As a wedding/portrait photographer, I spend a lot of time shooting at wide open apertures. My favorite two lenses for the APS-C digital cameras are the 50mm f1.8 and the 85mm f1.8 - generally shot either wide open or at around f2.8.
Even with a 'fast' lens that goes from f2 to f2.8, I know that the Fuji X10 isn't going to give me the creamy smooth 'bokeh' I'm used to from my prime lenses on the D90. But can it get close?
I took my ever-patient model/daughter Emily out to the Brunner Mine Site to test the X10's portrait abilities.
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| Bokeh at 112mm @ f2.8 ISO 100 |
To help the Fuji X10 focus, I switched to 'Face Detection' and checked the lcd on the back for the first few minutes just to make sure the focus was tracking on Emily's face correctly. It was, so I then switched to my normal 'info' mode on the lcd and let the camera do all the work.
With the camera at f2.8, zoomed all the way out to 112mm, the resulting 'bokeh' can be seen above (and in all the images in this post).
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| More stuff in the background @ f2.8 |
It's not the smooth and creamy f2.8 bokeh I'm used to with my DSL kit and prime lenses, but I knew it wasn't going to be. With a compact point-and-shoot, even at f2.8, the fact that the background is blurred out at all is quite remarkable, although I was careful to give a good amount of separation between Emily and the background. With a quick bit of dodging and burning, she definitely stands out for a shallow depth of field(ish) effect.
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| A beautiful 'bokeh' machine it is not. |
No, the Fuji X10 isn't a beautiful bokeh machine, despite its f2-f2.8 lens and 'slightly larger than usual for a compact' digital sensor. Can you get some out of focus separation between the foreground and background? Yes you can, as is evidenced with these images. Is it as good as you'll get with a DSLR and f2.8 prime lens? No - of course it isn't. If that's what you want, or need, then look elsewhere (preferably not at a compact system). But if the above images are 'good enough' for your purposes when you think of portraiture, then the X10 will work just fine for you.
As a side note: the Fuji X10 had an 'advanced mode' trick up its sleeve in EXR Pro Focus, which takes several images in quick succession, blends them together, and blurs out the background for a 'professional' bokeh look. I didn't try that out on this occasion, but I certainly will in the future and post the results. For now I just wanted to try the 'conventional' method of achieving blurred depth of field. And despite its smaller sensor, I think the Fuji X10 did just fine.
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