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Using a 1960 Leica Elmarit 90/2,8 on a Fuji X-T3
In short The Leica Elmarit 90/2,8 works flawlessly on a Fujifilm X-T3, also with third-party adapters having no electronic connection with the camera. It provides excellent results, notwithstanding its age. Using this lens for street photography requires using focus-peaking or zone focus. In this latter case, proper training is necessary to correctly assess the distance from the subject. Image quality On the X-T3 the lens preserves its unique identity. Its colour rendering gives pictures a distinctive ‘retro’ character. The Elmarit shows an excellent resolving power: thin lines are visible and well defined. Chromatic aberration is visible at F2,8. It disappears from F4 and ahead. Anyway, the lens profile is well…
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In praise of ‘cheap’ lenses for ‘pro’ works
Full disclosure: I have no relationship with Viltrox. I purchased the lenses with my own money and did not receive any request to write this post. I have recently discovered Viltrox, a Chinese manufacturer of lenses for the Fujifilm X-system. I am using the AF 85/1,8 II XF and the AF 56/1,4 XF and I am very satisfied by their performance. They are very good for ‘professional’ sessions, however, there are many online reviews that snobbishly rate these lenses as ‘amateur’, ‘non-professional’ or ‘first time portrait photography enthusiasts’ grade. I think that these reviews are unfair and here is why: What does ‘better’ mean? It is a known fact that…
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Footprints
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Deserved Rest
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A Street-Skater
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Open Interior
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Splinter
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Drying Clothes
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The Last Journey
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Zombie
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Uninterested
No glance. No nod. Just two people moving through the same space, as if the other didn’t exist. This was taken on a beach that should have felt wide open, maybe even freeing—but something about the moment made it feel small, enclosed. The boy looks down at his phone. The girl walks past him, eyes fixed forward. Neither slows. Neither turns. They’re metres apart, yet orbiting separate worlds. I didn’t ask for this scene. It unfolded on its own. A brief choreography of disconnection. Their postures say enough: one drawn into a screen, the other into her own stride. There’s no hostility here—just absence. A quiet kind of loneliness, the…
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Lava Nails
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Pensive
Manual focus needs practice. This photo would have been better if I framed also the top of the cabin and focused better the person.
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A Skater
Framing the whole statue would have made this photo better. The mistake was caused by the necessity to shoot fast, the lens’ field of view and the distance between the subject and the focal plane.
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A droplet
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A Rudder
Pentax K-1/smc Pentax-A 135/2,8
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A Mesh
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An Essay on Composition
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Pentax SMC-A 50/1,7 – Nikkor 50/1,4 – Summicron 50/2
The left slice is taken with a Pentax K-1 and SMC-A 50/1,7, the centre with a Nikon D750 and a Nikkor 50/1,4, the right with a Fujifilm X-T3 and a Summicron 50/2. All the cameras were at their base ISO (100 for the Pentax and Nikon, 160 with the Fujifilm), at F2 and aperture priority. The K-1 and the X-T3 photos were shot in manual focus. Only the K-1 has IBIS stabilization. The jpg is taken in Affinity by slicing each OOC RAW file without post-processing.
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A Lockheed C-130 Hercules
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Kite Surfer Under Duress
The wind was already rising when I reached the beach. Grey sky, hard light, the kind of day most people read from behind a window. But the kitesurfers were already out—lines taut, boards skipping through the chop. What always strikes me about this scene isn’t just the colour of the kites against a flat sky, or the sharp angles they carve into the wind—it’s the resolve. They know what they’re getting into. The cold. The salt in their eyes. The bruises. And they do it anyway. Because this is when it’s real. That’s what drew me to raise the camera. The same drive, maybe. You don’t wait for golden hour.…
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Busker and Covid-19
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Easy To Shoot?
This picture might look “ordinary” but for the fact that I shot it with a rangefinder film camera (guess which?) during the scene change between to acts of a theatre play. Scene assistants were placing the furnitures, actors were trying to focus on their parts, there was no time (and place) to design a proper composition and set the camera. No autofocus, no real-time exposure and white-balance setting. Maybe I have been lucky capturing the match flame close to the cigar, maybe it was because of “muscle memory”, but I did it nonetheless. Problem is that I could not be sure if I succeeded until, one week later, I saw…
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Tsutaya Bookstore@Ginza
This is a photo I took insude the Tsutaya bookstore in Tokyo. When faced with something like this, Amazon can’t win because no remote purchase can replace the experience of spending time in such a place (and the photo doesn’t do justice to the context, by the way).
