Thoughts on XF 90mm f2 for concert shooting

John M Roberts wrote:

georgehudetz wrote:

I've not used the 90 for concert shooting yet, but I've used the 23 & 56, which worked well:

https://georgehudetzphotography.smugmug.com/Events/i-7SrRLTH

I'm sure the 90 would work fine as well. The 16-55 should too. While I shot wide-open a lot, with spot metering, my ISOs were overall quite low, so f/2 or 2.8 should be fine, assuming lighting like you see in my shots above.

Nice work George. What shutter speeds were you using and about how low of ISO's? Were you using the X-T1 and how was the reaction time to nailing those quick moments. My X-E1 is a slug and I would never bother using it it that type of situation. I'd love to have a more compact system for theater musical venues other than my DSLR's.

Thanks.

Shutter speeds varied, from 1/60 to 1/200 (some may have been faster).  You can check the shutter speeds & ISOs if you click into any given image, and then click the "i" icon at the lower right.  Hint: You can scroll through the images while the info dialog is still posted by clicking the arrows on either side of the screen.

The AF of the X-T1 worked fairly well with the 23 & 56 (I think I have a few 14mm images in there as well).  I never did a hit-rate analysis but I had plenty of good shots to choose from.  It did help to anticipate the moments a bit - knowing the music helps there.  If I were to do it again, I'd use burst mode a little more.  So, it's not DSLR immediate but the X-T1 is good enough that you can work with it.

The 16-55 has noticeably faster AF than the 23 or 56 so I suspect it would be a nice step up.  Looking at my ISOs I think I'd be below 3200 for most of those shots at f/2.8, particularly if I kept the SS at 1/80 or so.  Not ideal, but the combination of the zoom & faster AF would mean more keepers, I do believe.

The 90 would simply rock (heh-heh) with it's exceptional rendering, both in front of, and behind, the field of focus.

I'd really love to try the X-Pro2 in such situations.  If it's as good as we are hearing, it should make for a true high-performance compact kit for event shooting.