Crappy photos from a crappy lens
Last year I briefly tested a Fujifilm X-Pro3, which I loved but couldn’t really justify keeping given my other X mount cameras. Besides, X-Pro5 has to be just around the corner… right? Guys?
For reasons known only to my B&H account, I chose to test this great camera with the worst lens I’ve ever had the pleasure of using (4.5 stars on B&H 🤔). It was a TTArtisan 25mm (37.5mm eq) f2, chosen (I guess) for its tiny form factor. I couldn’t get my hands on an X100V (this was January, weeks before the X100VI announcement), so I wanted to approximate the idea of one. Reader, this approximates the idea of an X100 series camera that’s been run over by a truck and put back together again. Poorly.
THAT SAID, there is something about the hazy, heavily vignetted, crapfest of these photos that makes it both the worst lens imaginable and the one lens you could use for the rest of your life, winning awards, and becoming the most published photographer in history (assuming you’re a white man).
What do you think? Am I just squinting weird or is there something almost right with this lens, amongst all the wrongness? Given a more capable photographer who makes better compositional choices, would it shine?
These are from a wander around Brunswick, Maine.
