Sharpness of Fujifilm XF50-140mm lens with XF1,4× teleconverter

From the first time I started to shoot with Fuji gear, as nature photographer I keep eye on all longer focal lengths X system offers. Recently I recently had the opportunity to test Fujinon XF50-140mm with XF1,4× teleconverter.

I have to say I don’t like teleconverters much. I owned three of them from different manufacturers earlier and I tested few more, always with proffesional lenses (70-200 mm f/2,8 and 300 mm f/2,8). I sold all of them, because I was not satisfied with optical quality. The main reason was loss of sharpness when shooting from longer distance. While pictures taken from short distance was great, so it was perfectly acceptable for shooting small birds etc., distances over 10 meters shown lack of sharpnes in fine structures like animals fur.

I didn’t expect too much from XF1,4×, but I was pleasantly surprised. Neither this combo doesn’t avoid the described issue, but there are still lot of details in fine structures, which can be restored using appropriate tools in postproduction without leading to unwanted artifacts. Test shots were sharpened using Structure parameter in Capture One a for my comparison in Output Sharpener from Nik plugins collection, which I started to experiment with recently. Let’s go on sample photos – I never liked to shoot some kind of test patterns in lab conditions, so these are just photos from my normal shooting and were taken using different exposure parameters.

West Caucasian Tur – shoot from a distance of about 16 meters

West Caucasian Tur (Capra caucasica) – Fujifilm XT-1, lens XF50-140mm + XF1.4×, focal length 196 mm, shutter speed 1/60 s, aperture f/5,6, ISO 250

1:1 crop without extra sharpening — Fur and horns are little bit soft without sharpening, but details are recoverable

using Structure in Capture One — Sharpened in Capture One using Structure parameter set on 15

using Nik Sharpener Pro — Sharpened in Nik Sharpener Pro (Output Sharpening) using Adaptive Sharpening set to 40

Northern River Otter – shoot from a distance of about 6 meters

Northern River Otter (Lontra canadensis) – Fujifilm XT-1, lens XF50-140mm + XF1.4×, focal length 196 mm, shutter speed 1/500 s, aperture f/4, ISO 2000

Black-tailed Prairie Dog – shoot from a distance of about 3 meters

Black-tailed Prairie Dog (Cynomys ludovicianus) – Fujifilm XT-1, lens XF50-140mm + XF1.4×, focal length 182 mm, shutter speed 1/180 s, aperture f/4, ISO 500

House Sparrow – shoot from a distance of about 2,5 meters

House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) – Fujifilm XT-1, lens XF50-140mm + XF1.4×, focal length 196 mm, shutter speed 1/250 s, aperture f/5,6, ISO 200

Cuban Ground Iguana – shoot from a distance of about 1,5 meters

Cuban Ground Iguana (Cyclura nubila) – Fujifilm XT-1, lens XF50-140mm + XF1.4×, focal length 196 mm, shutter speed 1/180 s, aperture f/5,6, ISO 2000

All photos was shoot with X-T1 body. I didn’t notice any issues with focus accuracy or speed using this converter. I didn’t test XF1.4× with other lenses, but it is very viable option for longer focal lengths on Fujifilm X system in combo with Fujinon XF50-140.

Lens and teleconverter was lend me by FUJIFILM Europe GmbH.