Zoom Time
Beautiful, fun, rewarding, the result of hard labour and love. All of these could be used to describe both the Fujifilm XF 55-200mm F3.5-4.8 R LM OIS lens and Luxembourg's Moselle region. I recently spent some time with the former, exploring the latter :-)
Disclaimer: this is not going to be an in-depth review of Fuji's latest x-mount telephoto zoom, but rather a small account of a beautiful afternoon I used to get acquainted with this beast ;-)
I can't sleep during the day. Never could, never will. I guess it's just the way my body's wired. New year's day? Wide awake. The day following my wedding? Wide awake. The day following my son's birth? You might have guessed it, wide awake. The last 9 months the wife and I have been sort of getting to bed early, rising up a couple of times during the night to check on the kid (with all of my never-ending gratitude to Mrs. Oliglod.com for taking over most of the nightshifts) and getting up early again to get to the office. We were (and still are) kind of out of the "party all night" game, so last week's wedding of one of our friends was an interesting event for the both of us. While we really enjoyed ourselves, we were constantly checking our mobile phones for any messages as Nathalie's sister was babysitting, and finally arrived back home at 3.30 a.m., only to get out of bed at 7.30 a.m
While Nathalie was able to catch a bit of shuteye that afternoon, I decided to head towards Grevenmacher and try the lens on my X-E1, also bringing the X100S along for the ride in case I wanted some slightly wide-angle shots (or for the amazing macro capabilities).
In the end though, I shot about 90% of the time with the 55-200. This lens is sharp, focuses rather swiftly and correctly, offers pleasing bokeh and features great optical stabilisation. No, this is not the Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS II, but neither does it come with the same hefty price tag!
I'll leave you with handful of pictures of this exciting day. IMHO, seeing a real world shot is more helpful than reading MTF charts or pixelpeeping at brick walls, but your mileage may differ ;-)
Processing was done using VSCO Film04.
The full set can be found on my Flickr page.
If you're looking for more user reports, reviews and other articles featuring the lens that will stay glued to my X-E1 for the next couple of months (eagerly awaiting the 10-24, and the 56 f/1.2!!!) , check out below links (just a small selection about articles I really like):
See you soon, take care! :-)