The 90/2 on the streets for Mardi Gras

Hello,

I thought it might be worth sharing some shots to show particular features of how the Fujifilm 90/2 can render (in my modestly experienced use), to get street candids and parade photos. All photos taken in the last few days here in New Orleans, with my rather battered X-T1 (new eye cup on order, gonna live with the cracked LCD until it dies).

The weather over the weekend was rainy, but Monday and Tuesday were sunny, if a bit cool and breezy by local standards. Shooting these parades is a lot of fun, with great opportunities to play with people, but there is a lot of jostling, and it is very hard to get in position to get a good shot, and optimizing light is near impossible...so a lot of hard light in these shots.

The first set is from a very small parade in Marigny on Monday, called Krewe of Red Beans, and later ones are from one of the most (justly) famous parades, Zulu on Tuesday morning [an article on the complex and very different from currently controversial) use of blackface makeup in the Zulu parade -- please comment on politics elsewhere].

TL;DR: Yup, great acuity. Seems to preserve tonal gradients well, even in high contrast situations (with careful processing from RAFs). Reasonable zone AF-C on an X-T1 with drive on CL. Blur is very smooth, with no glaring outlines, cats-eye shape or onion rings, but with a discernible polygonal shape when stopped down.

All photos developed from RAFs in Iridient Developer, and tweaked and cropped in (gasp!) Apple Photos. JPEGs exported at moderately high quality at full (cropped) pixel resolution. The bright light and saturated colors push the sRGB JPGs beyond their gamut in some areas.

Never in style! Parade watcher at Red Beans in Marigny. This is wide open, as one can see from the circular bokeh balls in the background. Acuity is fine, one can see individual whiskers in the beard and pick out stitches on that cosmic jacket.

Dapper man, waiting for Red Beans. Stopped down 2 stops to f/4, the highlights in the background take on a polygonal shape. The 90 still has pretty shallow DOF at this aperture.

Tossing beads from a balcony near Jackson Square (St Louis cathedral in background), walking back after Red Beans. I wanted depth of field so I stopped down to my usual smallest stop of f/11. The shadows were lifted a lot in this very high contrast scene.

Waiting for Zulu. Mid aperture image with the 90, across two lanes of Orleans Avenue. To me, the 90 seems to give nice tonal gradations even with the harsh midday light. Even at this top, you see a bit of focus separation with the truck, etc.

Zulu Krewe member walking right in front of me, wide open. Zone focus actually works okay *for this scenario*, even with the X-T1 (shot with the drive on CL).

Zulu Krewe member with bokeh balls. At f/2.8, one can see a little bit of polygonal versus round shape in the colorful highlights to the left of the subject, but there is not any appreciable outlining or "onion ring" effect in the bokeh. Again, the X-T1 and 90 track okay (for this use case) using CL; no, it ain't birds in flight.

Excellent pictures Dave. I'm a fan of the eccentric myself. Also with the 90mm f2.

Vic

Vic,

Wonderful shots. I’m pretty sure you I’ve seen the fellow with the top hat an goggles around the Quarter and Marigny, myself (but as they say, no pic so it didn’t happen!).

Itd be lovely if others chimed in with other street-ish 90 shots, from wherever.

Thanks for your comment and for posting your photos.

Good work.

Fun set Chris

Morris

Great shots and pretty creative to use a 90 for street. Looking at the photos it makes a lot of sense

Thanks to all who have viewed and commented. And Vic for adding his shots. Here’s another call for anyone else that shots the 90 on the street to share!

The 90 is great if the distances are a bit long (as imposed by barriers at the parades), for candid portraits, and for street performers. I also use the Rokinon 135/2 for those, but as an unstabilized manual focus lens it is hard to use in many situations.

The parades are interesting — to me, especially Zulu and quirky parades like Krewe de Vieux and Muse, are the most fun. All the parades have good street scenes.

But, I am glad to be able to get around the city more easily again.

Thanks again for the views and comments.

Some shoots with X-T3+XF90 lens.

Beautiful series I really missed this lens since I I have sold it because of its size .

Btw the last picture is full of colors and feels.

Wonderful colors and bokeh. This lens is a joy.

I like the photos, but holy purple-fringing Batman.

Poncho,

Great shots, I have specially like the masked figure with the colorful jacket and out of focus background. Do you mind saying where they were taken?

Thanks for posting.

zakaria wrote:

Beautiful series I really missed this lens since I I have sold it because of its size .

Btw the last picture is full of colors and feels.

Thank you for viewing and commenting. I think that last one is my favorite, too.

DarnGoodPhotos wrote:

I like the photos, but holy purple-fringing Batman.

???

CeeDave wrote:

Poncho,

Great shots, I have specially like the masked figure with the colorful jacket and out of focus background. Do you mind saying where they were taken?

Thanks for posting.

Thanks for your comments. All the pictures were taken in Venice (Italy) during Carnival, a couple of weekends ago, but the last one which was taken in San Sebastian (Spain).

nznikon wrote:

As someone who's thinking of coming over to Fuji (looking at an X-Pro2 and lenses), wonder how these shots would have looked with the 50-140. Seems like the zoom would offer more flexibility (says the Nikon shooter who loves the 70-200).

Comments??

The 50-140 is a great lens and perfect for someone who prefers zooms to primes. While the zoom on the right offers OIS, this is the most obvious difference between the two.

DarnGoodPhotos wrote:

nznikon wrote:

As someone who's thinking of coming over to Fuji (looking at an X-Pro2 and lenses), wonder how these shots would have looked with the 50-140. Seems like the zoom would offer more flexibility (says the Nikon shooter who loves the 70-200).

Comments??

The 50-140 is a great lens and perfect for someone who prefers zooms to primes. While the zoom on the right offers OIS, this is the most obvious difference between the two.

Yes, th size difference is very important *to me* in a crowd. But the extra stop and very smooth out of focus rendering are also important.

Though not a zoom and unstabilized, the 90 is also a lot less expensive. I got the 90/2 and the Rokinon 135/2 for less than a 50-140 would have cost.

Of course, the 90  has superlative acuity and all around excellent IQ, but the 50-140 is reportedly very good, too.

I just prefer fast primes, which are smaller on camera even if I have slightly more weight in my bag.

nznikon wrote:

As someone who's thinking of coming over to Fuji (looking at an X-Pro2 and lenses), wonder how these shots would have looked with the 50-140. Seems like the zoom would offer more flexibility (says the Nikon shooter who loves the 70-200).

Comments??

Fair comment except on APS the max aperture of 50-140mm is equiv 75-210mm f4 (DoF terms) while the 90mm f2 equiv is 135mm f2.8. Best event lens I've had.

It gives you a choice which is all good.

Vic