Fuji 56mm f/1.2: The lens with one fatal flaw.
That’s why we needed a MK II version!
I loved my 56mm f/1.2.
I made some wonderful shot with it (see below!). But I sold it, without any regrets. Why? The autofocus –the slow, goddamn slow– made me miss so many shots!
No other lens made me miss more shots than the 56mm f/1.2 (I say that with a smile). It’s the best worst lens on the market: the rendering is exceptional, and it’s just a beautiful piece of glass to hold. It makes you want to go shoot.... But if you are used to the 85mm f/1.2 Canon or 85mm f/1.4 Nikon… This lens will be extremely frustrating, to the point that you’d want to throw it at large in a lake. Yeah, that bad. If you’re new to the system, it will be fine. But if you’re an OG of photography, it won’t cut it.
We all wanted a 56mm f/1.2 Mark II, but Fuji delivered a 50mm f/1.0 WR… I guess that will have to do?
I carried a few cameras and lenses with me while travelling overland through the Americas… One of my first kit for the Alaska to Peru was the X-Pro1 with the 27mm f/2.8 and 56mm f/1.2. Many pictures here were taken by the D800E (reviewed here) or the X-Pro1.
I hope the 50mm f/1.0 will be fast enough to track kids and people running around!
The 56mm f/1.2 was still better than manual focusing… but for $1200 CAD, you’d expect the lens to be able to be usable for events. It wasn’t: the 50mm f/2 is a much better lens if you need a short telephoto lens to cover an event. Or I’d just recommend a cheap Nikon D610 with a 85mm f/1.8 AF-S or 85mm f/1.4 AF-D.
See the separation between the christmas tree and the cameras. Shot with a X-Pro1 and the 56mm f/1.2
Below some sample shot of the 56mm f/1.2, most of them wide-open, on the excellent Fuji X-Pro1!
In Colombia.
Alberta!
Wide-open!
Alberta, Canada
In Peru.
A snack in the Jeep.
Taken in southern Chile!
Yes, the Fuji 56mm f/1.2 is a sharp lens with a crazy good bokeh. But it is also a lens that can be very frustrating: the autofocus is much slower than anything on the market from Canon, Sony, Nikon, Panasonic (for the same telephoto range) and, hell, even Fuji with the 50mm f/2.0 and the new 50mm f/1.0 has better options. Sometimes I think that I could pick up a second hand Nikon D610 for $600CAD and a 85mm f/1.4 AF-S for $1400… literally the same price of a 50mm f/1.0… I need to stop thinking, and go back as a busy Fuji fanboy zombie ;)
Cheers,
JP