Fujifilm GF 35-70mm f4.5-5.6 WR Lens : Review
Fuji GFX R + Fujifilm GF 35-70mm f4.5-5.6 WR @35mm. Focus Stacked two images at f14. Yep, even at that aperture, when focussed on the fallen silver birch branch roughly 1/3rd into the images, background trees were out of focus. Welcome to the medium format world. Click to view larger.
Here is the 20s version : If you need a small (relatively speaking) and light lens which is sharp enough for your Fuji GFX system, go for this one.
Well, sort of. You won’t find any brick wall or tilted photos. They are useful to judge general characheristics but mostly useless. I believe.
Last year I moved to medium format digital for my landscape work. It was mostly boredom and Fuji GFX-R available for half the price of the Sony A7xx upgrade I could have gone for. It most certainly was not for megapixels though. Sony would have an advanced backlit sensor with 61mp. I wanted something simpler for landscape work. Buttons to change or apply settings, decent viewfinder and colors out of the box. Of course, when you change a system the real cost is lenses. And initially I went the adapted lenses route. I quickly realised that this is not what I wanted. I have since slowly looked at my most used focal lengths. Fuji 45-100 fits that bill nicely. However, it is a large lens. Very large lens. The 35-70 became available again for some £400 over Christmas and it was too good a deal to pass. So here are real world images made with the lens during my weekly woodland walk. Click to view large size images. All the images are shot at ISO 100 and with no filter. I even forgot to take the lens shade which was dumb but it did fine.
Two features I absolutely love about the Fuji system are the Fuji Film simulation and aspect ratios available. The first image above was shot at 4x5 aspect ratio which is perhaps my most used aspect ratio using Fuji Acros film simulation. This simulation jpg becomes my reference point and is often a great starting point. I then do what I would do in the real darkroom, local dodging and burning, to get the final outcome.
Fuji GFX R + Fujifilm GF 35-70mm f4.5-5.6 WR Lens @35mm. f13, single frame using internal “Hasselblad x-Pan” aspect ratio which is my second most used aspect ratio. Velvia Simulation as reference. Click to view larger.
Fuji GFX R + Fujifilm GF 35-70mm f4.5-5.6 WR Lens @45mm. f8, single frame using internal “Hasselblad x-Pan” aspect ratio which is my second most used aspect ratio. Fuji Astia Simulation as a reference which was my favorite slide film back in the BeforeDigital era. Click to view larger.
Fuji GFX R + Fujifilm GF 35-70mm f4.5-5.6 WR Lens @70mm. f6.5, two frames for depth of field stitched. Again, used internal Hasselblad 500 aspect ratio. I could have stopped down a bit more but it was a windy day and the lone dying leaf was moving all the time.