Daily Archives: September 18, 2015

 

 

If you shot Nikon or Canon, or Fuji or Olympus, or even Panasonic or Sony, you have a bewildering number of lenses to choose from!  Well, not so much Sony, but even they are adding more lenses quickly!  So if you have 40 lenses to choose between, how on earth do you decide????  For the sake of this blog entry, let’s limit ourselves to photo generalists!  ( Travel, Nature, Portrait, Wedding, Close-ups, Americana ).  Got it?  For now you Sports shooters, and Wildlife folks will have to sit this one out!  Why?  Because you photographers have to have long fast glass, and most of us don’t!

 

For some years three lenses from Nikon have been called the holly trinity, a term I’m not comfortable with!  There is only one Holy Trinity, and that would be the Father, Son and the Holy Sprit!  So let’s just call them the Big Three.  They are the 14-24, 24-70 and the 70-200, all fast f 2.8 lenses.  If you shoot Nikon, they are the best three lenses covering those focal lengths, PERIOD.  But I don’t shoot Nikon anymore!  So what are my Big Three?

 

In the Fuji X-System they are the 10-24 (15-36 equiv.), the 16-55 (24-83) and the 50-140 (75-210) all f 2.8 lenses, except the 10-24 which is an f 4. They cost at least 40% less, weigh at least 40% less and are equally well made and, I believe, are even sharper!  The 14-24 and the 10-24 are very close.

 

So that is my base lens system, so is that it?  Nope I feature a number of images in my approach that exhibit very shallow depth, so the 16mm f 1.4 (24mm) and the 90mm f 2 (135mm) With those two lenses I get extraordinary sharpness and spectacular bokeh!

 

I love to do closeup work so while I await the arrival of the Fuji 120mm Macro, I carry the 60mm f 2.4 Macro and a few Automatic Extension tubes.  One last lens that is always in the bag is the very versatile, and extremely sharp 18-135 f 3.5-5.6 (27-200).

 

The point is have a super wide, a moderate mid range zoom, a fast tełephoto zoom, some fast lenses for available light and shallow depth shots, a Macro lens, and a smaller, versatile, and a all day walk around zoom!  7 lenses to do it all!!!!!  Oh, and later we will get a 1.4 teleconverter that will extend the 50-140 and the 90mm!!!!  By-the-way the 90mm f 2 is a very close focusing lens and with extension tubes, diopters and when the  1.4 converter comes along it will serve as a 135mm Macro lens too!!!!  I will test it with all the above (except the 1.4 converter – not out yet),  soon for a blog entry on this incredible piece of glass!

 

How sweet it is!

 

Blessings and have a great weekend,

 

the pilgrim