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Man, only Royals and Nobility have longer names... Well, this is Fujifilm's way of naming certain aspects their optical lenses have. I think "WR" stands for Weather Resistant, LM maybe for the type of focus motor, and "R" ? I have no clue...
The Fuji GF 23mm f 4 lens is a robust, quite heavy and optically excellent ultra-wide angle lens for the Fujifilm GFX medium format system. Since the sensor is larger than fullframe, this 23mm lens is equivalent to an 18mm ultra-wide angle lens (on a 24x36 / 35mm camera).
Less distortion
Albeit, the distortion of this 23mm wideangle lens is less that what you get form a 18mm lens on a fullframe camera. Which makes images look very pleasant I must say !
Why it has less distortion I am not fully sure (nor do I fully understand it). It has to do with that lenses made for larger sensors and/or film sizes, do not distort image borders in the same way, because they require a longer lens [23mm in this case] (but give the same view like in this case a 18mm lens on fullframe). This apparently makes the typical distortion effect of ultra wide angle lenses being less intrusive, compared to a fullframe 18 mm equivalent lens.
I didn't know that...
I was surprised !
I do remember not long time ago, when I first closed in on the Fujifilm GFX camera system, that the 23mm f 4 lens was the one which stood out the most to my eyes. Really in an impressive way (without that I could put finger on it)
Of all lenses Fuji offers, I thought that was a special one; brilliant colors, wonderful wide look, and had excellent sharpness from corner to corner and surprisingly; a lovely background blur if you went very close to a subject. And of course, everything was smoother and more even - compared to adapting a fullframe type of lens on a camera with bigger sensor (creating dark corners and some corner smearing, especially with wide angle lenses)
The only drawback i saw, was an occasional ugly color pattern (created from reflections of the sensor), when you had the sun in the frame (not always but sometimes).
Everything else, I thought looked stunning. Kind of the perfect landscape lens. Big scenes, especially when you had larger elements in it. Of course if the landscape is flat, and there isn't much going on - and the results will be flat and boring, too.
I'll keep that in mind, and need to move my ass into the world more often !
Second hand.
I bought the lens second hand.
The original price in Sweden for this lens is 'forbidden expensive'. Ok, everything is relative, given that many lenses now approach high prices, even many fullframe lenses do.
The Fujifilm GF 23mm f 4 cost around 28.000 SEK in Sweden - albeit Fuji now has a drive on some of their lenses - but that indicates to me, that they likely will raise the price even further, I am sure !! And it wasn't in my plans to buy one...
However, Cyberphoto had one second hand sample of this lens, for 15000 SEK (1290 €) - and that was actually an even better price compared to importing one from Japan, (1220 €) which then of course adds customs, Swedish tax and post fees + shipping, and you end up around 16-17000 SEK making it even more expensive compared to the offer from Cyberphoto with 6 month guarantee.
This is odd - a new law in Sweden for second hand goods ?
(The receipt speaks something about Tax advantage when buying a second hand lens in Sweden, as there is no more tax involved, but might be taken up to ones annual tax calculations ? That would be something entirely new law, which I was not aware of. (I am not sure if i understood this correctly, either)
If true - then you stupids fucks (Read: Gov), always frikkin' greedy, where enough isn't enough. But hey we need to pay for weapons to the Nazi's in Ukraine fighting against Russia, right ? All in the name of saving "democracy", says one of the most corrupted Eu figures, van der Leyen. And Ukraine one of the world's most corrupted countries in the world... Makes all just so much sense. Sweden sent 22 Billion SEK to their corrupted pockets. I mean from our pockets - the money that people pay for taxes, which are shamefully misused by those who call themselves our leaders / politicians.
Who is lying to whom !!?
You can't make that shit up.
Frikkin' clown show.
OK, back to the Fujinon 23mm f 4 lens:
Filling a vital (wide view) gap
The lens fills a large gap in my (useful) wide angle lenses on the Fuji GFX 50s II camera. One I can use, is the Canon TSE 17mm f 4 L Tilt-Shift lens, turning into an extreme wide 13mm lens. A bit too much for my taste, to say the least - but also interesting. (I am glad it works on the Fuji, though).
Then comes a gap all the way up to 28mm, where I have no lens that really works well on the Fuji. From there on, towards telephoto - I have no problems, because several top lenses from Canon and Sigma works very well on the Fuji GFX.
So, the new Fujifilm GF 23/4 lens equivalent to 18 mm, will fit absolutely nicely into the gap of 13mm to 28mm.
Landscapes, Cityscapes & Clouds
Think Night scapes, cityscapes, landscapes, CLOUDS and such things. And i believe the price for this second hand lens in year 2023 is actually a very good price ! Also compared to the original price, being almost twice of it.
I will have it paid off in 3 month, when i pay 5000 SEK every month. I decided that by free will, because I don't have to pay that much - yet this is much better doing so, in order not to strain my budget any further, than I have already done (by buying the Fuji GFX camera).
Enjoying, but the weather was iffy
While the weather has been at times, very rainy, VERY windy, and at times ruggedly chilly down to frost temperatures... I never went out to make any photos, neither with the Vertex Method + Pentax 6x7 lenses, nor with the normal way of using the Fujifilm GFX 50s II as a "single shot" camera.
So, during winter time, these activities tend to ebb out - and come back in spring, when the sunlight bites one in da ass (Read; spring light inspires - dragging you out of the house.... without effort). |
