Random Snap

I've never made friends with a lens as wide as a 21mm-equivalent before, but I sure am having fun with the Fujinon 14mm. I just keep playing with it. It hasn't been off the camera since I got it.

Doesn't the green exit sign just make this pic?

Another observation: non-Retina MacBooks are darn hard to use for correcting photos. A slight tilt of the screen throws everything off. Why didn't Ctein tell me to get a Retina screen laptop no matter what else I did?

Oh, right. He did. Never mind.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

TOP's links!

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Alex: "The Nikkor 20mm is a lot of fun, too. If they had made an equivalent for their DX bodies I'd still be using a Nikon. Switching to Micro 4/3 was cheaper than buying an FX body."

Manuel: "Errors in correction due to screen inclination are not exclusive to Macs. It used to happen to me and I use an Windows-operated ASUS laptop. That was until someone alerted me my pictures were getting too dark. I became much more careful since then. One of my cautionary measures was learning to trust the histogram.

"Now about that picture: it's great. And the green exit sign does make the picture. Yet I can't help thinking how great it would look in black and white. (On the other hand, given your lack of appreciation for steep contrasts, maybe we should keep it at that.) One last thing: there really is something addictive about wide-angle lenses. I know exactly how you feel."

Mark Sirota: "Here's a great way to set the tilt of your screen for photo editing: Bookmark this link. Scroll down until the 'lagom' image fills the screen. Adjust angle until the top half of the screen looks cyan and the bottom looks magenta. Don't move your head."

Mike replies: Fascinating. Thanks.

Jim Metzger: "Exit signs, a wedding and event shooter's worst nightmare! Red eye reduction does not work for green signs. There is a pet 'greeneye' reduction now, I wonder if that would work?

"Don't you just love highlight recovery? I have found with a Nikon D810 I am better 'underexposing' interior architectural shots and bringing up the shadows. Very much like the photo in the previous post. Keeps the windows from blowing out past reasonable recovery."

Comments

[Patrick Perez]

I toyed with a 21mm-e lens for awhile. It was a 45mm Super Angulon, part of a Brooks Veriwide 6x9 camera. It worked very well, but I just couldn't connect with the FoV. A very interesting camera, just not for me.

Patrick

[Armond Perretta]

I used the Hexanon 21 mm for a long time and enjoyed (though never mastered) this lens. Now using the Fuji XF 10-24 on an X-T1. Another lifetime will pass prior to my dominating this thing. Every so often I put the adapted Hex 21 on the X-F1 for drill. Wide is hard.

[Nathan Degargoyle]

Don't often disagree with you Mike (hence I rarely need to comment) but calling this a snap is a disgrace. This is a beautiful photograph, well worthy of wall space. Reminds me of Hockney's "Mr and Mrs Clarke and Percy". {True confession time - I had to Google the name of the cat.}

[Kev]

Lovely shot! Never got a real wide angle myself, just like you. Maybe i'm missing out...

Problem with Retina screen - once I started using one, I think that every other screen used is broken!

[jim woodard]

This looks suspiciously like people going into a courthouse, not for a trial or to pay a fine, but perhaps to observe a wedding ceremony! Not that its any of my business, but for all the TOP readers-- Just exactly where were you there? :)

[The new Harvard Arts Museum in Cambridge. I was visiting my mother and stepfather, who live nearby. My brother Scott and his family came. We went to see the Rothko murals. --Mike]

[Dave]

I've been following TOP since 2009. You must love that Fuji because you've never posted this many photos before. I'm glad to see it. Keep them coming. And if this blog turns into a long love letter to Fuji, this photographer, who is trapped by his collection of Canon lenses, will continue to come back, read, enjoy, and use your links to Amazon.

[Duncan]

I really like your "snap." I don't know exactly what it is about it, but for me the picture has a painterly quality to it. I think it has to do with the deep shadow areas that have a lot of detail in them. And yes, the green exit sign really does make the picture.

[Stephen Scharf]

Really glad to hear you're enjoying the fab Fuji fourteen. One of the guys at my local brick and mortar store (Looking Glass in Berkeley) is of the opinion that it's worth buying into the X-system for this lens alone. Can't say I disagree.

On another note, when funds allow, I would consider getting a Retina iMac for your photo editing. Profiles up quite closely in terms of color accuracy (delta-E) to the reference quality NEC PA-series.

[Roger Bradbury]

I've used a 24mm lens, or the equivalent thereof, for years. I try to remember not to have people too close to the edge because it makes them look so fat, but it's an easy fix these days so long as I do not mind losing some of the image.

When I had a 24mm lens on film, it was just right. I had gone the 28mm route like most other people, but found it either too long or too wide.

After a while I bought myself a 17mm lens. I'd got used to the 24mm and needed something wider. Now, I have a zoom that goes to 18mm equivalent, and if I want to go wider it's the 10mm (15mm-e) end of a fisheye zoom. That's usually wide enough...

[Moose]

I agree with Nathan.

Cleaned up a little, it has a very clean, classic look to me.

[Robert Hudyma]

The Fujinon 14mm covers an 89º angle of view which is really wide.

In my opinion, the best images that are made with this wide angle of view are the ones that show no visible wide angle distortion. In other words, the image does not look like it was made with a wide angle lens.

Your "Random Snap" succeeds here.

From all the accolades written about this lens I believe that the Fujinon 14mm will rank favorably among the legendary 38mm Zeiss Biogon (90º diagonal angle of view) and similarly designed 43mm Mamiya Ultrawide lens.

Another home run for Fuji.

[Andrew Lamb]

" {True confession time - I had to Google the name of the cat.}"

FWIW, I have photographed Celia Birtwell, aka Mrs Clarke, and she told me that Hockney got the name of the cat wrong. It wasn't called Percy. I forget the correct name.

[Joe Holmes]

The green exit sign just makes this picture.

[Marc]

"Doesn't the green exit sign just make this pic?"

Yes. Yes, it does. Beautiful.

[Roger]

Mike, you need an Acratech viewing angle gauge:

http://www.amazon.com/Acratech-Viewing-Angle-Gauge-Silver/dp/B00BEAWM2O/ref=sr_1_17?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1432764636&sr=1-17&keywords=acratech

I use one on my Air. Looks clunky, cheap, and works great.

[Christopher Lane]

As a landscape and astrophotographer (I use the terms loosely) I have always favored the wider angles. As Michael Reichmann says though, horses for courses. Glad you're having fun. That file is gorgeous. Fujifilm, here I come (XT-10 of course, silver)! Take care.

[Michael Perini]

A cheap & easy way io adjust viewing angle:
http://www.acratech.net/accessories/monitor-viewing-angle-gauge/

[Tom_kaszuba]

How much correction did you do to the photograph? There's no distortion at all.

[Patrick Dodds]

@ Mark Sirota - thanks for the link - big fail on the laptop here... Thankfully the desktop fine.

[Luke]

I really like Moose's version of the snapshot!

Apple, as usual, hides the actual technology they use with meaningless marketing terms like "Retina".

My LG screen uses a common technology called IPS (in-plane switching) which minimizes the vertical color and brightness shift. The "lagom" test barely shows any shift as you move your head the entire height of the screen.

IPS may well be the reason "Retina" screens don't show this problem, but Apple wants to promote it as Apple magic, instead of a common technology.

[Phillip Bond]

RE: the Fuji 14mm, for some strange reason – a reason that I cannot understand – it doesn't *seem* to play like a 21mm(e) to me.

I've not gone to the trouble of comparing it's angle of view to that of my 17 and 24 on FF bodies. If (when) I do I suspect that I will find that it fits neatly in between. However it *feels* different somehow.

Maybe it has something to do with the form factor of the camera or the way I use it (as compared to the almost always tripod mounted use of the Canons).

It is not at all logical, this feeling, but I do tend to keep it on the camera a bit more than I do my super wides on other systems.

[Marcelo Guarini]

"Doesn't the green exit sign just make this pic?"

Yes, plus the fact that the subjects are exiting walking backwards ;-)

[Peter Vagt]

Oh, but the shadows of the window panes expanding across the lower half of the picture, and echoed back at the open door are wonderful!

[Jake]

What's that about the green exit sign making the pic? Seriously?

[Roger Bradbury]

I tried Mark Sirota's link and it is indeed fascinating. I don't find it difficult to look at my 2008 iMac screen square on; I'm also good at getting the camera horizontal in both planes for building photography, hand held.

When working on photos in the daytime I draw the curtains to reduce reflections from the screen. It does make a difference.

[ctein]

Dear Mark,

That's pretty useless-- all it does is evenly distribute the gamma problem between the top and the bottom of the screen. It doesn't keep the tones from going way too dark at the top and way too dark at the bottom.

It's just facing your screen square head-on ... accomplishes the same thing.

pax / Ctein

[Geoff Smith]

No Mike, I think the way the archway is lit, and the diagonal light patches on the floor make the image.

[Mark Sirota]

I disagree that either the link I provided, or the Acratech tool, are useless. Sure, they don't fix the actual problem, which is that the screen is lousy. But if you're stuck editing on a lousy screen, by allowing you to always set the screen to the same angle they allow you to achieve consistency, which is critically important.