The last time I shot a parade with this body and lens combination was at the New Year’s Day Parade here in London. And I haven’t had the lens on the camera since then.
My memory of using the lens was that it is too heavy for the body. The X-T50 is very light as cameras go, and it weighs just 438g with battery and card. And it is small as well, the little brother to the X-T5.
My idea was to use it as a carry-around camera with a small lens on it to complement my big Canon R6, which weighs 680g with battery and two cards.
Then, after I bought the Canon I saw the cost of the long lenses and blanched. Boy, does Canon make some expensive lenses.
So I thought of other options and from an Andy Mumford video I saw ages ago, I thought maybe the Fuji 55-200mm lens might be OK.
So that was a maybe, but you never really know what the shooting experience is until you do it yourself.
And this time around was just the same as previously: Shooting with the lens at maximum focal length is like trying to hold a long stick steady in front of you when you are just holding one end.
The saving grace is that the camera has in-body image stabilisation. And the lens has image stabilisation too. Put the two together and the camera can pull off some shots that are in focus and sharp.
Here is a scene of a woman helping another getting ready for the parade, and then a close-up of the woman being prepped.
So there are two things – the performance of the camera and lens on the one hand and the experience of actually shooting it on the other side.
On a scale of one to ten, with ten being great, I give the camera and lens a solid 9 for quality and a solid 4 for actually shooting this waving stick of a lens on a small body.
