DPReview.com is closing April 10th - Find out more

A prime shooter's musings on light zooms (XC 50-230,XC 15-45)

Started Oct 10, 2021 | Discussions
kalkadan Junior Member • Posts: 38
Re: A prime shooter's musings on light zooms (XC 50-230,XC 15-45)

Well said.  I have been getting used to the XC 50-230mm lately.  The more I use it the more I like it -- and that's coming from a guy who has used the 90/f2 and 16-55/f2.8  exclusively for the past couple of years.

Appreciate the effort you put into this post.

Barnie25 Regular Member • Posts: 426
Re: A prime shooter's musings on light zooms (XC 50-230,XC 15-45)

kalkadan wrote:

Well said. I have been getting used to the XC 50-230mm lately. The more I use it the more I like it -- and that's coming from a guy who has used the 90/f2 and 16-55/f2.8 exclusively for the past couple of years.

Appreciate the effort you put into this post.

How would you judge the sharpness of the lens? Because of this post I am more inclined to get the lens. Would I be able to use it wide open for portrait shots at a longer distance?

 Barnie25's gear list:Barnie25's gear list
Nikon Z6 II Nikon Z 24-70mm F4 Nikon Z 50mm F1.8 +1 more
OP FTOG Senior Member • Posts: 1,359
Re: A prime shooter's musings on light zooms (XC 50-230,XC 15-45)

Claes wrote:

The crosbill picture, where you say that details in the feathers are weak, indeed they are, but maybe you missed focus on that one? The branch closer to "you" is in focus, more so than the branch the bird sits on, so it might just be that.

It's certainly possible. I'll need a few more reference points in such scenarios to figure out what the underlying cause is.

 FTOG's gear list:FTOG's gear list
Fujifilm X-E3 Fujifilm XF 14mm F2.8 R Fujifilm XF 23mm F2 R WR Fujifilm 50mm F2 R WR Fujifilm XF 27mm F2.8 R WR +2 more
kalkadan Junior Member • Posts: 38
Re: A prime shooter's musings on light zooms (XC 50-230,XC 15-45)
1

Hi Barnie - sorry for the (very) late reply. Been tied up. Yes, I think it could make a good portrait lens wide open. However, given that the max. aperture at 50mm is only 4.5 and f6.7 at 230mm, you will have to position subject and background appropriately to achieve the bokeh you might expect. The bokeh btw looks pretty good. But have not tried it on a human yet!

As for sharpness, here is a sample: shot on an XT3 @ 230mm f6.7. First the full frame and then the crop of that. No processing. I took the Jpeg into Lightroom then exported it at 900pix on the long side with sharpening for screen set to "Low". Did the same for the crop.

@ 230/6.7

Crop

Here is a bit of bokeh - 230mm @ 6.7 - same as above, no processing, low sharpen on export

This shows sharpness on a pretty strong crop:

and here is a better example of the nature of the bokeh - that's the ocean in the background with sky above horizon  - you'll see the exif on the shot

Keyboard shortcuts:
FForum MMy threads