Fujinon GF 80mm f1.7 R WR - Optimus Prime
I picked up a new assistant at the studio to help me do some new lens test videos. I don’t even think it’s a legit Optimus Prime figure, it doesn’t even have the Autobots logo on it. But whatever, makes no difference to me. I just want something interesting to test lenses with. Today I’m testing out the Fujinon GF 80mm f1.7 R WR on the 100 megapixel Fujifilm GFX 100S. I want to get to know this lens and the system before I start making videos about it on YouTube. I’ll note that these photos where edited in Capture One and I added Capture One’s film noise effect to the images in post.
Minimum Focus Distance
As someone who is new to the GFX system and its lenses, the first thing I noticed is that the minimum focus distance is a lot farther on this system than on full frame. I wasn’t able to get as close to the subject as I normally would be able to. Even for the overhead shot I had to stand on a chair whereas with full frame I can just hold the camera over the table with the object.
Chromatic Aberrations
The other thing I noticed and to be honest I'm really disappointed with, is the amount of CA I'm getting with this lens. At f1.7 it’s really bad. In fact I would say it's very reminiscent of lenses from the early 90’s in character. However the CA is all but gone when the lens is stopped down to f5.6 - 9. I shot some example images posted below. You can see in the image of the two lenses side by side the CA is so bad that it can be seen in the lens rings on the full sized image shrunk for web. To be perfectly honest I think this is really unacceptable for a lens at this price point.
I need to test this lens a lot more but so far it appears that this lens is great for shooting in studio with studio strobes but it’s really going to fall short of expectations when shooting in natural light wide open. Which begs the question why even buy an f1.7 lens if you can’t use it wide open?
