[JJ_SO]

OK, I need to know what WW means, Ultrawide, maybe?

 

You words do strike a chord!  I had a hard time getting past the 16 MP density thing, but I think your information question is valid.  People sometimes forget that lenses designed for a system from the ground up will be better optimized.  It's never cut and dried though. 


I am not as conversant with ultrawides as I am with other lengths.  I have a total of one ultrawide on the APS-C format, the 10-18mm by Canon.  I'm not sure who theoretically has advantage.  From what I can tell in the DSLR world, the FF 11-24mm L lens is by far better than anything else.  The 10-18mm STM does a credible job for 1/10 the price, but lets face it, they are not even in the same league!  But would this be a stronger area for mirrorless?


Along those lines the Laowa (sp?) 15mm 1:1 macro....is an extremely compelling lens for ultimate deep depth of field.  To me exciting things are happening with DSLR's.  This lens can be had for a little over $400 and it opens completely new territory! 


Also, Joju - you are wise to eschew complicated menus, and my personal major dislike is "special effects menus".  When you need access to a setting, you don't want to send out a search party!

 

Sorry, my bad, I was in the German abbreviation. I meant WA - wide-angle in general or everything which FL is shorter than the flange distance between sensor and mount.

 

I'm sort of convinced, the shorter the FL gets, the higher the precision of the assembly of a lens has to be which is usually contradictive to the costs. Take the great 11-24 FF from Canon: 5.5 - 12 mm in µ4/3 and the assembly tolerances should increase twice. If the position of a lens element needs ± 0.02 mm, it's µ4/3 counterpart should be as good or better than ±0.01 mm. Centerring and adjusting has to be twice as precise and so on. I don't believe in miniaturization for photographic tools as long as our hands not get miniaturized the same amount. And this kind of precision needs to be build very strongly, cheap plastic parts are taboo and high-precision plastic costs more than metal.

 

The Laowa lens 15/2.8 is, pardon me, slightly crap. Poor mechanical design and execution, at least mine. Shift function only for three  positons: fully up, no shift, fully down. Released by a flimsy, tiny lever. Useless for full frame. No EXIF, not even automatic aperture and the aperture has not even steps. Try to focus at f/11 in LiveView.... To put this lens on the Nikon, you need to push the lens mount button on the body, otherwise it will not end in the correct position. Laowa does interesting optics, but my impression is, they do just enough not to call it a prototype anymore. I had similar thoughts like you before I bought it. But a smoothly working lens is a different story.

 

Complicated menus? Well, Fuji has now firmware version 4.01 on the X-E2 which makes it basically nearly a X-E2s. Great for users who don't wnat to buy new models becasue of software features. Greatly improved AF, too.

But:

1. the electronic spirit level is a thing that I activate on the D810 by dedicating it to a function button and after that saving it to custom menu. On the Fuji, I can switch it on after digging deeply in the menu and somewhere at the display functions I find it after pushing 6 other menupoints first.
   
2. On the Fuji, I have 7 (!) custom menus. But so many functions are excluded from grouping it to custom menu, that I don't use it. Also, I can't even give it a name, like "landscape" or "tripod" or available light".
   
3. Now I have three X-E2: One with a broken EVF, came back as "total loss" but is still functioning. It's replacment, when it was away to the repair shop and a "second body", which now became third body and came with a 18-55 kit-lens, the better one. I just can not save the settings of one of those to a SD-card and transfer those settings to the rest...   keeping all three bodies with the same settings makes sense, no? But is in reality a time consuming adjustment.
   
4. The WIFI remote is great. Unfortunately, not all dials and switches are ignored by it. To adjust exposure compensation, I have to switch off the camera, adjust the compensation dial, switch it on and re-connect the camera with iPad or iPod.
   

Soem things really improved by firmware update, others still suck.