when shooting in low light, viewfinder is usually quite noisy and it’s difficult to see what is in focus and what isn’t. The main problem here is that focus peaking highlight looks quite similar to the noise in the viewfinder. To mitigate this, you can set the highlight to red color. Also in low light you typically use wide aperture which makes it even more difficult. in extremely sunny weather it seems to be sometimes difficult to see what’s in focus and what’s not. I had this problem particularly on snow — snow produced a lot of highlights in the viewfinder which is again similar to focus peaking highlights. I mis-focused several images because of this. Split image manual focus assist might be better in this use case. The wide manual focus ring is electronic and super-silky-smooth in its action. There is just the right amount of friction to ensure it is not accidentally turned. AF is driven by an accurate and almost silent Linear Motor, and focus can be acquired in as little as 0.04s. Focusing is down to 0.19m, for a maximum magnification of 0.2x, or 1:5. It's certainly easier for me to find focus using peaking on my E-M1 as I did in the last group of images I posted, somewhat more difficult using my E-M5 since it doesn't have focus peaking (except a version of it as a workaround if one messes with the art filters which I've tried and it doesn't seem to be very helpful to me). I did try magnification when I used it with my GF1 for several shots a few days ago but the implementation of that particular focus assist on that camera was very unwieldy for me. To help with focusing, I use a DIY Sugru to mold a focusing tab on the focusing ring, it helps me quite a bit.

It is now firmly established that Fujifilm produces excellent cameras and lenses, with a character of their own. The range continues to adapt and develop and here we have the XF 23mm f/1.4 R LM WR lens, another compact prime with the added benefit of weather resistance. On the APS-C crop format common to all Fujifilm X series lenses, the 23mm equates to a "35mm-equivalent" of 35mm, in other words, the classic wide standard lens and indeed one of the main, classic street photography lenses. Armed with the new lens and the 26MP Fujifilm X-S10 body, we were ready for the rain, but in the event, the sun shone. Let's see how the lens handled and also how it performed in the technical tests.Chromatic aberration (CA) is the lens' inability to focus on the sensor or film all colours of visible light at the same point. Severe chromatic aberration gives a noticeable fringing or a halo effect around sharp edges within the picture. It can be cured in software. That said, I quite like it. It's small, has surprisingly good close focus performance (where the Fuji 23/2 is weakest) and dirt cheap. Short pressing the rear wheel zooms into the center of the picture to fine tune the focus — this is one single most important feature for precise manual focusing. I use the 7Artisans on my X-E3. It's light, small enough & sharp when stopped down slightly. Very good for street photography.

The only complaint I have is the focus scale, which is sufficiently at odds with the reality through the EVF to make scale/zone focus a non-starter. The barrel contains feet and metre distance engravings, progressing (in feet) from 0.6, 1, 2, 5, 16 and infinity markings. Subjects at approximately 5ft - pin sharp at f1.8 though the EVF - showed closer to the 16 ft than 5 ft markings, and the void between the two makes hyperfocal shooting a gamble. It's possible, but you'd have to work out your own sweet spot and most users will confirm distance through the viewfinder. I assume the discrepancy is the result of the same lens being produced for a variety of sensor formats.|One possible explanation is the heavy vignetting at larger apertures which makes metering choose slower shutter speed than expected. Glass This section is actually quite lens-agnostic, but I’ll mention it anyway since it’s essentially my first “normal” manual lens.