Northern lights with the 16mm f/1.4 and the Fuji X-H1

I came to love my X-H1, after the deal on a X-Pro2 fell apart. I thought to myself, hell, this isn’t too bad! The image stabilization is a big plus over the X-Pro series, that and the fact that I can have the battery grip for extra running time.

I got my early review here and my one year later review here. Notice the change of the tone haha.

Anyway. I wanted to test out the Fuji X-h1 high iso ability, something that I never had done in a year with it. That, and I forgot my tripod…

Have a look at these photos. I was disappointed in the high iso performance of the X-H1. It took me a year to finally discover that it sucks, in comparison to my older Nikon D800E (reviewed here) or even my 11 years old Canon 1D Mark IV.

I had no tripod with me, so I had to keep the shutter speed up a bit. That and I was curious about the high iso ability of my Fuji. It is very rare that I shot above ISO 6400, in my five years love story with the Fuji family. The shots below were all taken at ISO 12 800, speed at 1/5 and f/1.4

How does it compare with the rest? Below is a 2009 Canon 1D Mark IV, which is not even a fullframe camera. It has a 1.3x APS-H sensor. Below was shot at ISO 12 800.

Below is the northern lights taken with the 20mm /1.4 Sigma Art on my old Nikon D7500. It was taken at ISO 25 000. Why is the result so much better than the Fuji X-H1? I didn’t think it was… but after looking at the pictures taken by the D7500 back in the day, the Nikon has a much superior sensor.

I will probably need to shoot in RAW with the Fuji from now on, at high ISO. The JPG noise reduction kills the details and creates weird artefacts.

Thanks,

JP