I finally decided to buy the exquisite Fujifilm 90mm f2 and have been testing it thoroughly around town and at the pumpkin patch with the kids. I have to say, this thing is amazing and is one of Fujifilms best lenses in my opinion. Everything about it is just incredible.
For these Fujifilm 90mm f2 sample photos I shot almost entirely at f2. I figure what’s the point of having a fast, sharp lens with beautiful bokeh, if you’re not going to take advantage of it, at least in this situation with portrait style shooting. If I took this lens to Alaska I could see stopping it down and getting some great landscape, wildlife or glacier shots.
Fujinon 90mm f2 – Amazon / Adorama / BHphoto
Fujifilm 90mm f2 Sample Photos | XT2
This was no easy shoot. It was over 100 degrees. Running around and taking photos in the hot sun can wear you out after a while. Luckily this 90mm which has the equivalent view of 135 on a full frame camera, made it so I didn’t really have to run around too much. Most of the time I just found myself stepping back, and with two little kids running around, it allowed me to just follow them and shoot what shots I could without having to totally adjust my position – like I would do if I was on a wider lens.
The DoF is absolutely so beautiful and so shallow. It creates this effect where it totally smooths out any background while isolates the subject.
Focus Speed
I think what surprised me the most was the speed at which it could find focus. A lot of times with these longer lenses the camera can get stuck doing quite a bit of hunting before finding the subject, while this lens did hunt sometimes (like if you changed focus distance drastically between shots), for the most part, it was very quick.
The quick autofocus is likely thanks to that quad linear motor. And by-the-way, you’ll hear some elements or focusing mechanism in the camera move around if you shake or tilt this lens. It’s not broken, this is just the way it is so don’t worry about that.
Fujifilm 90mm f2 Build Quality
I guess I’m getting sort of into review territory here, but I’ll actually save my review for a later date since it will include a lot more information.
But there are a few cool things I’m excited to talk about, like the build quality.
I’ve been shooting with Fujifilm for a few years now and it’s really nice getting metal lenses from them. It feels like you’re getting something of quality that will last a lifetime. Canon, Nikon and Sony especially continue to make these very light weight almost cheap feeling plastic lenses. Like my Sony 50mm f1.8. It just feels so . . . fisher price compared to these Fujifilm lenses.
I think in the end, Fujifilm will cause a rift in the camera world because of this focus they have on catering to the traditional old school type of photographers. People really like this and want to use cameras that feel like cameras rather than gadgets.
They really focus on making cameras and lenses rather than on consumer electronics and it shows. It really does.
I think this is why Fujifilm is right now, completely dominating. Lenses like this 90mm f2 are a perfect example. It’s just exquisite, unmatched at the price you pay.
How I’ve Been Shooting With The Fujinon 90mm f2
The way I shoot with the 90mm is just like any other lens. I like to shoot with shutter and ISO set to auto, with limits of course.
I’ll set my limits so that my shutter never drops below 1/100. I think this is important on these longer lenses so you don’t get motion blur from camera shake. It also helps a lot when shooting with kids that are moving a lot. I was always getting so much blur at 1/60 that I had to just move up. For ISO I typically like to limit it to 6400, but lately I’ve been letting it drop lower.
I have a few settings that will allow the shutter to drop to 1/60 if my ISO goes lower than 6400 but this is for shooting mostly at night and with a lens like the 90mm f2, I’ve found I can still get away with shooting at 1/100 in night city lighting without dropping below 6400 ISO. Which you can see in my shoot here in Beverly Hills.
Post Processing Style With The Fujifilm 90mm f2
These Fujinon 90mm f2 samples photos all have a similar look to them and that’s intentional. I’ve been trying to process photos as sets, or stories, and I think this really helps with presentation. A lot of photographers for whatever reason don’t like to talk about their tricks or the filters they use. Patrick Laroque does, which I greatly appreciate as he’s been a huge inspiration to me for the last few years. By the way, check out his work here. It’s just so incredible how he can make every day mundane life look so cool.
What I did on these photos was pretty simple. I couldn’t get too complicated since I didn’t want to spend a lot of time in Lightroom, I’m a very busy person, so I stuck with pretty much the same few filters, which in this case came from the VSCO Film 06 Push & Pull Collection.
I seem to almost always be drawn towards Portra, or some form of a Kodak Gold. However, these shots were all variants of the Portra film stock.
If I’m not using VSCO I’ll stick with Fujifilm’s own Classic Chrome while shooting JPEG. I think Classic Chrome is still an incredible look and one of my favorite. Or, sometimes I’ll use RNI Film’s Kodachrome.
From there I’ll use some gradients to sort of build vignettes, I’ll do some tonal corrections and some local brushing which usually involves some tonal correction with a bit of clarity and contrast to make the subject really stand out.
Finally I add a bit of grain and sharpness. My formulas look like this.
Grain Settings In Lightroom
Amount: 18
Size: 60
Roughness: 47
Sharpness Settings In Lightroom
Amount: 32
Radius: 1.0
Detail: 25
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