Macro Photography with the Fuji X-Series: Impressions of the Zeiss Touit 50mm Macro lens

One of the things I was most concerned about when I changed my camera system from a Canon DSLR to a Fuji X-Series camera was the macro performance. Smaller cameras and sensors can have a negative effect on Depth of Field.

f3.2 1/125s ISO200

f4.0 1/150s ISO1,600

f4.5 1/140s ISO6,400

Shortly thereafter I wrote a blog post about my impressions of the Fuji 60mm Macro lens. The lens is quite good but it still felt like a step back from the Canon Macro lenses I was using before. Some time later Zeiss announced the Touit 50mm 2.8 lens with a 1:1 magnification. I was pondering the expense of this lens for a long time since any lens purchase is a pretty big investment for me but last summer I broke down and splurged. I got the lens shortly before leaving for my summer vacation to the US where I wanted to spend some time in the Botanical Garden in Atlanta which I absolutely adore!

f5 1/150s ISO200

f5 1/125s ISO1,600

f6.4 1/420s ISO2,500

So after more than half a year with this lens, was it worth the purchase? Absolutely! In fact I am most likely selling the Fuji Macro lens because I have no good use case for it anymore. The Zeiss lens has incredible optics and is super sharp. I am also absolutely in love with the creamy bokeh of this lens. The autofocus is not as fast as I would like (at least on the X-E2) but I have gotten more and more used to shooting it in manual mode which is a joy to use on the Fuji with focus peaking. With this lens I have absolutely found a solution that I love just as much as I did my Canon setup.