Proof Of The Pudding

You'll recall that the last blog posting mentioned a new wide-angle converter for the Fujifilm X-100 series of cameras. It converts the 23mm lens that is fixed on the X-100 and X-100s to 19mm. You might think that 4 mm wider is not significant...but it really is.

Wide angle photography is a funny business. Leaving out panoramas and wide-format film cameras...and these are truly funny...we come to the way that standard digital cameras can be made to see a wide view of the world. Please keep in mind that wide also means high - when you drop the focal length by whatever means you effectively pack more into the frame vertically as well as horizontally. In other words you don't change the aspect ratio as you shoot.

Except, of course, when you do, Some cameras allow you to shoot in a 16:9 format to accommodate wide-screen television display. One client recently found that his camera has an external switch that does this, and when he inadvertently clicked it over he got image files that do not print out all that well on standard 2:3 inkjet paper. Now he knows.

For my part, I exercised the new converter on the X-100 at the Whiteman Park car show yesterday. There was a Nikon SB 700 helping to add sparkle and to cope with the shadows when the sun came out. It all worked splendidly.

As far as I can determine, the shots from this show are every bit as sharp as those taken with the companion camera - the Fujifilm X-E2 - taken at a previous show. In addition, the leaf shutter of the X-100 meant that I could run the shutter speed up and down for background effect without worrying about  getting the wrong flash synchronisation.

The focal length on the camera is now effectively 19mm and this approximates to 28mm on a full-frame camera. This is wide enough to allow a little closer shooting at a car show but avoids the looming corner effect of wider focal lengths - this is about as wide as you want to go to preserve some proportion in the result.

It must be noted, however, that if you need to go close-in, you need to unscrew the converter, turn off the powerful Nikon SB 700, and use the in-built flash on the camera. If you leave the converter in place you get a semi-circular shadow on the bottom of the image where the lens blocks the light.

Methinks the next stage of experimentation is to put a Fujifilm TTL flash on a coiled cord and see if it can overcome this handicap.