Part 4 Japan and the verdict.
During the last three weeks of visiting for business India, Singapore, Malaysia and Japan, I used some evening hours and a part of the weekends to capture the beauty of these four countries. Next to culture, nature and architectural highlights I captured from time to time the food and drinks of those countries.
I first visited Tokyo during my visit in Japan. After a long week I used the Saturday to visit downtown, relaxed with a cold brew coffee at Starbucks and took a walk to the sunny Ginza district. Ginza is the main shopping area for people with a big bank account and it is very easy to make your credit card melting.
In the evening the rain started and I visited some smaller streets with unique restaurants and bars.
The Fujifilm X-PRO3 is weather sealed but also the 7Artisans 25mm f1.8 had no issue with getting wet in the rain. The different metal elements and tight fitting Mount is well rain resistent if so it’s not explicitly mentioned by 7Artisans. All I did I wiped lens and camera dry when I came back to my hotel room.
With the Shinkansen I made the journey to Nagoya on a Sunday. It has been sunny but Mount Fuji was hiding behind the clouds. Still I was able to take some pictures of the different landscapes on this close to 2h journey. Rice fields flooded with water, houses of the people and industry surrendes by nature was flying by at my train window.
In Nagoya, my colleagues had booked me a very stylish hotel directly at the Nagoya station with the hotel lobby at the 17th floor. Next to the hotel lobby a premium Starbucks entertained their guests with a live piano concerto.
The last place I visited in Japan, before flying back home from Tokyo, has been Kobe. A city with around 1.5 million inhabitants. We enjoyed a dinner at a small Spanish restaurant. I am again and again surprised of the high food quality Japanese but also international restaurants are offering in Japan.
Already today, while I am sitting in the airplane back to Germany, I am looking forward to my next visit to Japan.
Verdict
I started my journey with the three “7Artisanscrons”, how I like to name them with a big smile. The 7Artisans 25mm f1.8, 7Artisans 35mm f1.4 APSC and the 7Artisans 50mm f1.8. All three very compact lenses perfectly made for traveling with small luggage.
After the first days, I found out that all I need for this trip will be the 7Artisans 25mm f1.8. A focal length (37,5mm full frame) that is extrem universal. It is great in capturing street, landscape with adding space to the main object to capture. Great is the minimum focus distance of just 13cm if I shoot closeups of my dinner or lunch. Also the proportions/distortions of humans as well animals captured with this focal length is appearing normal to us. To make a long story short, I decided to only user for all photography tasks the 7Artisans 25mm f1.8 lens.
Yes, the 7Artisans 25mm f1.8 lens is not the most sharp lens wide open and also has some vignetting at the corners but I typically, with just some exceptions, used the lens in the range of f2.8 to f8. In this field of apertures the lens has a good resolution and IQ. The color rendering is neutral with some character.
The mechanical build quality of the lens is high with a tight fitting metal lens mount. It’s difficult to transport the fun and emotions that the smooth but well damped movement of focus but also click less aperture ring is creating in me. Manual focusing is today, with the fabulous electrical focus aids like color focus peaking so easy comfortable, provide and fast. All in all a big part of the joy to me is that I keep the precise field of depth and focus point under control and can use it to create the message of my images.
Try to find these in the pictures I produced during this journey.
All in all I am very happy with the results. The 7Artisans 25mm f1.8 is worth the money and is a great travel lens.
On my next trip I will only take this lens with me or perhaps I will make the test and use my other always on lens, the 7Artisans 35mm f1.4 APSC as the sole lens for the trip. At the end I will be able to decide what is working best for me.
Stay tuned the next business trip will come soon.
