Long lens for Fuji GFX

[Doug Peterson]

Hi,

No I did not attempt to use the Schneiders on the GFX.  I had been told you can't freeze the aperture like a Canon or Nikon Camera will allow by taking the lens off with the DOF button.

Who told you that?

Press the DOF preview button and eject the battery. The lens stays stopped down.

It's not an officially supported operation (nor is it on Canon, Nikon, Sony etc) and if it somehow damaged the lens it would be questionable whether it would be repaired under warranty, but I'd rate the risk as low.

[Paul2660]

Doug,

Thanks for the tip.  I had read somewhere, here or getdpi, this was not a good idea due to the leaf shutter but I will try it. 

Paul Caldwell

[Paul2660]

Who told you that?

Press the DOF preview button and eject the battery. The lens stays stopped down.

It's not an officially supported operation (nor is it on Canon, Nikon, Sony etc) and if it somehow damaged the lens it would be questionable whether it would be repaired under warranty, but I'd rate the risk as low.

I don't believe this works with a IQ3100, as it has power sharing, thus if you pull the battery from the camera, camera still runs from the battery in the back.  (great feature don't get me wrong).  If you power up just the camera, DOF preview will not work, surprising. At least on my XF it won't. 

Thus you have to turn on both back and camera, hit DOF preview, then with your other hand slightly release the lens from the XF (takes a bit of dexerity) then the Aperture stays stopped down. 

From there, you are totally correct, works fine on the GFX and very well BTW, at the preselected aperture.  Not the greatest solution but at least lets you use the excellent optics.

Paul Caldwell

[Doug Peterson]

I don't believe this works with a IQ3100, as it has power sharing, thus if you pull the battery from the camera, camera still runs from the battery in the back.  (great feature don't get me wrong).  If you power up just the camera, DOF preview will not work, surprising. At least on my XF it won't. 

Thus you have to turn on both back and camera, hit DOF preview, then with your other hand slightly release the lens from the XF (takes a bit of dexerity) then the Aperture stays stopped down. 

From there, you are totally correct, works fine on the GFX and very well BTW, at the preselected aperture.  Not the greatest solution but at least lets you use the excellent optics.

Paul Caldwell

I'd suggest pulling the second battery so you can remove it while the camera is off. Neither methods is officially supported, and I don't think either carries much of a risk, but when the camera is still on the contacts of the lens are still carrying electricity and at least in theory could cause issues to the lens if the body doesn't appropriately (and quickly) stop using the pins when you go to remove the lens.

Some of the Schneider LS Blue Ring line are uniquely great lenses, so I can see the temptation. Of course they work best on a Phase One body and only achieve their full look on a full frame 645 sensor .

[Paul2660]

Hi Doug:

The problem is,

1.  If you pull the camera battery, the camera stays on due to power share.

2.  If you pull the camera battery and back battery with back on, I would be a bit concerned about screwing up the back, due to the non normal shutdown.

3.  You can't use DOF preview without a back connected, at least I can't get it to.  That would be the best solution or disable power share, but neither option appears to be possible currently

So your mention of pulling the 2nd battery I assume means the battery in the back, and that would killing the back without a normal shutdown if I understand and only do that when I get a lock up which occurs less and less these days. 

Totally agree on the quality of the glass. 

Paul Caldwell

[chrismuc]

I was looking for an AF lens for the GFX in the 180-250mm range as an alternative to the very good but rather expensive, a bit heavy and not so fast GF 250f4 lens.

I tested several Canon EF options: The EF 180f3.5 Macro L and the EF 70-200f2.8 L II do not have sufficient image circle. The EF 200f2 L IS works perfectly with sufficient image circle and very good sharpness even towards the corners at open aperture but the lens is rather expensive (2nd hand), heavy and f2 is maybe overkill.

After confirmed by forum member Marc Aurel that the EF 200f2.8 L would have sufficient image circle for the 44x33mm sensor, I ebayed a 2nd hand lens and today did a few test shots using the Steelsring GF-EF AF adapter. The lens is very lightweight and not big at all, AF works fine (speed and precision), even with eye detection. Also at f2.8 there is hardly any vignetting, at open aperture the lens is not as biting sharp as the GF 110f2 but still good. Another positive surprise was, that the lens shows only little LCA (which I hate because it is not correctable in post ;-). Corner sharpness at f2.8 is already astonishingly good, at f8 it is very usable across the whole frame. The only negative to report is the strong cushion distortion which I corrected in ACR (-9).

So in case you own already a GF-EF AF adapter, you get for just EUR 550 a very useful 160mm f 2.2 equivalent lens for the GFX.

[chrismuc]

Here the test pics crops

center @ f2.8
corner @ f2.8

center @ f8
corner @ f8

[marc aurel]

I was looking for an AF lens for the GFX in the 180-250mm range as an alternative to the very good but rather expensive, a bit heavy and not so fast GF 250f4 lens.

I tested several Canon EF options: The EF 180f3.5 Macro L and the EF 70-200f2.8 L II do not have sufficient image circle. The EF 200f2 L IS works perfectly with sufficient image circle and very good sharpness even towards the corners at open aperture but the lens is rather expensive (2nd hand), heavy and f2 is maybe overkill.

After confirmed by forum member Marc Aurel that the EF 200f2.8 L would have sufficient image circle for the 44x33mm sensor, I ebayed a 2nd hand lens and today did a few test shots using the Steelsring GF-EF AF adapter. The lens is very lightweight and not big at all, AF works fine (speed and precision), even with eye detection. Also at f2.8 there is hardly any vignetting, at open aperture the lens is not as biting sharp as the GF 110f2 but still good. Another positive surprise was, that the lens shows only little LCA (which I hate because it is not correctable in post ;-). Corner sharpness at f2.8 is already astonishingly good, at f8 it is very usable across the whole frame. The only negative to report is the strong cushion distortion which I corrected in ACR (-9).

So in case you own already a GF-EF AF adapter, you get for just EUR 550 a very useful 160mm f 2.2 equivalent lens for the GFX.

Hi Chrismuc,
good to hear that the combo works for you. About the pincushion distortion: a value of -9 in ACR seems extreme. I hardly detected any. To me that sounds like the GFX embeds the profile for the Fuji 63mm lens. The camera does that if it does not recognise a lens. The latest firmware for the steelsring adapter should automatically remove that. Might it be that your adapter firmware is not the latest?
Best regards -
Marc

[chrismuc]

Servus Markus, hello Marc;-)

Acc. tests like lenstip.com the lens has about 1% pincushion distortion if used on a normal 135 camera, so not too much. On 44x33 it's of course more. It's a bit difficult to say how much this translates to ACR units.

I cropped my test pic to 36x24mm and it still needed -6 ACR units to straighten up.

The firmware of my Steelsring adapter is not latest but ist shows perfect exif data 'EF 200f2.8 L II' so I would assume that camera and photoshop would not apply a profile of another lens, but who knows.

I will test the lens on my Canon 1DX (tomorrow ... today too dark), import to ACR to see the amount of distortion, then we will know more.

Anyhow, the lens works excellent on the GFX. Enclosed two more shots form today.

First at f4, second at f2.8.

Christoph

[Joe Towner]

For image circle issues on the long Canon EF lenses, the 1.4x III should resolve it.  I'm looking forward to trying out a number of things once my current work load gets lighter at the end of the month.  I want to see the 100-400 mkII lens with the tele converter - just because we can.  The 200-400 is amazing with the 1.4x enabled, a night shot at 20 seconds / iso400 below.

[chrismuc]

@ Marc

1. I did a test shot with my 1DX and the lens shows just very little pincushion distortion. ACR -1 was enough to correct.

2. I opened the GFX raw file in Iridient X-Transformer and converted to to dng with ignoring lens corrections written into the file by the Fuji GFX. Opening that file by ACR shows very little pincushion distortion, ACR -2 enough to correct.

So you were right, the camera is adding a wrong lens correction to the file due to misleading information by the adapter. I downloaded the latest firmware for the Steelsring GF-EF adapter. Have to update the adapter firmware with the Mac which is bit fancy coz must use a terminal app. Will report after I (hopefully) succeeded.

[vjbelle]

Hi Chrismuc,
good to hear that the combo works for you. About the pincushion distortion: a value of -9 in ACR seems extreme. I hardly detected any. To me that sounds like the GFX embeds the profile for the Fuji 63mm lens. The camera does that if it does not recognise a lens. The latest firmware for the steelsring adapter should automatically remove that. Might it be that your adapter firmware is not the latest?
Best regards -
Marc

Marc..... I read your post with more than a little interest since I use my GFX with my Schneider Digitar's and wasn't aware that there could be an embedded profile which I wouldn't want.  I tested my 60mm XL on both my 3100 and GFX and brought both images into C1 and could detect no visual difference.  I don't know if a profile was imbedded in the GFX file and C1 applied a correction or if there was no imbedded profile. 

Victor

[Bo_Dez]

Has anyone tried the Canon 200mm f2L on the GFX?

[marc aurel]

Marc..... I read your post with more than a little interest since I use my GFX with my Schneider Digitar's and wasn't aware that there could be an embedded profile which I wouldn't want.  I tested my 60mm XL on both my 3100 and GFX and brought both images into C1 and could detect no visual difference.  I don't know if a profile was imbedded in the GFX file and C1 applied a correction or if there was no imbedded profile. 

Victor

Hi Victor,

you're right. My statement was not 100% correct. The GFX does not apply the embedded profile to ALL lenses it does not recognize. It ONLY does this when lenses with electronic aperture control are connected via a smart adapter (for example Canon EF lenses). My Zeiss PC-Distagon adapted to the GFX was not affected. So I guess with your Schneider Digitars the problem is not existant too.

It's difficult to understand what really happens. The GFX does nothing unexpected when there is a non-native lens attached without electronic connection. But when there is a non-Fuji lens with electronic aperture control, attached via a smart adapter, then the GFX panics and embeds it's standard prime lens profile (63mm lens), just in case...   
It took Steelsring and Techart a while to bring out firmware updates that convinced the GFX that everything is fine and there is no need to do that.

Marc

[vjbelle]

Marc..... so good to hear!! Thanks much for posting.

Victor

[chrismuc]

@ Bo Dez

the EF 200f2 L IS works very well on the GFX

enclosed an example at open aperture (@ ISO 800)

(full and corner crop)

[MattBurt]

Do check out the Pentax 645 A* 300 F4.

I've used this on the 645z (and my 5dsr) and it's a stunning lens.
The manual focus version can be had for under $500 CAD from my memory. 

I believe they may have made a matching 1.4x as well.

I was going to mention that too. The lens and 1.4x are great on my 645D and if I ever get a GFX body I'm planning on keeping it for that.
Before that one I had a Pentax 67 300/4 that was also great but it's huge.

I think this shot was with the 67 version. Not much difference in the 645 version's rendering.

[airfang]

Has anyone tried Contax 350/4 and/or Hassy 300/4 on the GFX?

[chrismuc]

Contax 645 350f4 and Contax N 400f4 (EF converted) both work well (= good IQ across the frame from open aperture) with Steel adapters (auto aperture works fine, autofocus did not work with early firmware half year ago).
Chris