IN THE SHADOW OF THE TOWER

This time I will post in English. Please forgive me if the sentence construction I use sounds a bit rough or something. It´s because of the lack of routine in the last few years.

If you want to shoot modern architecture in Munich, you have to go to the "BMW-Welt" (BMW-World). Located not far from the Olympic Park, you can take a beautiful walk through the park. By the way you can visit the Olympic Stadium, or the BMW-Museum. The BMW-World opened on October 17, 2007 and so far more than 10 million people visited the building. 

For me it was another opportunity to test one of my FUJINON lenses - the XF 18-55mmF2.8-4 R LM OIS. Lately I tend to use my other Fuji-lenses more often. The main reason for that may be because I love the shallow focus I can get with the XF 35mm and XF 60mm. The XF 18-55 has a variable aperture from 2.8 to 4 so if you shoot on the long end of the lens, you may not be able to emphasize one part of the image over another in the amount you want it to do. But hey - this is what we call high level moaning! Aperture 4 is not bad at all. Some kit-lenses of this range got apertures from 3.5 to 5.6 so this lens is far away from being a kit-lens! It´s more like a excellent all round lens. So lets do a quick comparison to a lens I often use with my Nikon gear - the Nikkor 24-70 2.8. Yeah - F2.8 all the way through the zoom range is great - but...the Nikkor weighs 900 gram and is a really big lens. The lens hood is twice the size as the hole Fuji lens! On the wide end the Fuji is also aperture 2.8 and the results are...yes, lets talk about a comparison of a full frame lens and a APS-C size lens! No pixel peeping or something of that stuff. Just a quick look at how the lens performs in real life shooting.

The FUJINON does an excellent job! I think on the wide angle end and aperture 2.8 it is noticeable sharper- especially in the corners- as the Nikkor 24-70 2.8 on a full frame D800! The distortion throughout the zoom range is also very low and - by the way - you get OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) with the Fuji lens. Not bad for a lens in this price range! Any downsides? Not really - maybe the fiddly lens hood and lens cap. This is something Fuji should redesign for this lens.

So back to the shooting. I think this lens is perfect for architecture work where you don´t need a ultra wide angle lens but the flexibility of a zoom lens. This lens is also very good for street photography because it focuses silent and quickly.

So enjoy the pics and please write a comment!

Cheers!

Andreas

SHOT WITH FUJI X-PRO1 AND FUJINON XF 18-55mmF2.8-4 R LM OIS