Sharpness of Fujifilm XF50-140mm lens with XF1,4× teleconverter

From the first time I started to shoot with Fuji gear, as nature photographer I keep eye on all longer focal lengths X system offers. Recently I recently had the opportunity to test Fujinon  XF50-140mm with XF1,4× teleconverter.

I have to say I don’t like teleconverters much. I owned three of them from different manufacturers earlier and I tested few more, always with proffesional lenses (70-200 mm f/2,8 and 300 mm f/2,8). I sold all of them, because I was not satisfied with optical quality. The main reason was loss of sharpness when shooting from longer distance. While pictures taken from short distance was great, so it was perfectly acceptable for shooting small birds etc., distances over 10 meters shown lack of sharpnes in fine structures like animals fur.

I didn’t expect too much from XF1,4×, but I was pleasantly surprised. Neither this combo doesn’t avoid the described issue, but there are still lot of details in fine structures, which can be restored using appropriate tools in postproduction without leading to unwanted artifacts. Test shots were sharpened using Structure parameter in Capture One a for my comparison in Output Sharpener from Nik plugins collection, which I started to experiment with recently. Let’s go on sample photos – I never liked to shoot some kind of test patterns in lab conditions, so these are just photos from my normal shooting and were taken using different exposure parameters.

West Caucasian Tur – shoot from a distance of about 16 meters

West Caucasian Tur (Capra caucasica)
West Caucasian Tur (Capra caucasica) – Fujifilm XT-1, lens XF50-140mm + XF1.4×, focal length 196 mm, shutter speed 1/60 s, aperture f/5,6, ISO 250
1:1 crop without extra sharpening
Fur and horns are little bit soft without sharpening, but details are recoverable
using Structure in Capture One
Sharpened in Capture One using Structure parameter set on 15
using Nik Sharpener Pro
Sharpened in Nik Sharpener Pro (Output Sharpening) using Adaptive Sharpening set to 40

Northern River Otter – shoot from a distance of about 6 meters

Northern River Otter (Lontra canadensis)
Northern River Otter (Lontra canadensis) – Fujifilm XT-1, lens XF50-140mm + XF1.4×, focal length 196 mm, shutter speed 1/500 s, aperture f/4, ISO 2000
1:1 crop without extra sharpening
Otter was moving while feeding and the light was dim, but details are not completely lost
using Structure in Capture One
Sharpened in Capture One using Structure parameter set on 15 – whiskers are little bit better, but wet fur is not the best situation for sharpening using Structure
using Nik Sharpener Pro
Sharpened in Nik Sharpener Pro (Output Sharpening) using Adaptive Sharpening set to 30 give me slightly better results

Black-tailed Prairie Dog – shoot from a distance of about 3 meters

Black-tailed Prairie Dog (Cynomys ludovicianus)
Black-tailed Prairie Dog (Cynomys ludovicianus) – Fujifilm XT-1, lens XF50-140mm + XF1.4×, focal length 182 mm, shutter speed 1/180 s, aperture f/4, ISO 500
1:1 crop without extra sharpening
Sharpness is good from such short shooting distance
using Structure in Capture One
Sharpened in Capture One using Structure parameter set on 15
using Nik Sharpener Pro
Sharpened in Nik Sharpener Pro (Output Sharpening) using Adaptive Sharpening set to 35

House Sparrow – shoot from a distance of about 2,5 meters

House Sparrow (Passer domesticus)
House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) – Fujifilm XT-1, lens XF50-140mm + XF1.4×, focal length 196 mm, shutter speed 1/250 s, aperture f/5,6, ISO 200
1:1 crop without extra sharpening
When you shoot from this distance on low ISO with precise focus, you almost don’t need to perform any kind of extra sharpening
using Structure in Capture One
After adding Structure in Capture One, sharpness is perfect – I didn’t tried Nik Sharpener Pro in this case

Cuban Ground Iguana – shoot from a distance of about 1,5 meters

Cuban Ground Iguana (Cyclura nubila)
Cuban Ground Iguana (Cyclura nubila) – Fujifilm XT-1, lens XF50-140mm + XF1.4×, focal length 196 mm, shutter speed 1/180 s, aperture f/5,6, ISO 2000
1:1 crop without extra sharpening
Sharpening is needed here more because of higher ISO than because of teleconverter use
using Structure in Capture One
Sharpened in Capture One using Structure parameter set on 15
using Nik Sharpener Pro
Here I used MacPhun Noiseless for little bit of noise reduction and then sharpened photo using Nik Sharpener Pro (Output Sharpening)

All photos was shoot with X-T1 body. I didn’t notice any issues with focus accuracy or speed using this converter. I didn’t test XF1.4× with other lenses, but it is very viable option for longer focal lengths on Fujifilm X system in combo with Fujinon XF50-140.

Lens and teleconverter was lend me by FUJIFILM Europe GmbH.