Back in 1989 after graduating from undergraduate school and before starting graduate school, my wife and I planned a trip to Oaxaca, Mexico to document the various markets in and around the city. My mentor and close friend gave me a challenge of taking only one camera and one lens and the camera had to be 35mm since I was devoted to the large format camera at the time. My choice was to take my Nikon F2 mated to a 28mm. I remember having a great time, but unfortunately I never really did anything with the work, because I immediately started graduate school, where I was teaching and developing a large format class curriculum.
Now nearly 30 years later, My wife and I are planning a trip back to Oaxaca and I was curious about the work I had captured way back when. So, I dug up the negatives, had them scanned and downloaded them into LightRoom. I immediately regretted not doing more with the work earlier, but enjoyed reliving the time we had. Being older, and having a bit more discretionary income I had 30 years ago, I have several cameras and several lens at my disposal to take with me on this new wonderful journey. So what do I take? Will, it has to be “One Camera, One Lens”! The camera is a no brainer, I’m taking my Fujifilm X Pro2. The lens is a toss up between the Fuji 18mm f2 and the fuji 23mm f2. The 18mm gives a 28mm equivalent FOV for full frame 35mm camera like the Nikon f2 while the 23mm gives a 35mm FOV. But here is my issue, neither lens offers depth of field markings on the lens, and both offer a rather disappointing experience when used as a manual focus lens.
So what I’m looking for is to have a similar shooting experience I had 30 years ago but with a modern digital camera. So what I came up with is mating the Fuji X Pro2 with a M mount Voigtlander 21mm f4 Color Skopar. This arrangement gives me a tiny lens with a 30mm FOV 35mm equivalent, depth of field markings on the lens, and a focus rotation from 1.5 feet to infinity that is significantly less than half a rotation of the lens barrel. So let me clarify, this is a manual focus lens only and I love it! I have had a chance to work with it a bit shooting a local festival and was not disappointed! So I have included some work from our trip to Oaxaca in 1989 above and our local UFO festival photographed in 2018 below.
Thanks for sharing, William, and wonderful photos! What kind of adapter are you using on the xpro 2? Thanks!
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Sorry, I missed this somehow! Thank you! The adapter is a Fotodiox for a Leica M to Fujifilm X series. It has worked out very well for my needs.
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