2522 - Curtains

A lot of new cameras and lenses are coming out, my OM-D will be more complicated to speak about soon, but that’s not what I want to talk about today. It’s the Fujis that currently make the news. There will soon be a new “low end” camera and there are some new lenses, with the new FUJINON XF23mm F1.4 R lens the one currently being talked about.

It is a beautiful lens that gets rave reviews. In fact, most of the Fuji lenses get rave reviews. Did I buy into the wrong system?

That’s the kind of thoughts that go through my head almost automatically, but then I start thinking about why I switched over to Olympus Micro Four Thirds in the first place. Yes, it’s a mature system with a vast array of lenses, but coming from Nikon DX I had all that and much more. Sensor size was APS-C, just as the Fujis, image quality was top when the D300 came out and it is certainly state of the art for the current flagship DX format camera. I could have upgraded to Nikon FX like so many others, and while the Fuji may be on par with top Nikons in terms of image quality, everything else, autofocus, speed, robustness can’t compete.

No, what drove me away from Nikon were size and weight. Certainly, Fuji has smaller and lighter bodies (and Sony even more so, though not as beautiful), but the problem with APS-C format sensors is, that they require the lenses to be of a certain size - and with size comes weight. Just look at that FUJINON XF23mm F1.4 R: it weighs 300 g, and although it is a better lens than the Olympus 17/1.8 that took today’s image, it costs 1.7 times as much and weighs 2.5 times as much. It’s physically bigger as well and it is not stabilized. Neither is the Olympus, but it doesn’t need to be, the sensor is.

You see, my world is still in perfect order, nothing has been shattered by Fuji’s announcement 🙂

Of course YMMV and if Fujis are what you fancy, all the power to you. It’s just not what I need or want.

The Song of the Day is “Curtains” from Elton John’s “Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy”. Hear it on YouTube.