Howdy! This is J. Channel for EUG and AODL and welcome back to my channel of various things keeping this old hermit alive, philosophy, k-pop, modular synth experiments, graphic experiments, photography. This is a photography one. And today I want to talk about compact lens setups for Fuji film, rangefinder style bodies, the XE and the X Pro. And I am doing this while I still have my XE 3. It is about to go away as I've cross-graded to the X Pro 2. But the smaller size of the XE 3 and its whole family kind of really lends itself to this series and is part of why I wanted to start it in the first place. Primarily I wanted to see some unusual profiles because really the only true pancake option from Fuji film is the 27mm f2 and the newer RWR version has been in short supply through much of its first year of existence. Although the older model has been so fairly available. But what are some alternates? Well this is one. This is the easiest to envision on a camera and that is the body cap style lens, the seven artisans UFO 18mm 6.3 lens. This is a fixed focus fixed aperture lens. There's nothing mechanical on it. It is very direct. This lens actually does make a good body cap. It is not much thicker if at all from Fuji's plastic ones. This locks into place solidly. Fuji's do not lock in. This is metal and just has that little lens in the middle. So it's very pocketable especially on the XE bodies. For comparison here are some pictures of the XE 3 on top of the X Pro 1 and to the side of the X Pro 1 you can see it's definitely a bit narrower. It's about two centimeters narrower and about a centimeter shorter. The XE 3 went flushed to the side against the X Pro 1. It comes to the X Pro 1's shutter button and when pressed next to each other the top plate of the very top of the XE 3 kind of lines up with the lowest part of the X Pro 1's top plate. It's not that the X pros are small or they're not large cameras really but the XE's are definitely more compact and lighter. These do fit in your pocket better so this makes for a very pocketable set up. But is it any good? Well this lens reminds me a lot of shooting with the LOMO LCA. If you've heard of LOMOGRAPHY this is kind of from once it came. This is an original LCA but after LOMOGRAPHY had kind of gotten involved and started reselling and building a larger brand on these Russian cameras. But the point of the LCA was kind of that that had this good lens, pretty decent lens for a low-cost camera, that had some character and if you just shot from the hip the whole don't think just shoot kind of mentality you would get interesting shots. And that's largely true. At least that has largely been my experience. I've had this since around 2003, 2004 so 18, 19 years as of summer of 2022. It got used a lot more in its earlier days but I've been using it again recently. Here are a few old photos from my LCA. Just kind of used as comparison as we started looking at the UFO lens output. So with the UFO lens the 186.3 this lens definitely has character as you would expect in a lens that is that tiny in this little package. But it's not bad. I took this to Vegas on the X Pro 1. Here it is on the X Pro 1. I was going to Vegas to CBTS in spring of 2022 and since I knew I couldn't bring cameras into the concert I decided to bring film cameras for shooting around Vegas and along the route home. And there was just enough room in my bags for the X Pro 1 itself. I could have taken the XE3 but just love the X Pro bodies. But no lens. So packing it very flat, this fit in there and a few times through the trip I would bring this out of the backpack and put it in my jacket pocket as an additional camera. This worked great outside in the bright Vegas sunlight. Here are some shots around the Mono Rail and the Ferris wheel. You definitely see some vignetting but these shots I think are pretty good considering that on which they were taken. I think for these I did shoot through the viewfinder. The nice thing about the 18mm 6.3 is since it is no focus you can use the optical viewfinder of the X Pro 1 and you don't have to worry about manual focus at all and the 18mm size basically fits perfectly in the optical viewfinder. So that makes for a very natural experience. I found that when I have this on the XE3 I very quickly get into the lography shoot from the hip. Don't think just shoot mentality. I kind of don't care too much what the photos will look like. I don't obsess over them. I just kind of try to snap quickly and here are some shots around Salt Lake City in the summer time taken on the 186.3. I believe most of these are on the XE3. These definitely have a style I feel similar to what I was shooting on the LCA when I was using that and I actually still use the LCA but film being a bit costly to purchase and develop and process. It's still easier to use these cameras but this is actually a fun way to kind of get that kind of experience. So this is a good lens I think for especially for throwing on a smaller Fuji film body like the XE series the XM1 probably than the XAs the XT30 and stick the rest of the camera in auto mode and don't think just shoot. And this is fun. I don't have a fancy sign off.