It really does seem like everyone is going to Japan on Holiday these days. Last year was the same ever since the Yen went through the floor and made it rather cheap, and social media really did make it the place to go.
I’m very much looking forward to a holiday given that we haven’t had one in two years, and having been to Japan 5 times in the last 10 years as well as planning to move next year my outlook on the trip will be a bit different from usual. I’ll be looking at things a bit closer from a ‘I’m going to be living here’ perspective, as well as being the first time travelling as a family of 3. It will also be the first time travelling with a ‘proper’ camera and I’m quite excited about that as well.
Over the last few months I had been thinking long and hard about what to take despite having some reasonably compact Sony Full frame gear as detailed in this post I cannot be the only hobby photographer who has used a holiday as an excuse to buy some new equipment, So yes inevitably a bout of Gear acquisition syndrome strikes again!
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| Fujifilm X-T5 with 50mm F/2 |
Fujifilm (again)
If you have read my post on G.A.S, you’ll know I’ve had 2 Fuji cameras in the last year: The X-M5 and the X-T50 along with Kit lenses and subsequently sold both for various reasons. Those are entry level cameras with budget lenses so certainly not the best Fujifilm has to offer. I did consider the popular X100VI, as a compact fixed lens camera with all the latest features but my love for telephoto, even short telephoto ranges (50-85mm) means it falls short for me in usability, and although I like the idea of forcing creative constraints upon myself as it makes for a better photographer, well, I can still do that when I want to with an interchangeable lens body and a prime lens.
I have never really liked or understood APS-C sized sensors mostly because for many manufacturers it's simply their entry level lower cost offerings, so they often don't get a great lens selection nor premium bodies: Canon, Nikon and Sony are guilty of this. Though the Sony A6700 is probably the exception, you are better off spending just a little more and getting into the full frame offerings. If you want a smaller sensor for more compact lenses, then Micro Four Thirds is a better option in my opinion, as for Panasonic and Olympus it has been their primary system for years with a great selection of bodies and lenses from budget to pro grade.
The difference with Fuji is that despite them also being APS-C, it is their main system and as such gets their full attention and it shows in their range of bodies and lenses.
So, with the help from the awesome team at Auckland Camera Centre I picked up a Silver X-T5. It’s actually quite similar to the X-T50. However, it is larger and more robust, weather sealed, has dual card slots, has proper manual dials and feels a lot more premium whereas the X-T50 felt just a little toy-like. The 40MP sensor is great and gives you plenty of scope to crop - you still end up with 20MP if using the 1.4x digital teleconverter, which in itself still allows you ability to crop even more if just posting photos online.
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| Fujifilm X-T5 with 50mm F/2 |
The silver body looks fantastic - I was leaning toward black as apparently the paint wears rather easily and the black looks better when worn, but seeing the silver in the flesh, well it just had to be and I’ll live with the consequences if it starts looking a bit shabby.
For lenses I planned to just go with the Red badge 16-55 II F2.8 as it is the best zoom Fuji makes, and is often referred to as 'a bag of primes' but with the versatility that is ideal for travel. Unfortunately it was on backorder, so I re-assessed my options (and read a whole lot more reviews) and ultimately decided against it due to the impression that it is not quite as good as the price tag suggests, especially considering what you can get for the same money on Sony Full frame. I'll have a look at one later on though.
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| Left to right: 55-200mm, 50mm F2, 23mm F2, 16-50mm XF |
Lenses
Here is what I ended up with as my 4 lens kit for general use:
Fujifilm XF 23 F/2 WR
For around $700 NZD new, a 35mm Full frame equivalent is very useful as a walkaround lens. This ‘series’ of lenses (16/23/35/50mm) have a similar design language with their slightly conical shapes, and are often referred to as 'Fujicrons'. They have great build quality along with aperture rings and silent fast focusing. F2 is plenty fast too and are capable wide open. I got silver thinking it would look cool on a silver body, which in hindsight was a mistake as it looks a bit cheap. Black would have been better. A minor niggle but I'm happy with the lens itself.
Fujifilm XF 50 F/2 WR
I picked this up second hand from a shop for $499, an absolute bargain. Same build as the above lens. 76mm in full frame terms makes it more versatile than a normal 85mm, and as a short telephoto it is great for many uses including portraits and easy to blur backgrounds at F2. Super sharp too. I can opt to leave the zooms at home and just carry this and the 23mm, almost being the classic 2 prime lens combo of 35/85 equivalent, which is new to me as I have always leaned toward carrying a 24 and a 50mm, so I will be interested to see in the long run which combo I prefer!
Fujifilm XF 55-200 F/3.5-4.8
I originally planned to get the newer 70-300 for the extra reach and ability to use with a teleconverter for wildlife (for a max 630mm full frame equivalent), however I found this second hand for a bargain $699 and it has exceeding my expectations. It’s smaller than the aforementioned lens though the same weight and great build (though lacks weather sealing) The 55 at the wide end makes it more versatile when out and about than if it was starting at 70. It is sharp across the board and f/4.8 at the long end is reasonably fast for a lens like this, you usually expect it to be f/5.6 so the extra speed is a bonus.
Later I shall add the Sigma 100-400 as a dedicated wildlife lens, which will give me a whopping 840mm equivalent and 20MP images when using the 1.4x digital teleconverter!
Fujifilm XF 16-50 F/2.8-4.8 WR
I needed a wide angle of course and was going to get the XF 16 F/2.8 prime, however for only a few hundred dollars more I got the new kit class zoom that is a standard 24-75 full frame equivalent. At the wide end it’s F/2.8 so just as fast as the little 16 prime but with the added bonus of versatility by having a very small and light zoom. Seems sharp enough to me and people online agree that it's a good substitute for the 16mm Fujicron. A key feature with this lens is that it is all internal zooming - it does not get larger, so remains small and discrete. I can’t fault this lens other than the variable aperture and I should have probably got it in a kit with the camera from the start to save some monies.
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| Fujifilm X-T5 with 55-200mm |
Fujifilm - Shooting RAW or JPEG?
Earlier I mentioned not wanting to have to edit a tonne of holiday photos. Fuji is great for this because the JPEG's straight out of camera are fantastic although I’ve got my editing-on-the-go workflow pretty efficient - I simply transfer photos to my phone via the app and edit in lightroom mobile and upload to google photos. Even that still takes a while to get through a lot of images, and sometimes it takes way too long when deciding on ‘the look’ that I want.
With Fujifilm, you can program your own ‘recipes’ based on the built in film simulations to give a variety of looks straight out of the camera. Shooting just JPEG without a RAW backup (which you can do particularly with the dual card slots of the XT-5) seems daunting but I like the challenge of knowing I need to get it right at the time without the safety net of making heavy corrections later. The Fuji Jpegs actually stand up pretty well to a bit of light editing, I have used Snapseed on my phone just for light tweaks to exposure when needed without any noticeable degradation of image quality - just don’t push it too far.
I am already familiar with the film simulations and many of the recipes out there, so selecting and tweaking the 7 recipes (max you can store on the X-T5) took about a week of testing and adjusting. I like each recipe to use a different film simulation also, no point in my mind having multiple recipes using classic chrome for instance, as they often look too similar.
The recipes I have programmed into my X-T5 (along with the links to them from Fuji X weekly)
- Fujicolor Pro 160C - Reala Ace - For general use, and changing film sim to Pro Neg Hi for portraits.
- Fujifilm Velvia 50 - Velvia - For colorful landscapes.
- Kodak Porta 400 - Classic Chrome - For that warm summery vibes look.
- Fujifilm Superia 100 - Classic Negative - For that contrasty deep green classic Japanese film look.
- Kodak Tri-X 400 - Acros R - For a black and white option. Good for boring skies or high ISO.
- Cinestill 800T - Eterna - For night time outdoors under lights
- Lomochrome Metropolis - Eterna Bleach Bypass - Almost like black and white, but with that little bit of color, quite dramatic.
At the bottom of the page are some example images taken with some of these film recipes to give you an idea of the different looks you can achieve straight out of camera.
I have no personal interest in emulating actual film stocks, so I have made some slight tweaks to all of the above. I don’t use grain or soften my images with negative clarity or sharpening (I actually add a bit of clarity to everything), I never use DR200 or DR400 as it’s easier to expose correctly and all except Cinestill 800T I use auto white balance though I keep the color shifts reasonably close to each recipe.
There is one major downside in my opinion to shooting JPEG if you have been a RAW shooter and that is control of highlights. There is absolutely no way to get around the fact that if your subject and shot overall is perfectly exposed, your sky especially if bright overcast will be blown out to bright white. Fujifilm cameras have options to negate this such as DR400 and HDR but the affects are negligible particularly when comparing to what you can do with a RAW file. One way around this is to try and reduce the significance of the sky in compositions, as I have done in the images at the bottom of the page. I may end up shooting in RAW when it matters, whilst doing further practice and experimentation with JPEGs.
Fuji RAW conversion
With Fujifilm cameras you do not have to commit to just JPEGs or RAWs even at the same time. You can shoot RAW and then edit IN CAMERA. With this feature you have all the film recipe options in camera that you can apply to the RAW and export to your card, all in camera! This is great if you want to apply a different number of film simulations to a shot so you can check them out later. The downside of this is you can only see the finished image when it is converted - you cannot view the affects of your adjustments in real time.
But on that note, Fujifilm has a computer program called RAW X Studio, and this does the exact same function as the in-camera RAW processing but on your computer where you can see the affects of your adjustments in real time. It's a quirky setup - the camera has to be connected via USB as it is the camera's processor that does the work as opposed to your computer doing it. I've found it slow and clunky on windows for some reason but it is a fantastic concept and only if we had a mobile app version!
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| Screenshot of Studio X Raw from the Fujifilm website |
So what am I taking?
I'm still not sure. It really is a tough question. I'd take it all but then you have the annoyance of too much choice and you end up lugging everything everywhere and it is not fun and ultimately you take less photos. Whatever I do decide to take in the end be it this new Fuji gear or my Sony gear, I'm looking forward to taking lots of photos and having a great time. I'll probably end up selling one after I get back, particularly if whatever I take convinces me that's the kit to keep!
Let me know your thoughts on my conundrum! I'll do a post when I get back on the photography side of my trip and you'll learn what I took and what I thought of it.
I won’t be posting whilst we are away, though no doubt I’ll have a backlog to write about in the months following which I’m exciting about. I will be posting photos on Instagram though, so check that out!
