Chinese Manufacturers Developing Autofocus Zoom Lenses also for APS-C and the FujiRumors Top Zoom Lens Wishes

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According to reports from the Chiense Weibo account 独立摄影师联合会, three (3) Chinese lens manufacturers are developing autofocus zoom lenses, as reported here.

It’s unclear how many of them will be also for APS-C, but for sure at least one brand will be offering also an APS-C zoom lens.

We know: Viltrox is working on autofocus zoom lenses.

So there will be two more brands joining.

In the Chinese prime lens world, we often see just the very same lens being re-branded over and over again. Let’s hope this won’t be the case with these zoom lenses, and that they all will be unique zoom lenses that not only differentiate from each other, but will also offer something not yet available in the Fujifilm X mount world.

And in terms of zoom lenses, here are the top 3 zoom lens wishes as voted in our mega-lens survey back in 2022.

Top 6 Zoom lenses:

  1. XF 16-55mm f/2.8 MK II
  2. XF 16-35mm f/2
  3. XF 11-30mm f/2.8
  4. XF 16-70mm f/2.8-4
  5. XF 16-135mm f/4
  6. XF 18-55mm f/2.8-4 MK II

Since some are similar, we could merge them into a single lens, and ultimately come up with this lis:

Top 6 Zoom lenses (with some lenses merged into 1 lens)

  1. XF 14-30mm f/2.0
  2. XF 16-55mm f/2.8 MK II
  3. XF 16-70mm f/2.8-4
  4. XF 16-135mm f/4
  5. XF 18-55mm f/2.8-4 MK II
  6. XF 23-55mm f/2

If you want to know what the overall most wanted lenses are (primes included) check out this article here.

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Fujifilm X-T50 – The Olympic Choice! Welcome Gold Medalist Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone to the X Shooter Club

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Olympic Gold Medalist Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone has been spotted carrying around her Fujifilm X-T50.

The image has been shared on her Instagram story here.

She picked the charcoal X-T50 btw.

And just because it was so nice, enjoy her Olympic gold medal run (with world record) below.

I guess she was in a hurry to get her race done and finished quickly so that she can finally do what she was really there for: get out and explore Paris with her Fujifilm X-T50 ;).

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7Artisans AF 27mm F2.8 Review (Sony E Mount)

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image courtesy – nikolaus-burgard.de

A fellow FR-reader (thanks for sharing) stumbled on a review made half a year ago of the upcoming 7Artisans 27mm F2.8 which we reported about here.

The review, for the Sony E mount version, is in both languages, German and English (the red text is in English) and you can read it at nikolaus-burgard.

His summary:

7Artisans has also achieved a very good “autofocus debut” in the APS-C-Sensor camera-range with the AF 27mm f2.8.

I will briefly summarize the objective test results again:
Very good sharpness in the center of the image from open aperture, excellent from f4.
The edges are sharp from an open aperture of f2.8, but for perfectly sharp corners you have to stop down to f4. The slight midzone dip has also completely disappeared at f5.6.
The microcontrasts are always very good.
The vignette is clear at wide open aperture, but completely negligible from f5.6.
Unfortunately, the distortion is clearly barrel-shaped with a mustache, but hopefully there will be a correction profile from the manufacturer soon.
When it comes to color errors, lateral chromatic aberrations are not a problem at all,
the longitudinal chromatic aberrations can appear in the form of slight green bokeh fringing, but are never problematic.
The lens isn’t bad in backlight, but if you overdo it you’ll get flares and reflections here, too.
The autofocus was “unremarkably good” in my test. The eye autofocus for portraits was also very snappy and fast.

Subjectively speaking, the technically clean, “modernly rendered” images without any annoyances such as outlining or bokeh bubbles really appeal to me; that’s what I expected from a modern “40mm” (fullframe-equivalent). Of course, with these technical parameters of a slight wide angle at “only” f2.8, you shouldn’t expect any shallow depth-of-field miracles.
I particularly like taking photos of people with the 7Artisans AF 27mm f2.8 – and they are easy to achieve because of the good eye autofocus.

Given the price of €149 / $129, 7Artisans can be said to have made a really successful debut in the autofocus world of APS-C sensor cameras – because the performance speaks for itself and the price is sensationally cheap in relation to this.

It might not be a bad lens optically, but sadly the fact that it lacks of an aperture ring is a dealbreaker for me.

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Fujinon XF500mmF5.6 Size Comparison vs Other XF and GF Lenses (Based on Speculations)

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FR-reader Hiergeist made a rendering of the Fujinon XF 500mm f/5.6 R LM OIS WR and compared its size to the Fujinon XF200mmF2, XF150-600mm and also the GF500mmF5.6.

There is a difference in flange distance between G-mount and X-mount of 9 mm – so the lens has to be 9 mm longer at the mount (assuming the optics will be almost identical between GFX 500 and XF 500). Hiergeist aligned the picture along the lens mount.

To be clear:

  1. this is not the real lens, just a rendering
  2. the size of the XF500mmF5.6 is based on the speculation that because it has the same filter size of the GF500mmF5.6, Fujifilm might simply have made and XF version by changing the mount

If that was the case then that is what that lens would look like mounted on an X-H2.

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REPORT: Fujifilm X-M5 Release in October: 26MP, 4K/120p, Cheap Build Quality and Made in Thailand

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The Chinese Weibo account 独立摄影师联合会 unveiled that it could already go hands on with the upcoming Fujifilm X-M5. In his Chinese tweet he says here:

I just saw the real Fujifilm XM5, which is probably made in Thailand. I feel the workmanship is not very good. It will be released next month [sad face]

Update: It is a prototype, no wonder it feels a bit loose [doge] It has an unusual color scheme, which is quite cool ​​​

This is also the camera that hides behind the code FF240002.

In a follow up tweet a few days later the Chinese account shared some specs here:

  • 26MP X-Trans BSI image sensor
  • X-Processor 5 image processor
  • 3-inch vari-angle touchscreen
  • 4K60p video (4K120p in crop mode)
  • Vlog mode
  • 425-point hybrid autofocus system
  • 20 built-in film simulations
  • Bluetooth and Wi-Fi
  • Expected to be released in October 2024

A little curiosity: there was a time, when the cheapest Fujifilm cameras sold insanely well in Thailand, grabbing 50% of the mirrorless camera market share as we reported here.

Let’s see if the Fujifilm X-M5 will be able to have a similar success as the X-A line had in Thailand. Although I doubt that, as times have changed since back in 2018 and smartphone cameras have become even better. And for Vloggers filming content on the go and without huge image quality aspirations, gear like the DJI Osmo Pocket 3 or similar might be the more convenient pick.

But let’s see how the X-M5 turns out to be.

I am personally not interested in it but I hope the Fujifilm X-M5 will have some aspects that surprise me positively. Fujifilm (or should I say Xacti? ;)) was quite ingenious with some ideas implemented in their cheapest cameras and still today I do not understand why Fujifilm has not passed those ideas to higher end models.

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