(Almost) All in with Fuji

With the school year coming to a close and summer travels just around the corner, I've been doing some reevaluation of my camera gear. I haven't shot with my Nikon D90 in about 10 months, while my X-Pro1 has become my favorite travel and concert companion (everything in my 2013 albums and 2014 albums, to date, other than the Philly Cycling Classic and most of the Gettysburg Bluegrass Festival photos, was with the X-Pro1).

With the new 10-24mm lens, and last year's 55-200mm zoom, Fuji now covers a great range for travel. My favorite travel lens for Europe on my D90 was the excellent Tokina 11-16mm super-wide lens. The Fuji 10-24mm is a stop slower, but has a more useful range. I'd been waffling on whether I should get the 10-24mm, mostly because I was worried it would be too large/heavy and defeat the purpose of traveling with a smaller system. But after getting my hands on one, it's manageble. Ditto on the 55-200mm; Fuji now has a credible telephoto zoom. Those two lenses and a couple of normal/fast primes makes for a nice travel kit.

On the flip side, in the last year my Nikon hasn't seen much action with the Tokina 11-16mm and 35mm f/1.8 DX; that's the range where the Fuji system excels (especially now the that 10-24mm has been released). So those, and Jen's D3100 and 18-105mm DX (since she's moving to a Fuji X-E1), found new homes to raise funds for the 10-24mm. Plus I just got a nice paycheck from some extra work I recently completed (the academic version of "consulting"), so the new 56mm f/1.2 arrived. This will be a great lens for concerts; I've been using the 60mm f/2.4 and it's okay for this, but being two stops faster and (hopefully) quicker to focus will make it a perfect concert photography lens.

It appears that I've officially moved over to the mirrorless camp, except for specific situations where the Nikon system still has Fuji beat (e.g., shooting cycling and macro). I did keep a handful of Nikon lenses; at some point I may step up to FX/full-frame and so I kept a few of my favorite lenses for that: the 105mm macro, 85mm f/1.4D, and 135 f/2 DC. The 135mm and 85mm may make for good lenses to use with a converter with the Fuji system (I shot the Aimee Mann concert with the 135mm on the X-Pro1 last spring). I also kept the 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6; I wouldn't say that this is one of my favorite lenses, but I've found it to be okay for shooting cycling (at least since I don't have the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8). The only DX Nikon lens I kept was the 10.5mm fisheye. With a converter, this is a fun lens on the Fuji (and the only fisheyes available for the Fuji system are manual focus, so there's not a better option than my Nikon 10.5mm).