As you know, the brand new Fujinon XF18-120mmF4 LM PZ WR features a Powerzoom, and I noticed some in the comments who asked how a PZ works.
Well, you will find the answer to this and other questions (some more simple like how to screw on a lens hood ;) ) in the dedicated Owners Manual here.
Some guys were sure: it is simply impossible that the Fujinon XF150-600mmF5.6-8 is sharp at 600mm, due to mathematical calculations considering f/8 on APS-C combined with statistical elaborations on the effect of diffraction for a pixel pitch of ….
OK, I hear you, let’s keep it short: the XF150-600mmF5.6-8 it’s an unusable piece of junk at 600mmF8.
And looking at the sample gallery shared by DPReview (not to be mistaken with DPRTV) at launch day, which were the worst possible samples, one would agree with the above.
But now it looks as if somebody at DPR had the decency to pull off the sample gallery, as the original link to them is now broken, the sample gallery never loads and on the main page any reference to the sample gallery (still visible in cached version) is gone.
So what happened? I see two options:
UPDATE: According to information I have received, the prototype lens didn’t have firmware for X-T4 (which was the camera used for the samples).
Anyway, damage done: the sample were so bad, that some Fuji shooters looking forward to this lens were hugely disappointed and moved away from it.
But the questions remains open: how does the XF150-600 perform at 600mm?
Well, I put to together a series of links where you can see the samples by yourself. Some of them I already shared in the live blog, but others are new links that I did not share in the original live blog coverage.
Look for example at samples of Alan Hewitt below. They show the performance at 600mm with an additional crop to it.
If you ask me, that is actually an excellent performance!
But as usual, watch by yourself and make up your own mind.
Pre-Orders
Fujifilm has cooperated with Wooden Camera to release a couple of accessories along with the Fujifilm X-H2S.
Here is their X-H2S offering:
The Latest and Greatest
So Fujifilm announced a new X mount roadmap. The three new lenses are:
During the X summit, they dispayed some technical sketches of the lenses which I used as a base to compare it to other X mount lenses.
Let’s go through the 3 comparisons:
We should keep in mind one thing:
The Fujifilm X-H2S is still in pre-production.
Fujifilm engineers are constantly and restlessly fine tuning, adjusting, tweaking, correcting, improving the firmware until almost the last day before it will ship to customers in mid-July.
This means: whoever tested the camera in the last few weeks, was actually playing around with a potentially buggy camera, and indeed some reviewers notices some bugs here and there (and reported them to Fujifilm).
But this also means, we can’t really make any conclusions about this camera in regards to IBIS, autofocus, image quality and what not.
The fact that it is just pre-production was highlighted also by Taylor Jackson in his Fujifilm X-H2S coverage, and yet, he seems to be impressed already by its autofocus, so much so that he says it is noticeably better than on his Canon EOS R6 and very likely on par with his Nikon Z9.
So why do I share this review in a dedicated article?
Well, because so far it is the only review I have found where a guy actually tests the X-H2S side by side with other cameras, meaning under the same conditions, same light, same subject, same everything. And we can actually see the different cameras tracking stuff side by side.
So what are his findings? Let’s find out in the summary and videos down below
He also shared a Fujifilm X-H2s wedding photography Behind the Scenes video, which I will also share down below.
In the wedding video he compares it to the Nikon Z9 (which he has used really a lot) for indoors wedding photography. Here are his findings:
But again, it’s pre-production. So don’t take anything here as the final verdict.
