Near Chinatown at night, I photographed a welder with the Fuji 90mm f2. Sparks came off the work while the surrounding light fell away from the sharp subject. The first-generation Fuji 56mm f1.2 gave me a similar result with a stray cat sitting inside a market stall, also at night.
I can’t define “Fuji magic” more precisely than what those files show: warmer rendering, and a smoother falloff into the light around the subject.
Those two photographs settled which lenses I wanted to keep. My photography wish list hadn’t.
Ten ticks don’t mean one thing
I started the list in November 2025. It now has thirteen lines and ten ticks.
Reading it back, the ticks look like a clean record of acquisition. They’re not.
One line says “Fuji 56mm f1.2.” I bought the first-generation lens second-hand and still own it. Another proposed replacing the Fuji 16-80mm f4 with either the Sigma 18-50mm f2.8 or the Tamron 17-70mm f2.8. I sold the Fuji and bought the cheaper, brighter Sigma.
The strangest tick sits beside “maybe replace the tele with the Fuji 90mm f2.” I already owned both the 50-140mm f2.8 and the 90mm f2, and I kept both. That tick meant I’d closed the replacement idea without replacing anything.
The list mixes purchases with options I considered and decisions I finished. The one thing it does consistently is store the wanting. Every purchase I’ve considered gets a durable place to wait, and writing it down is what keeps it there.
That made the list useful. It also made it easy to confuse recording a decision with completing one.
The photographs had already answered
The Viltrox 27mm f1.2 sits inside the range of the Sigma zoom. The 75mm f1.2 sits between two Fuji primes I already own. Both Viltrox lenses are fast and sharp. Image quality isn’t the problem.
I could keep comparing specifications and find reasons to own all of them. That comparison wouldn’t explain which lenses I reach for.
The photographs do. I prefer the warmer result and the gentler transition into the background. I can’t turn that preference into a neutral measurement, but it decides what I carry more often than another sharpness comparison would.
That’s why the Viltrox lenses are on my sell list while the Fuji 56mm and 90mm stay. They’re not bad lenses. I’ve simply reached the point where technical quality has stopped helping with the decision, and none of that reasoning fits in a tick box.
Once several options are excellent, I care less about which one wins a comparison. I care which one makes photographs I want to keep making.
One unticked camera is different
The item I keep returning to is the Ricoh GR III.
I want a small camera body that costs less than the Fujifilm X100 series. The fixed lens is part of the appeal. It would fit in a pocket and remove the decision about which lens to carry before I leave home.
Price is one reason I haven’t bought it. The other is harder to solve with a specification: I’m not taking photographs as often as I’d like.
A smaller camera might change that. It would reduce the friction of carrying one and leave me with a single focal length. It could also become another camera waiting for my attention.
Both outcomes are plausible. Buying it wouldn’t settle which one is true. So it stays on the list, and that’s where the list is doing honest work: the wanting is real and the decision genuinely isn’t made.
The list can’t do the action
The two Viltrox lenses have been on my sell list since mid-May. Nothing specific has stopped me from selling them. The task got lost behind other priorities.
I’m not holding onto them because I still need to compare files or resolve how I feel about the rendering. I know which lenses I prefer. I just haven’t done the ordinary work of turning that decision into a smaller kit.
The wish list preserved the decision. It couldn’t carry it out.
For now, the Viltrox lenses are still in the cupboard and the Ricoh is still on the list.
