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Beauty is in the eye of the Fuji X pro 1 – part two

As promises I’m back with a follow up to the ‘beauty is in the eye of the Fuji X pro 1 and this time I’ve managed to get my hands on the Fujinon XF 60mm f/2.4 R Macro Lens:-hallelujah 🙂

Before we start here’s a little bit about the gripes I had with the lens:

Even though the AF and Manual focusing has been greatly improved with the recent Ver 2.00 firmware update it is still extremely hard to focus either manual or with the AF at close range. I found the closest focusing distance to be around 28cm and it only magnified by 0.5x rather than 1x like my old the Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM Lens which meant I had to crop a lot of my images to create a macro effect. However as a portrait and beauty lens this is exceptional, the overall image quality and sharpness far outdo the 60mm Canon.

Here are some of the shots I took with the lovely Naomi from Milk Management and my thoughts on each.

© Michelle George

ISO 100 ƒ/4.0 1/125 sec shot with the model about 40cm in front of the camera, it has now been cropped and rotated for effect. Lighting: beauty dish in paramount position.

© Michelle George

ISO 100 ƒ/4.0 1/125 sec shot with the model about 60cm in front of the camera, slight crop to improve the framing. Lighting: beauty dish in paramount position.

© Michelle George

ISO 100 ƒ/5.6 1/125 sec shot with the model about 70cm in front of the camera. I narrowed the aperture slightly to make sure eyes, nose and lips where in focus, cropped again to improve the framing. Lighting: Bowens Sunlite reflector with Supersoft 600 diffuser in paramount position.

© Michelle George

ISO 250 ƒ/4.0 1/110 sec . Here you can see the effects of the wide aperture setting where the lens focuses in on the lips and nose creating a beautifully subtle Bokeh from the tip of the nose upwards (Kudos to fuji for the quality of Bokeh). Lighting: 500w tungsten lamp in paramount position

For the last session I wanted to experiment with Alien Skin’s: Blow Up software, that I had downloaded as a free trail. Blow up claims to create crystal clear enlargement that far surpass photoshop. So I decided to positioned the model 2 meters from the camera and used an extreme crop along with the Alien Skin’s: Blow Up software to see if I could still get great beauty shots at this distance.
Exposure: ISO: 800 ƒ8.0 1/80sec. Lighting: 500w tungsten lamp in loop position with various gobo’s for shadow effect.

© Michelle George

© Michelle George

Even though the results are nice and Blow up possibly did do a better job than photoshop. I’m still not too keen on the overall quality and the sharpened edges look a little fake. Nevertheless this is fundamentally a review of the Fujinon XF 60mm f/2.4 R Macro Lens which I have to say I am pretty please with! The X Pro 1’s ability to create sharp, noise free images at a high ISO still blows me away…

Cant wait till Fuji decide to release their new lens for the X pro 1

Photography, retouching an make up: Michelle George

Model Naomi at Milk management

 

  • BLACK HAT HACKER says:

    Posted: October 4, 2012


    Reblogged this on Mega Spot.

    Reply

  • peterchad says:

    Posted: October 14, 2012


    Nice work Michelle, I agree with all you say about the 60mm Fuji lens, its a great lens and just as quirky as the rest of the X-pro 1 set. Keep up the great work.

    Reply

  • creativelondonphotographer says:

    Posted: October 17, 2012


    Thank you Peter!

    Reply

  • Gustavo Mier (@g_mier) says:

    Posted: January 1, 2013


    Hi Michelle i totally love your blog, your creative talent is just unbelievable, great stunning pictures. I want to become a professional photographer and I'm looking for the perfect camera, im sick of all those bulky and heavy dslr full frame cameras and i think i would be better whit a x-pro1,and now seen what you can do with such little machine im sold. I wold love if you can recommend me a lightning strobe equipment, due to I'm starting i wold like some simple setup whit a beauty dish as main light, what would you recommend me. If you can help that would be great. Cheers from México and my best wishes to you on this new year

    Reply

    • creativelondonphotographer replies:

      Posted: January 4, 2013


      Thank you!! As far as studio lighting goes I tend to use bowens flash heads, mainly with a beauty dish but I do have a soft spot for my tungsten theatre light, which gives a more film like effect.
      Good luck in setting up your studio:)

      Reply

       

     

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