The notorious Fujifilm XF35 F 1.4 R

- 3 mins read

This will be short, boring and won’t save the World.

But as this is my own website I can put up however brief and uninteresting stuff as I want. It will also work as an test of my automated deployment flow from Github to Cloudflare pages - boring I know.

  • Edit - the automated deployment did not work.
  • Edit 2 - it works now 🍾

As I have clawed back a bit of extra spare time the last couple of months, I have been getting back into enjoying photography. I bought an X-Pro3 for the third time and recently a Nikon Zf for the second time. As mentioned it was not the first time owning either camera and I will probably sell one of them again. I could just not decide and I was in the fortunate position to be able to afford both on the used market.

But the funny thing is that each time I buy or try a new camera I get reminded how much I enjoy my good old Fujifilm X-T2. When I only have that camera I dream about others, but once I get them I realize how good I already have it with the X-T2. Oh well.

With the X-Pro3 also came the XF35mm F1.4 R lens. A lens that is hailed by most Fujifilm connoisseurs as one of the truly great lenses. I had never tried it and am not a big fan of the 35mm focal length on APS-C sensor. I always feel like I am too close to everything. Normally I shoot 18mm to 27mm focal length.

But this day I wanted to take out the XF35mm and see for myself. As I felt a bit nostalgic I took the Fujifilm X-T2 and updated it with an “old” recipe that I wanted to try again namely the Ultramax 400 recipe.

I must say that I am extremely pleased with the results.

The first one here is a bit overexposed for my taste. But I like the colors and contrast in the needles of the tree.

This one is of course shot wide open at F1.4. The subject is boring but it really shows the strengths of the lens. What I also really like is the colors and the grain. Sometimes I feel like the “strong” grain option on Fujifilm is a bit much. But here it really works! This is probably my favorite image of the day.

I am not sure I really succeeded in capturing this image. I wanted to show the ice and frame it to follow the chimney. It did not really make it all that compelling though.

This is a close second if not better than the image of the lock. The light. The colors. The texture. It is all there.

Hmm. Oh well.

The last one here works okay. I was hoping for it to stand out even more. It is not bad. But just not great.