Speedmaster 65mm and 85mm fast primes for Fujifilm GFX on the way

Could you please go into detail how it would be possible that a smaller sensor could not archive that look if you got a lens with equivalent specs (like a 50mm f1.2)?

Sorry, but you're wrong. I studied physics and know a thing or two about optics.

The 1st sample is just shallow depth of field with much background blur. You can easily calculate the amount or use a tool like: http://asklens.com/howmuchblur/#compare-1x-50mm-f1.4-and-1x-85mm-f1.8-on-a-0.9m-wide-subject (just fill in the numbers)
The 2nd sample is a combination of shallow depth of field and field curvature and bad optics (border softness).

Your "explanation" doesn't add up. 50mm on a smaller sensor vs 100mm on a bigger sensor at the same distance (never change distance!), gives you exactly the same perspective. To be even more precise: if the distance stays the same, the perspective stays the same, no matter what lens or sensor is used: https://www.flickr.com/photos/universal_creations/23102279860/in/photolist-BctdW1
The light ray angles depend on the lens design (retrofocus, double gauss, telephoto, etc.) not on the sensor size.

But show me the physics that I'm wrong ;)

Maybe, but there's still massive downsides. Slow FPS, no IBIS, no AF. FF is still the sweet spot, but I would fully welcome a GFX sensor in Sony sized body with IBIS.

xxmp the GFX is a camera for studio work. No high fps nor IBIS needed...

MF? The AF is slow but there is AF...

And it's a camera made to work on a studio not to shoot sports or your vacations...

Thank You for the dumbest comment of the day

Geez, what an insecure guy you are Edmond! It's a new lens introduction. It's news. It's interesting (these are pretty darn FAST lenses for medium format)!

So what does this "make" of a Schneider plasmat 300 f5.6 on my 8x10, or my Fujinon 450 f12.5 on my 7x17? And how does the more panoramic 7x17 format influence it's "equivalence" vs the more "square" 8x10 or the truly square 6x6 on my TLR? And yes, I still use my 5x7, 8x10 and 7x17 ocasionally, and my 4x5 and TLR frequently, though my "full frame" (also known as miniature format) has become my "main" camera.

You are arguing with yourself....not us.

How can you get the "visual of DOF" when it is totally personal opinion that every individual holds differently, from different lenses etc?

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2013/08/the-practical-side-of-depth-of-field.html

If you want to compare something, you need to get the lens in your hands and try it out in your needed output. No one can do it for you, no one can put label "this DOF is thinner than that, it is equal to XYZ" mambo jambo.

Only real thing someone can do is to focus lens to infinity and tell what is the field of view. Why only focal lengths equivalence is told because people have custom to work at various field of views that matters.

Like I said Tommy....I am an experienced photographer.... I have f/1.2, f/1.4 lenses for my FF (35mm). I KNOW what kind of DOF that I have with those lenses in that FF format. DOF is a range of what is in focus in the images. So if I am told, (even without seeing) "I" KNOW ok...that a given lens on the MediumFormat camera will give me similar DOF to my f/1.2 on my FF. That is useful info to this photographer. I know that what is in focus at a given distance and f/stop will be similar to something that I am famliar with. Maybe not useful information to you...but it is to "me". VERY useful. It's pretty simple. Seems like you and Haziz are trying to control what I find to be useful. I laugh at that. :-)

What I am trying to say, and clearly failing to get across, is that the whole "aperture equivalence" talk is at best unnecessary and at worst confusing and misleading.

I have not shot a 35mm camera in decades. Once upon a time there was a Pentax resource that listed the equivalent lenses in 35mm for my 67 gear. The 135mm was listed with an equivalent 77mm lens in the 35mm format. Curious I checked out. There was nothing on heaven or earth equivalent about the results. Nothing.

@haziz
Physics is hard. Therefore, let's ignore it? Let's stay stupid? Really?

You can't just take the aperture ratio for it. The DOF changes based the lens sharpness too, and it even changes based the lens aperture blades shape (one of the bokeh changers) differences too.

That is just something that even you should know.

If lens has a triangular aperture, the bokeh shape will be triangular. All the light is shaped by triangular shape. And you will far more faster detect the loss of sharpness with a triangular shapes than you do with a perfect circular shape.

And then the _personal_ question when you do find something blurry, and sharp, is moved again to another level.

7 blade sharp, vs 9 rounded blades. Different blur.

You can't use a 36Mpix FF to make a same detailed 3x2m print like you can use a 100Mpix MF.

Even if you calculate the lens "equivalence", you are working with totally different image sizes and detail sizes and you will find that other has different DOF even when by "lens equivalence" they should be same.

Tommi, how can you be so lost? DoF and bokeh are different things. A triangle-shaped aperture changes bokeh, not really DoF. Equivalence makes no claims about bokeh, only DoF.

As for myself, I'm surprised by these announcements. This chanes things. Until now, the shallowest DoF was obtainable with Full Frame systems. But, from this day, there are Medium Format lenses that can do shallower. Nevermind, I don't have the slightest idea of image quality, bokeh, etc... But, for the first time in the age I know of, FF doesn't hold the shallow DoF advantage at every focal length. That is certainly newsworthy.

@Tommi K1
"You can't use a 36Mpix FF to make a same detailed 3x2m print like you can use a 100Mpix MF."
- Actually, I can. It is called STITCHING, which allows me to make even much more detailed 3x2m prints.

"Even if you calculate the lens "equivalence", you are working with totally different image sizes and detail sizes and you will find that other has different DOF even when by "lens equivalence" they should be same."
- and guess what ... when stitching images shot with 300/5.6 lens on FF, you can get similar DoF and bokeh effect of a larger format camera (Brenizer Method).
Now the weirdest thing is that all this is perfectly in sync with the 'Equivalence'.

And then there are focal reducers (speed boosters), which follow exactly the same equivalence rules as well. Is that a coincidence? Maybe a conspiracy?
I don't think so ... . I say, theres too much ignorant people on the Internet.

This reminds me of the famous aperture equivalence debate between Ansel Adams and Richard Avedon regarding LF lens (specifically 8x10 lenses) and MF TLR lens aperture equivalence in the mid 1970s. Steve Mccurry also mailed in a letter from rural India vehemently disagreeing about the implications regarding his 105 mm Nikon lens ......... The only problem is that that debate never happened!
People have been using different lenses on different formats for decades, indeed well over a century. This attempt at creating an "equivalence" formula regarding lens focal lengths and much more particularly aperture, even if technically accurate when stated correctly, has resulted in massive confusion and is frankly misleading.

@haziz lens aperture equivalence isn't misleading at all, it absolutely trivial...

...and you will most likely not see any 100-400 equivalence any time soon ;)

“It's not mumbo jumbo, it's how lenses work”, but it’s not how photographers work.

When fashion photographers were still using 2¼” square TLRs, and David Bailey turned to 35mm, do you think he cared about equivalent apertures and the like? It was just a different way of working, and he worked with that, equivalence didn’t even merit a mention back then. If publishers wanted roll film negs, he just got a darkroom technician to copy the 35mm negs to the right size.

If I choose to use a particular format, I don’t choose it because of how equivalent it is to something else – I choose it because it is different!

Vive le difference! Muerte a la equivalencia!

@Alan53

If you don't care about equivalence that's fine, but that's different from denying that it exists, or deriding those who actually want to know what they're getting for their money.

T-stops are very close to F-stops for modern lenses, you've basically cherry picked the one very special lens where the two measurements significantly diverge to try and prove your point.

Not quite, Zhong Yi optics makes manual focus lenses. There aren't a lot of people confortable with manual focusing such razor thin DOF. You're correct that it's only a matter of time before there are faster AF lenses from Fujifilm. They've already released a 110mm f/2 (approx 87mm f/1.6 equivalent).

"F/1.2 = F/1.2 for exposure regardless of focal length"

True, but exposure is a meaningless measurement when comparing sensor sizes. The total light hitting the sensor is what matters.

@mgrum: "True, but exposure is a meaningless measurement when comparing sensor sizes." Hardly 'meaningless'. Suppose you're shooting in M mode and using a hand-held meter to get the exposure with both a D810 and a D500, and have both cameras set to ISO 100. Also suppose the indicated exposure is 1/125 sec. at F/8. Would you set a different shutter speed or F-stop on one camera or the other _simply_ because of the different sensor size?

Don't assume these are sharp or void of vignetting wide open.

But they will likely be ok and have their uses.

The problem with you lot is that you don't get that thin DOF is really a trade of.
You generally don't want too shallow DOF since it'll ruin the subject.
Only in specific situations you would want to have more background seperation but they normally are less than 10% of the photography oppertunities.
At Sports it's a drag to have too shallow DOF with 35mm lenses.
I.m.o. m43 it's perfectly fine. Enough background seperation but subject in focus!

The comically slow RAW buffer flush speed makes the A9 all but unusable to most sports shooters,,, not even a quarter baked.

I think his attempt to Troll is half baked.

A compressed 24mp Sony raw will have superior image quality to a uncompressed Canon 20mp low dynamic range file.

So that comparison is worthless because Sony again jumps into a speed and silent shutter advantage.

I shoot Canon - but Canon trolls are making themselves look pathetic by missing critical facts when jumping into these threads. This is a FUJI post for crying out loud.

Get a grip - or better yet - be happy with your Canon and go take some pictures.

It's also pretty pathetic to compare the A9 to DSLRs in Mirror-Up-Mode where the camera has no AF. Btw., uncrompressed RAW only has advantages in very few shooting conditions, and major press agencies will only accept JPEGs anyways.

Why do you care about dynamic range in sport situations where all sensors will have similar performance at high ISOs like 3200?

I don't like all that aperture equivalence, it can be utterly misleading, it is important to state that it is an equivalence for depth of field.
Otherwise it is the same aperture of the lens for light metering. It won't let you take photos in the dark like a 0.9 lens would. Light per image equivalence is not important.

It will "let" you take photos in the dark like a f/0.9 lens would on 35mm, probably better because digital sensors can't take advantage of the extra light at such fast f/stops.

It is relative aperture and ISO that are misleading. Why should I care about either of those abstract numbers? I care about the image I am capturing, and I am not using film stock.

To be more complete
This 85mm f1.2 will:

- measure light like any f1.2, it won't be magically quicker
- have the angle of view of a traditional FF 67mm
- all the while it will show the perspective "flattening" of a 85, hence the image will look quite different than a ff 67mm
- wide open will have approx the dof of a full frame 67mm f0.95. I think this may depend innthe focus distance, but less sure about that.

Light gathering, light per image etc are unimportant concepts.

Oh god here we go. If one makes the focal length equivalent, they must do the same to the the aperture. The aperture is directly entwined with the focal length. So a medium format 85mm F1.2 is equivalent to a full frame 67mm F0.95 in both depth of field AND light collecting capabilities.

It will meter like any f/1.2, but will give similar noise performance as f/.95 on 35mm.

It will have the angle of view of a traditional FF 67mm

Perspective "flattening" depends only on subject distance, so it will look the same as the FF 67mm when the subject distance (and field of view) is the same.

Assuming the same focus distance, DOF will be the same as a FF 67mm f/.95

"- all the while it will show the perspective "flattening" of a 85, hence the image will look quite different than a ff 67mm"

I'm not so sure about that... pretty sure the "equivalence" translation to FF focal length negates any perspective difference. Thought that was kinda the whole point. Anyone else care to weight in? (yay, equivalence threads!!)

Yup. The prespective is the same in all lenses (yes all). Only subject distance changes it (prespective). So a 1mm lens on an x sensor has the same perspective as a 1000mm lens on a 1000x sensor. Longer lenses make you move back, or tell your subject hey move closer to the background, hence why we associate longer lenses with the flattering perspective and wider lenses with the uglier one (shooting in the nose of the subject look).

Consider the speedbooster.

Mounting a speedbooster changes the actual focal length and the actual aperture of the lens. So put a 0.7x speedbooster on a 65mm f/1.4 lens and it becomes a 45mm f/1 lens, that is simply a fact.

What the speedbooster is doing is taking an image and concentrating it down, which makes it both smaller and brighter. But it's the same image, just concentrated.

That's what equivalence is about, take two equivalent lenses, say a 65mm f/1.4 and a completely different 45mm f/1, you get the same image with both, the same light, but one is concentrated down. Since noise is to do with the number of photons both images have the same noise in theory.

@digifan

It's not idocy, it's how lenses work, and it's not new, this has been known about for over 100 years the only thing that's new is the word used to refer to it.

Photographers knew that f/5.6 would give very shallow depth of field on a large format camera, but f/5.6 on a 35mm would not, just like they knew enlarging ISO400 35mm film would give more grain (noise) than printing from ISO400 sheet film.

Also the optical viewfinder is highly misleading when it comes to depth of field with fast lenses, as it shows you a maxmimum of about f/2.5.

As a photographer you should understand optics, either explicitly, or through experience. And equivalence is part of optics.

digifan: F1.2=F1.2 in terms of exposure is a circular argument. The way we think of ISO and exposure is based on light per unit area, which is what f-numbers tell you.

Equivalent f-numbers show you the aspects of behaviour that get hidden by that.

If you can hold both concepts in your head (a light per unit area and a total light way of looking at things), you can understand more about how the lens will behave.

Sure, you can choose not to, but saying 'you just have to accept that different formats five different depth-of-field and different image quality' seems perverse when there's an easy way of understanding the magnitude of those differences (and hence the degree to which you can or can't compensate for them).

It provides useful information beyond us just quoting the equivalent focal length, so we'll continue to quote it.

If you don't, personally find it tells you anything you need to know, fair enough, and feel free to ignore it.

0.95 lenses are not good wide open

Says who? These are portrait lenses, Corner sharpness is not critical. I have a ZY 35mm f/0.95 (50mm f/1.4 FF equivalent) and it is SHARP in the center wide open and provides brilliant bokeh.

Sharp relative to the edge of that lens. But dull compared to a good slower lens.

You know that this is fast because of ... equivalence?

The company says it's a G-mount version of their existing 85mm F1.4. It's not clear how much beyond the 43mm diagonal of 'full frame' the image circle is, so it's not clear how much vignetting there would be.

Typically, lenses longer than "normal" produce a bigger than needed image circle, as a side effect of their design, with image circle diameter not much less than their focal length. So _any_ 85mm lens design has a good chance of comfortably covering the mere 55mm image circle of the GFX, and probably even any 65mm design.

What I do not expect from these "discount" third party lens makers is wide-angle or normal lenses for larger than 36x24mm formats – those definitely need new optical designs.

@shigzeo: You missed my point. 51/1.1 equivalent does not necessarily mean razor thin DOF. It could be 2m, for example.

@JACS. I am referring, of course , to the obsession with ultrafast lenses not because of their light gathering but for their shallow DOF.
Note that EVERY complaint about sub FF formats is the greater DOF at a given distance and AOV.
Note too, the flood of desperately close cropped images made solely to display the effect.
Back in the 70's we actually learned all the principles of format size, lens AOV and DOF. We also were not obsessed with fast lenses as they were generally regarded as nice but not a real benefit other than being able to more easily focus in low light.
We were interested in getting some decent DOF to ensure sharpness of the subject.
These lenses will sell fairly well I predict and we will have to suffer through more boring photos of faces with one sharp eye.

I see about 10x more posts of people making fun of shallow DOF fans than posts from actual fans of shallow DOF. Bashing shallow DOF is much more in vogue than shallow DOF itself. Talking down shallow DOF is the real fad here.

The one eye in focus, that is the myth I was referring to. Most of my 50/1.2 (on FF) shots wide open have the whole person in focus. You have to try it someday.

@J A C S

Again, if you shoot far enough away, or with a lens sufficiently closed down, an entire face will be in focus. I'm confused why this is such a bugbear for you.

I am not sure why it is for you.

Going back to the OP: it is based on a myth. You can abuse any lens but if you know what you are doing, there are plenty of situations in which 50/1 or so would provide you with enough DOF to be (1) pleasant and (2) not to have severe AF problems.

@tex unfortunately you can only have adapters to mount lenses to a body that requires a SHORTER flange distance (e.g. adapt a DSLR lens to a mirrorless camera...)... Almost no lenses can be adapted to the 645z (for example the Pentax 67 lenses can, some Hasselblad lenses too...)

Oops, yes, brain infarction. Long day is all I can say, on my 15th hour with 3 to go...

@pookipichu... Amen. I'd be a lot happier with the 120 f/4 if I could send it it to have the same coatings applied that are on the newer lenses. I really like Pentax's lens range, but Ricoh really needs to do a "refresh" of their offerings. I'd like to see either IBIS (next gen. 645) or more stabilized telephoto lenses. If Ricoh simply keeps up with sensor tech. and sizes, refreshes their lens offerings (stabilization for some, modern coatings for the rest), and gets off their behind when it comes to customer service, I'll be (mostly) happy.

@Teila Day Mostly agree, although maybe IBIS is a big challenge above FF? But I do think the Fuji situation is developing in such a way (now the pro support, and those 3rd party fast lenses, although I think they're a bit of a gimmick...) that Pentax needs to do a thing or two. Why not refresh that 45? It's the only "dud" of the old lenses (and not that big a dud...) Basically all the older lenses could be given a coatings refresh---Pentax ought to offer a refurb path for our lenses, that would be cool to get new coatings. I think they could redo some lenses as WR also, and they need that T/S lens, which they could do with maybe the 45 from the 6x7 line...And then they really need a wide prime to take the place of the discontinued 25. Oh, and support....