TTArtisan 27mmF2.8 Now Available at BHphoto and More Reviews

The brand new TTArtisan 27mm f/2.8 is now available also at BHphoto here. You can get it in two colors:

Fujinon XF35mm f/1.4 R: The Magical One (for me)

The Fujinon XF35mm f/1.4 R

There is place in the South of Laos where the mighty Mekong river gets over 6 miles large, spreading its brown tentacles in an intricated and slow flowing tangle of streams creating what are called the 4,000 islands: thousands of small hills of sand and shrubs captured in a massive labyrinth of turbid water.

Mislead by the deceptive peace of that enchanting landscape, I grabbed an old wooden Kayak of dubious reliability and sailed out to explore the area all alone.

But the more I reached the border to Cambodia, the more the Mekong was getting stronger, culimating in the furious Li Phi waterfalls.

Long story short: the flow got stronger, I could no longer paddle my way back, the waterfalls were approaching and I had no other choice than to jump into the water with my gear and find my way back by swimming in the Mekong, holding myself on branches of submerged trees and walking on the countless little sandy island.

During this adventure, my gear broke. All of it. Except for my Fujifilm XF35mm f/1.4, which survived the long swim as if nothing ever happened.

Now this alone would be enough for me to call the XF35mmF1.4 “magical” (and also the beer I drunk after this experience tasted “magical” ;))

But for most of us the true magic of this lens does not lie in its underwater capabilities, but in its images.

The Magic

Why talk about Fujifilm’s oldest lens in 2022?

Well, because according to our recent sruvey it is still the most owned prime lens among you guys.

And also because no matter how many similar lenses Fujifilm will launch, from the stellar sharp XF33mmF1.4 to the compact and fast focusing XF35mmF2 and even to the patented XF33mmF1.2 (if that ever comes), I will never sell my XF35mmF1.4 and probably not even buy any other 35-ish lens ever, because the Fujinon XF35mmF1.4 is magical!

So how does this magic come to be?

From a technical point of view, Fujifilm did try to explain it us in a dedicated article, where they talk about the design philosophy of this lens. Fujifilm basically didn’t care about specs and MTF charts, but designed the lens thinking at the real life use. You can read more here.

Also Fuji Guy Billy once said here, that Fujifilm did not want to create a clinically perfect lens, but a lens with character. We could call it a “perfectly imperfect” lens, a unique lens, or, in other words, a lens with a “magic touch“.

And as the Sigma CEO once said here, creating a lens with character is much more difficult than creating a perfect lens.

But technicalities aside, what I’ve experienced over all these years is that for me it seems easier to snap images I truly love with the XF35mmF1.4 rather than with many other of my lenses.

A few examples:

So, despite having a decent amount of lenses, some of them I use even more than my XF35mmF1.4, for some reason I can’t really explain, it’s often the Fujinon XF35mmF1.4 R that snaps the images I love most.

This alone (and the fact that it went with me through the Mekong adventure) makes this lens special to me.

And many others think so too, as you can see in the video below, where a fellow X shooter tries to capture in words the magic of the lens.

XF35mmF1.4 R

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Many Love This Canon (Sony) Feature, But I Hope Fujifilm Will Never Offer it

Sony is fantastic!

Nikon is awesome!

Canon is king!

Panasonic is smart!

Olympus is my secret love!

Each one of the brands listed above has some features I’d love to see on my Fujifilm cameras.

May it be…

  • the awesome Live ND on Olympus
  • the fantastic video tools on Panasonic
  • the 8K RAW video recording on Nikon
  • Canon’s dual pixel AF
  • Call of Duty on Sony ;).

But there is one feature, that I hope I’ll never see on any Fuji camera… and it’s was first offered by Canon and other brands like Sony followed.

And since once again this came up in the comments such as here, I thought I might address it one time in a dedicated article.

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Fujifilm X-H2 and X-H2s Firmware Updates Released

Fujifilm has released new firmware updates for the Fujifilm X-H2 and the Fujifilm X-H2s.

It is mostly about proper support for the Fujifilm FT-XH file transmitter grip, which starts shipping in these days, but there are also some bug fixes.

You can check out all details below.

Firmware Details

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Sony A7rV vs Fujifilm X-H2 vs Fujifilm GFX100S – The Complete Specs Comparison

Sony just announced the Sony A7rv, a 61 megapixel camera without stacked sensor.

In the Fujifilm world the non-stacked high resolution competitors would be the Fujifilm X-H2 and the Fujifilm GFX100S.

You can check out the complete specs comparison at the B&H comparison page here.

With the Fujifilm X-H2 costing just half the price of the Sony, to me this shows once again that the best balance is offered by APS-C. Also considering that the 40MP Fujifilm X-T5 will come in at an even lower price.

But if price does not matter and resolution as well as ever so slight increase in dynamic range is what you need, then you can also pay 50% more than the A7rV and get 67% more pixels and plus better dynamic range on the Fujifilm GFX100S.

It’s just nice that we have so much choice these days.

But Specs…

But specs alone don’t tell the whole thing and in some cases they can be even a bit misleading.

The Fujifilm GFX100S might beat the Sony A7rV when it comes to resolution and dynamic range, but the Sony A7rV and of course the latest Fujifilm APS-C cameras have superior autofocus and better video features.

Another example… the Sony A7rV has a 9 Million dot viewfinder as opposed to the 5 million dot EVF of the Fujifilm X-H2. But the EVF of the X-H2 has all new optical elements that give an incredible corner to corner sharp view.

And once you go at 5+ million dots and beyond, it gets harder and harder for the human eye to notice any difference. In fact, I have read statements of journalists who used both viewfinders, the one of the new Sony A7rV and the Fujifilm X-H2, and they said that they honestly can’t see any difference. So I guess it’s up to companies to decide if customers have to spend more money on even higher resolution EVF’s that bring no real life benefit, but that allow them to brag on the specs sheet, or use a more affordable EVF that gives just the same results.

What on the other hand makes much more influence on the real life shooting experience of the Sony A7rV is the new tilt screen, which is similar to the one Fujifilm already used many years ago on the Fujifilm X-T100, and here on FujiRumors we said that this is actually one of the two features Fujifilm should take from their entry level line and implement in higher end cameras.

So, as in everything, there is much more than just specs that define a camera. But specs are a good start, and you can compare them here at BHphoto.