November has brought a good amount of pictures to the portfolio. It is somewhat strange that as daylight fades, it gets colder and I spend less time outside, I also feel a stronger urge to bring my camera and go for walks, just to take pictures.

November also added a lens to my collection. I wanted a small manual focus lens for the Fujifilm X-T2. After some research I decided to try the 7Artisans 35mm 1.2. I already own the 35mm 0.95 which I really like shooting wide open – but it is anything but small.

The 0.95 also lacks “clicky” aperture which version 2 of the 35mm 1.2 has. Already knowing 7Artisans somewhat made the decision easier. There is a certain soft glow to the 0.95 wide open, and reading the reviews about the 1.2 there was similar claims, which some people had as a downside – but I really like it.

Initial impression

Having received it my first impressions was really good. Build quality is very close to the Fujinon 23mm F2 WR that I already own and actually better than the Fujinon 27mm 2.8 which I have also had my hands on.

Below are some of the first images I took with the new lens. I am really impressed.

Compared to Fuji 23mm F2

Interestingly enough I made a small unscientific comparison between the 7Artisans 35mm F1.2 and the Fujinon 23mm F2, just to get an idea about how much sharpness I was giving up by using the 7Artisans lens.

Very surprisingly the exact opposite appeared.

The 7Artisans lens is actually sharper across almost all apertures. I was not expecting that. Of course there can both be something “wrong” with my Fujinon lens as well as me having been extremely lucky with the example I got of the 7Artisans, but the results are clear. The 7Artisans is actually sharper, smaller, opens wider and is significantly cheaper.

The image above of the bicycle bell I am pretty sure is shot wide open as well as the one of the first one of the water tap.

November also brought forward a more clear direction in my editing and look of my black & white pictures. All of the pictures in this post, should seem somewhat consistent as I finally have an editing flow that I produce pictures I am proud of on digital.

It is a bit cumbersome as it starts on my old Macbook Pro and ends up on my Lenovo X1 Carbon running Ubuntu – but at least it works for me.

Below are a few more pictures from a recent train ride when I had to have my car serviced.

The last one is shot wide open and shows a good fall-off as well as highlights the grain that I really like. It is shot at high ISO to give some of the grain and some is added in editing afterwards. All in all I really like the result.

More pictures

Finally a few pictures from a recent Spa trip that I took together with my girlfriend. We went for some good cold swims in the ocean and enjoyed the warm saunas afterwards. A good autumn relaxation.

Again I really like the way the lens captured the mood. Having a manual focus lens makes me more involved in the shooting experience, but also makes it “easier” to take blurry artistic shots like the third one in the set below.

It is only the last image where I think the bokeh becomes a little bit “busy” in the background and takes up some of the attention that should have been kept on the foreground.

But all in all I am very happy with my cheap new lens.

Finally I was quite close to buying a Contax 139Q on ebay. I stumbled upon it by total chance and had a nice little “bid-war” that I unfortunately did not win. Or it went for more than I was willing to pay at least.

But I have been shooting a bit more analog film again. And with a little luck, then the next installment will include some analog shots.

Currently I want to shoot some more Ilford Delta 3200, so hopefully I will get the chance to do so over the next month or so.