I finally got a native lens for my 100 megapixel Fuji medium format digital camera. It's one of the most respected lenses in the system, and it seems like a great all-around lens for general use. I've shot quite a few test shots with it. You can see some of them in the group of shots that has the old, gray pickup truck in my GFX100 photos gallery here. WARNING! NSFW - That gallery has some photos of a topless model in it, so if you don't want to see that, please don't click the link. Photos in that gallery can be downloaded (one at a time, or all of the photos - your choice. Just click on one of them to see the larger view, and then put your mouse pointer over the photo to see the menu button in the top left corner of the image. These are OOC jpegs, so no editing was done to those photos . . . except where they are titles as crops. I included some cropped shots in that gallery, just in case you don't want to download those huge files to see the detail the lenses could produce.

This isn't a review of the Fuji GF 35-70mm lens, but just a few short comments about it and my experience with it. I love the compactness of the lens. I think it's probably the smallest zoom lens in the Fuji GF lens line. I like how it has just a zoom ring and a focus ring, which keeps it simple (no switches - no aperture ring). It's a weather sealed lens, and it has a "stow-away mode" that allows the lens to be more compact, when it's not in use. (I just have to rotate the zoom ring a bit, when I turn on the camera, and the lens extends, so it's ready to use.) This lens is surprisingly light, and it takes pretty small filters (not that I even have any filters . . . but I guess I'll probably end up getting some for it, so I can do stuff like long exposures during the day (i.e. a ten stop neutral density filter). I typically don't use filters, because I find them to be a hassle, and I feel as though a filter would harm the image. (Who buys an expensive lens, with special coatings on the front element, and then puts a piece of glass in front of it? Not me . . . normally.)

The GFX100 camera feels good with this lens on it. It's not like the lens is so small that it feels like there's no lens on the camera, but it's not like the lens is really bulky, and a drag to carry around on the camera. (This is a big camera though - the biggest digital camera that I have ever owned.) One of the things I like the most about this lens is how fast and quietly it focuses. It doesn't have any optical stabilization, but it is a quick, responsive, and sharp lens, that helps me produce excellent quality images.

SDQH2956