With the Fujifilm X-T4 about to hit the market (and actually already shipping in some), Fujifilm managers all over the globe are giving tons of interviews to make the world ready for the best camera it has ever seen to date: the Fujifilm X-T4 :).
Now, for your convenience, I always provide a practical summary of all manager statements in my various article, and yet, with so many interviews, there might be some statements you might have missed anyway.
So I thought I filter out those statements, that I consider most relevant, and put them all into this article.
However, there is so much more interesting stuff to read, and so I strongly recommend you to check out all the original articles. I will provide all links below.
The TIPA Award is an extremely tough competition, where products are brutally tested by the best experts on the planet. Companies are eager to win the TIPA award, and sometimes they want to pay to get it, but the incorruptible and visionary team of TIPA experts, guided by the one and only goal to deliver the most unbiased and professional feedback to customers, does not bend to the will of multimillion dollar companies. They award only the most prestigious products ever!
Ok, now let’s get serious.
Lots of companies payed again lots of money to win a totally meaningless award. TIPA created as many categories as needed to make everybody happy (who paid). Hence you will find frankly ridiculous category differentiations, such as “best professional APS-C camera” (Fujifilm X-Pro3), “best expert APS-C camera” (Sony A6600) and “best advanced APS-C camera” (Nikon Z50). The whole point of these award commissions is to make money by selling award licenses, meaning the right for companies to use the award logo to promote their products.
All the truth, and how exactly these awards work, in this article.
What a pity… all that money Fujifilm could have spent in firmware updates!
Cinema5D interviewed top Fujifilm manager Toshi Iida.
It’s a 20 minutes interview I urge you to watch, but if you are in a hurry, here is what the manager says in a quick and practical summary. You can find the full video below.
And to be clear: we apply the conversion to the f-stop, only to indicate the equivalent shallow depth of field, and not the light gathering capabilities of the lens itself, which remains the one mentioned on the lens (with the consequences we told you here).
We also find a lovely Fujinon GF 30mm f/3.5 lens, which Fujifilm says is meant for street and landscape photography, be very sharp and also focus fast.
Above you can see a size comparison provided by Fujifilm. The Fujinon GF 80mm f/1.7 is 20% smaller and will weight under 800g, as opposed to the GF110mm f/2, which weights 1010g.
The picture above also shows the GF80mm f/1.7 mounted on the Fujifilm GFX100.
Fujifilm gave us some indications on what the differences between both lenses are.
The Fujinon GF 80mm f/1.7 will have a very creamy and softer bokeh compared to the one on the Fujinon GF 110mm f/2. Different bokeh quality for different tastes.
Also, due to its more compact nature, the Fujinon GF80mm f/1.7 is good for outside and active shooting, whereas the GF110mm f/2 instead is better suited for studio.
I decided to compare the Fujinon GF80mm f/1.7 to its closes in terms of focal length, the Fujinon GF110mm f/2 and the GF63mm f/2.8.
So high time for a first review roundup, which also includes the test made by ephotozine, who ends up highly recommending it for it’s “superb and more affordable medium format for the highest quality“:
There is little doubt as to the quality of this lens, giving us masses of resolution, outstanding sharpness, beautiful bokeh, and a virtual lack of any of the usual aberrations such as CA and distortion. There is a small amount of flare in the worst scenarios, but we have to work at it to find it. Fujifilm certainly show that they still have all the skills for producing first class medium format lenses, and it is remarkable that they can do this in a zoom lens as well. Quality, versatility and a price that is very realistic. What’s not to like?
Petersburg, VA, USA, Feb 21, 2020: Metabones® and Caldwell Photographic Inc. are pleased to jointly announce the NF – GFX mount Expander 1.26x. It allows Nikon F mount lenses to be mounted on Fujifilm GFX camera bodies without getting dark and / or soft corners. The magnification factor of 1.26x perfectly matches the image circle of the full-frame Nikon lenses to the medium-format sensor of the GFX series cameras, and therefore the diagonal FOV remains exactly the same.
The optical design consists of 5 elements in 3 groups, incorporating ultra-high index Lanthanum based optical glass as well as one element made of fused silica, resulting in extremely good performances with professional-grade f/2.8 zoom lenses. For example, a 24-70mm f/2.8 lens becomes a 30-88mm f/3.5 zoom, and a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens becomes an 88-252mm f/3.5 zoom. Please note that because of the nature of focal extenders, the aperture values decrease by 2/3 of a stop; f/2.8 becomes f/3.5 and f/2 becomes f/2.5. High-speed fixed focal length lenses such as the 50mm f/1.4 will be transformed into a very fast standard lens 63mm f/1.8 for the GFX system.
The GFX mount Expander features Metabones’ unique manual G aperture adjustment mechanism, which has the same angular throw distance as earlier Nikon Ai/AiS lenses, which features a linearized f-stop adjustment as a function of aperture ring adjustment angle. The mechanism is clickless in order to maximize its usefulness to cinematographers.
