Fuji Landscape/nature & travel

[Sharkman60]

I am waiting to purchase the soon to be announced XT-2, currently a number of Fuji lens are on sale so I want to take advantage of the pricing. I want the best glass for nature/landscape and travel. I am trying to decide if I should go all primes or zoom lens. I want weather proof glass since I am out in many types of weather. This kit will be used for travel, and longer hikes. I am shooting with a Nikon D810 and fast glass, this is a very heavy pack to carry with my lens, tripod ect.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[jloden]

This would be a tough question for anybody else to answer but you ultimately... how do you shoot with your Nikon kit? I'm also a Nikon shooter FWIW... but currently in process of selling off all my Nikon gear and getting back into Fuji X (for the third time) though

Using Nikon for travel shooting I'd likely use a 16-35mm (because it can easily take filters unlike the otherwise stellar 14-24mm) and a 24-120 (28-300 if I needed more reach), plus at least one fast prime. That fits the way I shoot for typical travel and landscapes, without being excessively large and heavy to cart around. If it's an all primes kit, I'm most likely to shoot 28mm / 35mm / 50mm for everything and give up on ultrawide or tele options to save weight and complexity.

Looking at this from a Fuji perspective, a 10-24mm and 55-200mm is pretty much a no brainer travel kit for me for everything short of wildlife, where I'd want the 100-400mm reach. However, neither lens is weather sealed. If weather sealing is a requirement for you, then your choice of lenses goes down dramatically. Currently this is all you can get for WR lenses:

Primes: 16mm, 35mm, 90mm
Zooms: 16-55mm, 50-140mm, 18-135mm, 100-400mm

I'd say that pretty well defines your options if you stick to WR lenses as a hard and fast rule.

 

[Sharkman60]

Why are you going back to Fuji? Are you happy with the images from a nature and landscape perspective, and which editing software are you using to process Fuji raw files? I have never been an all prime shooter, I know that the Fuji primes are fast, bright, sharp and light. I am a believer of shooting with great glass combined with excellent photography skills produce great images. I read that the 16-55 2.8 is very good, as will as the 50-140 and 100-400, not sure about the 18-135.

 

[jloden]

Why are you going back to Fuji? Are you happy with the images from a nature and landscape perspective, and which editing software are you using to process Fuji raw files? I have never been an all prime shooter, I know that the Fuji primes are fast, bright, sharp and light. I am a believer of shooting with great glass combined with excellent photography skills produce great images. I read that the 16-55 2.8 is very good, as will as the 50-140 and 100-400, not sure about the 18-135.

Long story but the short version is I ultimately prefer smaller gear, and rangefinders in particular. Since my daughter was born a couple years ago I'm also simply not doing nearly as much of the type of shooting I was using my Nikon gear for (events and portraits with artificial lighting).

I am happy with the Fuji images I got with my previous Fuji kit, for sure. I just use Lightroom. The X-trans files don't always play great with Adobe, but proper sharpening & NR settings makes a huge difference. It's certainly more than good enough for me not to want to mess with a second editing application workflow. Part of my decision to move back into Fuji was fueled by the realization that hanging on our bedroom wall is a 16x24 print of one of my favorite landscape shots (see below), and it was taken with an X-E1 and 14mm lens. I don't see myself needing more than that realistically (and that was with the previous generation 16MP sensor anyway).

Moraine Lake, Banff National Park, Alberta Canada by jloden, on Flickr

 

[Sharkman60]

Image process has big the biggest issue why I have not purchased a Fuji camera, I recently tried the Xpro-2 with the 35 1.5 and the 56 primes. I processed in Photoshop CC2015 and I thought the images were very good. I want a smaller lighter kit for travel and some longer hikes, so I go back and forth between Olympus and Fuji. I would buy the XT-2 coming soon, I like the 24mp sensor, or the Olympus OMD1 or OMDE M5ll( only 16mp senor, but isib) I can make argues for both. Olympus lens in the ranges that I like are all weather sealed, 12-40 2.8Pro,40-150-2.8Pro and 7-14 Pro. I will use my D810 for my serious landscape work and wildlife images. With Fuji I would probably have to move to all primes to get the image quality I want, plus they have 16,35,90 weather sealed. I need to make a decision soon, since both Olympus and Fuji have rebates on glass till 7/2. If I go Fuji I want have the glass before the XT-2 is even released. I attached the test images, just shot them to see the greens and how they can be processed in Photoshop CC, I do not want to change to another processing program.

 

[jloden]

To get the most out of processing X-Trans files with Photoshop or Lightroom the main caveat seems to be unusual sharpening settings being required compared to other formats. Other than that I've had no problem getting satisfactory results in terms of color, sharpness, clarity, contrast, etc.

As it happens, I started photography with m4/3 equipment though I'm a mostly Panasonic shooter rather than Olympus. If you look at the album the Moraine Lake image I linked above is from [Jasper & Banff], I actually had a Panasonic GH3 and the Fuji X-E1 for that trip. Terrible idea to bring two separate camera systems on a trip & I don't recommend it, btw. But in the end it did happen to give me a decent real world comparison between a 16MP sensor on both formats for travel and landscapes. Ultimately, either prints beautifully on my printer up to the maximum 13x19" size I can do here.

If you prefer weather sealed zooms I think m4/3 makes a logical choice if the smaller format doesn't bother you. It's small and light weight, there are optically excellent weather sealed zooms available across the entire range, and it's a very mature system. The main tradeoff is of course the sensor size and all that goes along with that if you like shallow DoF or need high ISO performance, etc.

In my opinion having fairly extensively used both, I don't believe Fuji or Olympus/Panasonic has a clear edge in the optics department. Both are very capable systems in terms of features and performance too. I suggest you make your choice based on what "feels" right to you. I've learned the hard way over a lot of bought and sold camera gear that the most important thing is always what inspires me to pick up a camera and shoot, rather than the spec sheets.

 

[Blythe]

I am also returning to Fuji from a holiday with Nikon. I had an XPro1 with 18mm (not wide enough), 27mm (not quite standard), 18-135mm (why don't I like these images...never could put my finger on it).

I then went back to Nikon, what I should have done is got the right lenses for the job as I see it.

Now just bought an XT1 (can't justify a XT2, would rather spend the money on good lenses). With it I have finally got the 35mm (that is standard), and about to get at 14mm (wide enough from my experience of the 12-24 on Nikon's DX bodies).

Its been an expensive mistake, but I have really learned that the secret is to know what you shoot and what you really need for that. Then it is to get the best quality optic you can, even if it means sacrificing a little on the body. When I used to use film I knew that bodies were replaced every three/four years, but lenses could last a lifetime (or at least get you through three or four body changes).

 

[Bobby T]

You guys should give Capture One Pro or iridient for working on Fuji files. Adobe has never been great with Xtrans files, although they have gotten a lot better.

Blythe, I've had an 18-135 two different times and had the same conclusion. I didn't like the images but couldn't give a definitive reason why.

 

[Blythe]

I don't have any issues with processing Xtrans files in Lightroom. Yes, the settings are different to what I use for Nikon files but once you have a base version of this to apply on import then you just treat them like any other files. To be honest, this was more of a problem with the XPro1 I had originally, but I think later editions of Lightroom have improved matters, coupled with the ability of Lightroom to 'see' the camera settings. With the XT1 and its latest firmware I am not getting any issues at all.