0:00 A big thank you to MPB for sponsoring this video and supporting the channel. If you're a street photographer, it can be really hard to decide what lens you want to use. There's a lot of lenses out there. There's a lot of people on the internet talking about lenses. The lens you choose could have such a big influence on your style as a street photographer. So, today we thought we'd sit down and give this sort of guide of some of our favorite Fujifilm specific lenses for street photography because we've used a lot. What's interesting is we've been building a slide deck just before this video and we've been looking at the same lenses but our different uses of these lenses. Like I think the photographs we take with the same lens are kind of wildly different which is interesting. So I think even just looking at those pictures and and talking about that could be could be interesting. >> Get messages all the time just about what lens to use and why. So I think
0:46 yeah maybe this this will be useful. Right. Well >> no no what have you got there? Well, I've got this. This is a lens. Silver lens. >> Yeah. >> This is a 35 mil F2, which is the first lens on our lens deck. >> Do you want to pull up the lens deck? So, one of us has been to design college, and you can take a guess at which one of us designed this. >> There was really no need for that. I said to you, do you want to jazz this up? And you said no. >> No. No. Default font. >> Yeah. So, this is the Fujifilm XF 35 mil F2RWR, which rolls off the tongue, and it's a 53 mil equivalent full-frame field of view. It's 6 cm by four. I mean, it's just tiny. It's a small lens. It weighs
1:32 170 g, which according to the internet is about the same as one Californian quail. You've used this lens as well, haven't you? >> Yeah, I've used that lens. I've used that lens a lot more than I thought I used that lens. And I was looking back at my Lightroom catalog and yeah, some of my favorite pictures on a Fujifilm system have been taken with this lens because and that's kind of weird because I don't really remember enjoying using it that much. >> Well, it turns out you got some certified bangers with it. >> Yeah. I mean, it's just such a small lens. It's so easy to carry around. So, I found that I just had it on me all the time. I was using it with Nex Pro 2 >> and what they have the X-T2. Yeah. So, because it was just a small package, I had it all the time, which probably says that you're probably going to get more
2:18 interesting pictures with a camera you have on you all the time. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And a beautiful depth of field, even like f2. People think you only need 1.4. I mean, you're obviously pretty close to that guy in the hat, but it's kind of that that's why I like this lens so much. I think it just has the most pleasing depth of field. Like the portrait of this guy. I've talked about this a lot, >> but you don't want too shallow. You don't want just his eye in focus. you has all the details and then a pleasing amount of context. You don't want to lose too much context. >> Yeah. And you don't want to have like his nose in focus, but then his eye out of focus if you're shooting with one of the f1.2 lenses or 1.4 lenses. >> Um I'm usually at f2 or f2.8 anyway. I think you are too. You're you're probably a lot you're probably f 5.6 or something. Are you >> honestly? No. When this lens always sits
3:04 wide open because it's still it's just so sharp. It's just so sharp. It doesn't like and with the XT5 you can shoot at like what was it 18,000th of a second um mechanically. So I just leave it. Yeah. It just >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I think I I don't think I've ever shot at anything other than wider. >> But then again there is something about the APS-C because like an F2 on APS-C isn't quite like an F2 on fullframe, right? It's F maybe. >> Yeah. No, I think I think it's Yeah, I think it's just I think it's just one stop difference. Is it? I don't know. >> We don't know. We should have done should have done some research before doing this video. Uh but there is there is that difference there. Um but yeah,
3:49 like so this is I know one thing that puts people off this lens is that if you have a Fuji system, you're maybe a bit worried about shooting at night, right? And you're you're worried about like uh high ISO. Uh, so you want a faster lens, but I mean this shot on the bus, that was a very very dark scene. And that's just like there is a there's a light source there, but that's a pretty dim light source from a interior bus light. >> Yeah. >> Uh, and that's a pretty clean shot at F2. >> When did you take that though? That was like 2019. >> That was uh 2020. That was >> February 2020, just before the event occurred. The thing is like even like the D noiseis tech technology has come along so far since then that's not even like a worry anymore. Is it really? I don't
4:36 think. >> Yeah. >> Maybe. >> Yeah. >> D noiseise in Lightroom. I use it whenever I mess it up. Like there's some some shots you kind of mess up the ISO. Um especially if you're playing around with a new camera or something like that. >> I find that I'll come back after thinking I got an absolute banger of a shot. Then I'll open it in Lightroom and I had it at f16 or something. Uh, sometimes it happens with um with lenses where you have a manual aperture on it. Was me anyway. Maybe not you. >> Never, mate. >> Never. >> Always. Always. >> You ever really [ __ ] up a shot like that? >> No, mate. Sorry. >> Not one time. Just me. Great. >> No, I'd say most days. Um, most days. Yeah. And in sometimes in quite
5:21 important situations as well. >> Yeah. But uh f2 is plenty, right? It's a good lens. It's very reasonably priced as well. If anybody was reaching out to me and said, "I'm going to buy a Fuji system. What lens should I get?" I always say this cuz I'm like, "You just won't be." It won't let you down. It focuses. I think it's like the fastest focusing Fuji lens I have as well. Fujif film lens. >> It's a It's a It's a nifty50 on the Fuji system. >> The niftiest 50iest. Most of these are from the underground as well, which also speaks to that issue of um shooting at night or shooting in low artificial light. These are on the X-T2. Pretty old Fuji sansere on an on a 35 F2 lens. Totally clean. Very happy with these. Yeah, >> I had no idea you used this lens as much. I didn't know you had this lens as much as you did. I thought you shot
6:06 everything on a 56. >> Yeah, me too. I was just going through my Lightroom and just filter by lens type and I was like, surely I didn't shoot that on that lens. Yeah, I did. >> What do you know? >> What else is there? Now, this is another lens which is one of the smaller F2 Fuji primes, the 23 mil F2, so 35 mil equivalent. And I've like rolled in the X100 series into this section as well. This is like if I don't know what the situation is going to be like. I'll reach for this cuz it's the 35 fullframe equivalent. It's like the most versatile field of view, I think, in my opinion. You've shot with 35 a lot and you kind of you kind of like me just kind of like come back to it, don't you? this. >> Yeah. Um I just wanted to for reference same way as
6:53 one green woodpecker. >> Green woodpecker. So I'm not Yes. >> You never you never explained that. Um I I shoot with 35 a lot, but I only started doing it when I moved to Leica >> and I I never really gave it a chance on Fuji. I think it does lend itself to like a rangefinder style. Whereas on the X100 series, like if I'm yeah, if I'm just going to go out for a walk and I don't know what I'm going to stumble across, I think a 35 mil is just a safe bet. It's not the most exciting field of view, like something wider is definitely more dramatic. You're going to increase the chance of getting something. But if someone's like, I just have to have one lens. I can only afford one lens. I think recommending a 35 is a safe bet cuz you can like you can photograph family, you can do events, you can shoot
7:39 street on it, you can do portraits with it. I've shot portraits with this lens on the street. It's not the most you don't get the most like shallow depth of field, but it still does the job. You know, you get that extra context. >> Yeah. I mean, for that kind of environmental portrait where you're trying to include the graffiti and a full body shot, it's perfect for that, right? Someone who uses 35 really well I think is N McDermid. >> Yeah. I mean that's obviously who I was trying to rip off in this street portrait. >> Uh but like when I see his street portraits I'm like god I should use 35 a bit more. Um yeah I never really used it on Fuji. Although I did use the X100 six or five one of those for a little
8:24 while and that was fun. I think it it it works really well um in the the X100 series when you can see through the the optical viewfinder. I think it works well on the XPro series as well. >> That's true. What's next? We've got another 50 mil, but it's different. Why is it different? >> I've got it on an XT3 here. >> Nice. >> So, this is not the size of whatever bird. >> What What was the bird? California quail. one. This a one juvenile hedgehog. No, that's the front. I don't actually have a >> No, there's no equivalent for this one. Okay. Uh just a just a little bullfrog of a lens. You can see how big it is. Like compared to the body of the XT3,
9:09 it's it's it's just a little bit too chunky for an APS-C format. It's not something I feel uh comfortable carrying around my neck. I don't think it would sit very well on an XPro 2, but it's quite nice if you're looking for something like this shot here, which was a commissioned portrait of Christopher Chung from Slow Horses. Yeah, it worked pretty well for that. And the optics in it are really good. Like some of the best optics on Fujifilm systems, I think. >> Would you say it's a rody good lens? No, I wouldn't say that [laughter] because I don't I don't make puns, Josh. It's a lower form of humor. >> I know it's a bit bigger, but I think it's kind of like would shine on like their XH series, you know, the series
9:55 with a bigger grip. I think that's more for the like DSLR style body. >> Yeah, maybe that's what it's made for. Although, no, I think why they made it was because they wanted to redo those lenses for the the bigger megapixel sensors, right? The 40 megapixel ones. >> Yeah. Um, and being able to shoot it wide open, having a very a very wellresolved image on this lens works really well. I just feel that like if you're going to shoot a commission and you're getting paid for it, you want something that has really good optics. And that's why I ended up getting that. And I used it on um and some stuff in the London Underground and the commission in Florence for a hotel chain. If you go to the next slide, it does have quite a nice character. Like I think it's it's a bit distinct from the
10:40 35 f2 and not just because it's uh f1.4 kind of a nice uh rendering to it. I like that it's a slightly wider as well. I think that does appeal to me a bit about it as well. 50 mil can be a bit >> limiting. It's only marginally wider but >> yeah. >> Is it closer to 40 mil? And what's the actual fullframe field of view of it? >> I didn't This is actually bang on 50. Yeah, because the other one's a bit longer. Yeah. Yeah. Gotcha. >> Yeah, that makes sense. Do you feel that the 35 F2 is a little bit tight sometimes? >> You know, I don't, but that's I think part of it is cuz it's such a small setup as well that I can quite easily maneuver with it, you know? >> Yeah. >> It's definitely a psychological aspect to it as well. >> Yeah. Like one thing that's happened me recently is that I'm using the 43 mil lenses on two different camera systems and then I go back to 50 and I'm like I
11:26 I forgotten how to frame a 50 mm shot. So, I'm using the Q343 and I've got uh the 55 on the Hasselblad, which is a 43 mil equivalent as well. So, I'm imagining from like your chest down, you're just tripping over cameras and lenses. [laughter] >> Yeah. If only I could think of some way to sell all these cameras and lenses easily. >> There's one place I think that could work. So, we've both been using MPB for years now. Whenever we get a hankering for a new lens, want to try a different focal length or feel like testing out a new camera body, we always head straight to the MPB website. They've got a huge selection of used kits, all individually graded for condition, individually photographed, and backed by a 12-month warranty for peace of mind. It's super easy to search, compare prices, and find
12:13 exactly what you're looking for. Whether you know the lens you want or you're just browsing for inspiration, if you're thinking about checking out any of the lenses we mentioned in the video, head on over to the MPB website. You can see from our selection that we both really love using a 50 mil equivalent, particularly the 35 mil f2 or Fujifilm's nifty50. It's a small, light, sharp, and fast lens, which makes it really versatile for everyday shooting. And it's kind of fun to see how we use this focal length differently and how it suits our own styles of photography. We'll talk a bit more about it at the end of the video, but if you're thinking about changing gear or you'd like to try something new, head on over to MPB's website through the link in the description. So, we've got the XF 56 mil 1.2 2 R. Yes. And I think it's safe to say this is probably my most used lens on Fuji. I didn't realize I'd taken
12:59 72,99 pictures with this lens. >> That's [ __ ] mad. >> Yeah, I think a lot of that is just aimless burst shooting because this lens is really difficult to focus. So, I remember using burst mode just hoping at least one of them would be in focus. I've got some shots. I'm really happy with this. A lot of these are from my my book Fine Airs and Fine Graces, uh, which I shot around London and Mayfair in around 2019, 2018. And it's kind of a romantic look at Mayfair and London. >> Why did you stick to this lens for that amount of time and that that much work? >> I would say because um I I I honestly stuck to this lens because I liked how it rendered. It didn't look like a
13:47 digital image that I got from this lens. M >> you know it looked a bit more like a 1980s uh movie or something. You know, it had it was soft in parts. It was never clinically sharp. Uh and even I even liked how it was slow to focus cuz sometimes it just wouldn't focus on the thing I wanted it to. So I'd get an unexpected image from it. Like one of the things about digital photography that's kind of boring is that especially with modern cameras, it's going to focus on exactly what you wanted to focus on. So you don't get home and look through your photos and you're not really surprised by what you see. There's no there's not so many happy accidents. But with this, I got the occasional happy accident. >> How is it using it on the street like
14:32 moving around and it's quite it's quite chunky, isn't it? >> Yeah, it's pretty huge. Do I have it here? Yeah, I do. One juvenile hedgehog. Uh, it's really, yeah, it's quite big. There's a hell of a lot of glass in it. It's not really that heavy. I always remember it as being bigger and heavier before I switched to different systems where lenses were genuinely big and heavy. You know, Lumix and Sony and Canon. But yeah, I don't think many people would complain about the size of this lens, but compared to something like the 35 F2, it's pretty hefty. You've never used this, have you? >> No. I mean, I've borrowed it from you briefly, but I found it makes me motion sick using a long lens while walking. I don't know why. >> Yeah, I'd like to I'd like to give it more of a go and do some like portraits. I like the idea of like doing like some full body portraits with it from a bit
15:19 of a distance. So, making it sort of like medium formatish look >> maybe. Yeah, it's fun to use. I also have the the newer version, the the 56W war. You can see them side by side. I'll take I'll take the hood off. So, the new one's bigger. The new one's even chunkier and kind of weirdly shaped. Very bulbous. I don't know. I'm not I haven't used this enough to compare to this to be honest. It's why I don't really have any comparison shots. >> I uh I just got it recently. >> Beautiful work, too. >> Uh XF56. Yeah, one of my favorite lenses. If I was to go back to Fuji, I think it would be maybe to use this lens a bit more. Oh, wow. You got a zoom. You got a zoom in here. >> Yeah, I know this isn't the most People don't think these are good for street. I do. Well, this one. This one I do because it is so small and light for a
16:05 zoom. I don't think this is actually much bigger or heavier than your 56WR uh 410 g. It's incredibly light, incredibly fast. Constant aperture of f2.8. I mean fullframe equivalent is 24 to like 85 mil. So you got so much reach. Um I've really I picked this up last year. It's also pretty expensive. I think it's about £1,200. So it's a bit of this was like a work investment. Like I've used this on commissions. But if I'm going to like an event or a day trip or something, I know that using this will get me the best like spread of photos for the day because you can get like wide scenes like this or like zoom in a bit. Like this one I stood on top of like a cliff. Real ripoff of a Martin Par shot. I actually didn't realize he actually took a similar shot in the exact same spot until I got home.
16:50 Shameless. And then it's like focus is incredibly fast. I was able to get this guy diving off in focus. Like I only had one shot at that. So yeah, it's a great lens. I think it's more of like a working photographers lens really. So maybe it's not the most like street. If like someone was just want to start taking street photos, I probably wouldn't recommend they buy this, >> but I really like it. I was sat on my desk earlier and I picked it up and tried to take a sip from it cuz I thought little anecdote there. Funny. It's funny, isn't it? >> It's hilarious. You got too many too many lenses hanging around. >> I do. I've got three lenses here. That's it. >> Uh what's So 16 to 55 is that 24 to 70 or something? >> 24 to 84. Exactly. Apparently. >> Okay. Yeah, it's a pretty good That's a pretty good workhorse zoom range, isn't it? >> Yeah, it's plenty. It's very sharp. You can get portraits with it. You get like
17:36 landscape stuff. It just does the job. Side note, but these these images are actually taken from a air show in Eastborne, which we featured in the latest issue of our magazine, which is available to order now. >> Our latest issue, which we've been working on for a long time, that we have featured some of our favorite photographers. So, we've got a feature with Alex Webb in this issue and Rebecca Norris Webb who are frequent collaborators and husband and wife and they're they they wrote an article for us, an essay for us all about their work and dislocations, which were honored to have in the mag. Um, I think it's one of the best features we've ever had in our print magazine. Um, and yeah, loads more loads more photographers in this issue. So
18:23 definitely check it out. It's just gone on sale on Friday and all of our previous print mags have sold out. So if you if you want to get your hands on that, get it. Get it quickly. Get it now. Don't [ __ ] about. It's a great lens. And I just I used it on a commission in Thor Park the other day and just, you know, did the trick. Fast, easy to use, versatile. The only thing I have to remind myself is after I've taken a shot is to just quickly whip it back to the wide to the wide end because that way you kind of like get this like muscle memory if I compose with it. But if you leave it extended it can kind of throw you a bit. >> I find that when I use zooms I like I end up just taking 90% of the photos at the wide end. >> Yeah. Uh yeah, that's also that's 100% true. Wow. This last line desert island
19:08 lens if we had to pick one. M. >> So, to be clear, this is our desert island lens for Fujifilm. >> Yeah. If you had to sell, if you had to put everything in a box to sell to MPB >> and just keep one. >> Oh man, I don't know. Looking back at the pics I got from the 35 F2, yeah, that could be one of my favorites. >> My favorite as well. >> I think it would be. I think genuinely I'd probably just get that lens, stick it on an XPro 2, and be done with it, and I'd be very happy with that setup. It just it's perfect for the XT system. It just fits perfect. Look at this. You get a cool little lens hood. >> Yeah, I think the other lens would be the XF50, but I don't know. I think if I went back to that now, I'd be a bit bored at that focal length. And yeah, like you said, the XF 35 F2 is just a
19:54 perfect size. This is almost like a hidden classic. And it's what we recommend to people if we meet them and they're asking like, "What lens would you recommend?" >> You going to buy one again? >> Yeah, I don't even own one right now. Yeah, maybe I should. Are there any manual lenses I wonder that we could use on a Fuji system? Yeah, if you have any recommendations, leave a little comment. Thanks, guys. Bye bye. See you next time. Please next time.
