General Information
Although Fujifilm is an experienced company with a long tradition, Fujifilm, like many other manufactureres, threatened to get lost in the masses of digitization at the beginning of this millenium. In 2010 Fujifilm revealed the X100 which was a suprisingly big succes. The u-turn back to retro design with the latest digital interior brought Fujifilm back on the raod of success. At first glance an obviously well-maintained rangefinder camera from Grandpa’s display case and only at second glance a modern professional camera with digital interior.
After this success, the first Fujifilm camera with interchangeable lenses was launched in 2012. This one also approached in a retro look. The apertrue needs to be adjusted on the lens and on the top of the camera body there is a rotary knob for shutter speed, like in the good old days.
One of the key features of Fuji X Mount Cameras is the prorietary designed sensor, based on APS-C sensors from Sony. Fujifilm uses a color filter pattern without a low pass filter that differs from the traditional Bayer-pattern and is supposed to provide a higher resolution and more sharpness.
Compability
Due to the 17.7mm flange focal distance, the Fuji X mount system cameras have the same good prerequisites for adapting old manual lenses as the Sony E mount system. Theoretically you can adapt any lens of any analogue SLR or rangefinder camera. For example M42 lenses, Exakta EXA lenses, Minolta MD and Minolta MC lenses, Zeiss Ikonflex BM and many more.
Unlike the lateste generation of Sony E mount cameras, there are no electrical adapters for the Fujifilm X System that allow communication between the lens and the camera. It is therefore not possible to adapt autofocus lenses of other modern systems.
The use of a so called “focal reducer” or “speedbooster” is a matter of taste. These special adapters have a built-in lens that compensates the so-called crop factor (extension factor in the focal length by difference between sensor size and the original format of the analogue film). Sometimes it is nice to have the advantage of a 1.5 times longer focal lenght. In addition, the glass element can cause quility losses.
Recomended lenses
Since you can use almost any old analogue lens on a Fuji X Mount camera, the following applies: “The best lens is the one already in the cabinet”.
Apart from that, there are of couse some analogue lenses that can be counted among the classics:
- Meyer Optik Goerlitz, Trioplan, 50mm f2.9
- Meyer Optik Goerlitz, Trioplan, 100mm f2.8
- Zenitar, Helios 44m-2,58mm f2
- Carl Zeiss Jena, Flektogon, 20mm f4
- Carl Zeiss Jena, Tessar, 50mm f2.8
- many more