of field scale is visible by pulling in on the focusing ring. A firm tug and click puts the lens into Manual Focus mode, which works in conjunction with the DOF scale.

This allows you to make critical hyperfocal distance decisions, such as when you’re shooting landscapes. You could call this “slow down mode,” and we all know that whenever you slow down and start putting some thought and brain power into your photography, you inherently create better images. That’s one of the things I love most about the Fuji X cameras, they let you work the way YOU want to, whether you want to put them on all manual, all auto or somewhere in between; whatever makes you feel most comfortable and/or creative.

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Usability and Performance

Using the XF 14mm f/2.8 is a real joy. Aside from the awesome 90-degree angle of view (equates to a 21mm full frame 35mm view) and the tight, compact build quality, what I love best about this lens is its simplicity. It’s got one fantastic look that works extremely well for a wide variety of subject matter.

For a digital camera, shooting in Manual Focus actually works quite well. I’d even venture to say that it’s a pleasurable experience, compared to what I’ve seen on other systems. You use the LCD or EVF to visually gauge your focus, and you can press in the rear command dial to zoom in and check critical focus, and depending on what camera you use, you may also have split image and/or focus peaking options to help.

Add to that, it’s sharp from edge to edge, and it delivers crisp, beautiful imagery. Cameras like the X-E1, X-E2, X-Pro1 and the new X-T1 are highly touted for how good their straight JPEGs look. Pair one with this lens and you’ll give yourself maximum quality that rivals the pro look of an full frame camera system. It’s optimized for one focal length, which means you don’t get the slight variations in sharpness that you do with a zoom lens.

Arctic Cross Cyclcross Race, Goose Lake, Oct. 12, 2013

Also, with the 18-55mm lens, the zoom tends to walk and extend automatically when you point the lens down, which makes it a hard lens to shoot one handed with. No zoom on the 14mm, so this won’t happen. What you see is what you get and it won’t change.

Focusing is done internally on the XF 14mm f/2.8, which gives the lens fast AF performance. Pair this lens with the X-E2, (which has considerablyfaster autofocus than the X-E1) and you’ve got an awesome setup for shooting action, travel, street scenes, people and anything else that moves quickly and erratically. I’ve shot full-on action like muddy cyclocross with this lens and it did just fine. I’ve heard people say that the X-E1 is no good for action. Using this lens, I strongly beg to differ.

One thing about this lens is that when you have it in Manual Focus mode with the ring snapped back, this overrides whatever AF mode you have set on the camera. This is not a big deal and it’s clearly explained in the instruction manual, but if you’re swapping out other XF lenses, or if you accidentally flip the lens into MF mode, you might get a little confused. I’ve inadvertently flipped it in the wintertime when wearing big gloves and didn’t realize it. Again, not a big deal, but something to be aware of.

Arctic Cross Cyclcross Race, Goose Lake, Oct. 12, 2013

Overall

The XF 14mm f/2.8 is not a cheap lens. Nor is it an inexpensive lens, although it’s certainly not out of reach for what you get. Good glass costs money, and it’s certainly less expensive (and considerably smaller and lighter) than something like the Nikon 14mm f/2.8 ED, which will blow out your forearm muscles if you try to shoot one handed with it too much.

By every measure, the Fuji XF 14mm f/2.8 is a first rate, wide angle prime that will give you excellent, professional quality imagery. Buying this lens is making a serious investment in your photography, not just because of how the images look, but because it’s a lens that you can easily fall in love with for shooting just about everything. It’s been one of my favorite pieces of gear for months now and I have absolutely nothing negative to say about it. If you own any of the interchangeable Fuji X cameras and want to take your imagery to a new level and style, then I highly recommend this lens.

Check out this post, of Fujifilm X-T1 sample images and see more photos shot with the XF 14mm lens.

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The Best Lens For Shooting Portraits

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So what’s the best lens for shooting portraits? That’s like asking what’s the best day of the week for eating dessert. Sure, there are hard and fast rules about this kind of thing, but if you’re like me, you scoff … Continue reading →

Reader Poll: What Lenses Do You Use In Your Photography?

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Ok readers, I’m looking for some participation on your part today with a simple two-part question: What lens do you use the most in your photography, and which lens do you use the least? Even if you think you know for … Continue reading →

The Best Budget Wide Angle Lenses

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Wide angle lenses rule. I don’t know what I’d do without them; probably take up another career. Wide angles are the quintessential lenses for shooting landscapes, but they’re also great for photographing sports and environmental portraits, because you can show … Continue reading →