The New Macro On The Block

And I got cloooooose to it. It's the one that has just been brought out for my camera system this year and it is the most tempting item in Murray Street! The Fujinon 30mm f:2.8 is an XF lens - it fits Fujifilm APS-C cameras and integrates with all their functions. It's designed for macro as well as general purpose shooting - but the f:2.8 - f:22 aperture range is deliberately tilted to the close shooting. The macro workers need all the native depth of field they can get without going into diffraction loss - this is the reason for the choice. The lens is light - as many primes are - and features a useful automatic lock at the end of the aperture range - you can click this in and then select a shutter speed that will let you hold steady enough - of course the more modern users with IBIS bodies will get the most benefit from this as they can hand-hold to much lower speeds. Some macro workers - myself included - feel that this discipline should be shot with a lens set on manual focusing - we've tried it the other way and watched an AF system try to fight us. In many cases it wins, but the images lose out. We try to push in and out with tiny movements to frame something , the AF system tries to act despite our efforts, and the camera will not shoot until a lock is achieved. it's madness with a flower shaking in the wind or a beetle beetling off. We adopt all sorts of ploys; putting a paper cone around a wild flower in the breeze, putting the beetle in the freezer until it slows down, clamping things left, right, and centre and doing the sort of breath controls that rifle shooters and escaping submariners use. Sometimes it works. I rely on a big 'ol Gitzo tripod for my macro work in the studio, and the tabletop models do not move from one week to the next. This new lens has been formulated as to deliver the sort of resolution that can be used by the latest Fujifilm sensors - far more detailed than my old X-Pro-1. But as the lens can still mount on this first body, I was able to try it outside as a landscape lens - very effective - and inside with a flash as a tabletop lens. The progressive dive into the 35mm f:1.4 shows the degree to which you can approach a subject, but the last in the series of the lens hood's markings was taken with the lens front of the lens mount nearly touching the subject - the illumination slipped into the slot from a side direction. This is not a macro for wildlife subjects but it would be perfect for slide shooting and products that could be transilluminated. It is also a very effective auto-focuser, so it could be used with the focus-bracketing capabilities of T-2, 3, 4 and 5 cameras as well as the H series. With a solid light source and a focus stacking program on your computer you could master nearly any close depth of field easily. I cannot tell you how tempted I am by this lens. Even as a one-shot it would literally double the depth of field on my little sets. What can I sell to get the money to buy it? Or whom...?