Fuji Do you like legacy lenses on your X system camera?

wt21

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I've done legacy glass on a NEX and on m43.

It was tough at first on the EP1, but the later m43 cameras had very easily accessed buttons for MF assist.

The NEX cameras were OK. The LCD was very nice, but I never had much time with a NEX with a VF

I did have the XE1, but it seemed to me that the EVF would be very laggy to successfully focus with MF legacy lenses.

Have you tried MF legacy lenses on Fuji as well as other systems? What are your thoughts and inputs in terms of comparisons?
 
So, I currently use legacy lenses on my X-E1 and have in the past on a Ricoh GXR. The GXR was very good at focussing and handling, but lagged behind in outright performance. Both the Ricoh and the Fuji perform well with legacy lenses; the Fuji "loves" my 40mm Summicron for instance, and the Ricoh had a particular affinity for my Zeiss glass. The recent firmware upgrade introducing focus peaking has made the Fuji much more usable, albeit still not quite as snappyas the Ricoh; I use it set to raw+jpeg and shoot b&w which I find helps contrast. I'll be going to an air show at the weekend with the X-E1 and an Olympus OM 50-150 zoom so you can see I have some faith in the setup :cool:
 
Sure, legacy glass is great. New look, new handling, a different shooting experience. It's great to have so many choices, it's a luxury no DSLR user can enjoy and hence a major advantage of MILCs like the X-Mount cameras. I know users with large collections of great and legendary legacy lenses (some of them are very cheap to come by) who don't even own a single native X-Mount lens. Of course, YMMV, nit every old lens is great with digital, but many are. Sure, some exhibit flaws, but those are often overshadowed by a distinct pleasing look. Imperfection can be quite attractive.
 
I used to shoot with a NEX-5 and a NEX-7 with legacy lenses exclusively. I find it difficult to focus via image magnification, I haven't really warmed up to the idea to focusing this way, so I was pretty happy when focus peaking was introduced to the NEX system(which was pretty early), I found focusing via focus peaking on the NEX very fast and easy, I can hit critical focus faster using peaking than using a rangefinder patch or a DSLR's split image focusing system.

I tried to adapt third party glass on my XP-1 (before the focus peaking was introduced via firmware upgrade) and it worked alright, but the only means of focusing it is via image magnification or to zone focus which I'm not really too nuts about.

When the focus peaking was introduced, it did made focusing easier although the white colour is still hard to see, there's rumors somewhere that more colours will be added later on. I don't think I'll be adapting other lenses to my X though as I just tried to experiment using third party glass and I'm quite happy with the native lenses, but if you are looking for a focal length that Fuji doesn't cover it might be worth your while looking into the other focus peaking colours Fuji releases in the future.
 
I bought Minolta Rokkor 50 mm, f/1.4 in addition to main "travel kit" 18-55 lens for my X-E1. It's great portrait/macro lens with soft picture and pleasant bokeh, very easy to focus by just using the screen (even without peaking) on apertures wide open with shallow DOF.
The only drawback I found is that center-point metering I'm using for portraits is very susceptible to minor changes of camera and subject position and if light isn't changing drastically during your session it's easier to set fixed shutter speed after a few attempts and double-check the results from time to time. I think the same center-point metering deficiency applies to native lenses, however I'm usually shooting architecture and landscapes in "average" metering mode.
 
I tried - but the results were underwhelming unless there is abundant light. I'm thinking the 5-axis ibis would help me more than the X Trans sensor, as far as legacy lenses are concerned.
 
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