Photography – Fujifilm XF 80mm F/2.8 R LM OIS WR Macro Lens

A year or so ago I invested in a Fujifilm XF80mm F2.8 Macro lens. It’s an expensive lens to buy new, retailing at over £1000 in the UK. I bought mine second hand from MPB for about £600. It was advertised as mint condition and I wasn’t disappointed, it was like new. I buy all my lenses, used, from MPB these days and I would wholeheartedly recommend them.

It’s a heavy lens to carry around but I’ve been really pleased with it. It’s on my camera, a Fujifilm X-T5, more than any other lens and I use it for all my studio photography as I like the close focusing capability. It’s also a superb telephoto portrait lens (it equates to a 120mm lens with a crop sensor camera, like mine) and, as I’ve recently discovered, excellent as a macro lens.

It probably seems odd that I’ve listed the macro capability of this macro lens last but, up until recently, I just haven’t used it for close ups of small things. I had the misconception that you needed large ring flash’s and extension tubes to get a decent insect shot. It turns out that’s not so. To get a bit of advice on how to shoot macro, and find inspiration, I downloaded a ‘How to Shoot Macro’ magazine on my public library App and went from there.

I found a lot to photograph around our own garden but I’ve also taken the lens out with me on the occasional dog walk etc. I’m really enjoying the macro side of things but still learning on the job.

Below are a few more recent images taken with this lens using it in macro mode, as a close up lens and finally a telephoto lens with the image of the guitar.