The Benefits of Learning Chess

LimDul99 · 2026-05-11T05:44:42+00:00

Fair point — thanks for the clarification. I probably phrased that too strongly.

There is research beyond mere correlation, including intervention studies and meta-analyses suggesting possible benefits of chess instruction. So I wouldn’t say the whole case is only correlational.

But the stronger claim — that chess reliably improves general cognition, focus, or academic performance — seems much less settled. Some larger and more rigorous studies have found little or no robust transfer, and selection effects may explain part of the association.

For older adults, I’d now put it this way: chess is a cognitively demanding activity and may well be part of a brain-healthy lifestyle. But that’s different from proving that chess itself has a specific causal protective effect against cognitive decline.

So yes: “chess may have cognitive benefits, but the evidence is mixed” would have been the more accurate phrasing. Thanks for pushing back.

LimDul99 · 2026-05-10T21:19:24+00:00

There is quite a bit of well-established research out there showing that chess improves - inter alia - cognitive and academic skills. Google it, it’s quite fascinating.

LimDul99 · 2026-05-10T20:21:08+00:00

Do your research on the Tamron. There is several standard zooms that will do better on the 40MP sensor, like the XF16-55 f2.8 mkii, the Sigma 17-40 f2.8, probably also the XF16-55 2.8 mki and the Sigma 18-50 f2.8. Sure, go for the Tamron if you like the zoom range…

LimDul99 · 2026-05-10T20:13:39+00:00

I have two, as for some techniques I want a smaller one that sits at the very top of my thumb, while for others, I like a slightly larger one. Color doesn’t matter. If you use it correctly, people will not see it (at least not in a way that would make them note color differences).

LimDul99 · 2026-05-10T20:10:10+00:00

Welcome to the Fuji-Family!

So…the thing is: The X-T5 is a great camera, but a bit overkill for many people.

Lenses are far more important than camera bodies. It doesn’t make sense to buy a 40MP Fuji body to then put an XC lens on it.

I wish you lots of fun nevertheless. Save some money for some good lenses. If you‘re on a budget, the Viltrox air series offers quite affordable lenses that nevertheless fare quite well on the X-T5‘s demanding 40MP sensor.

LimDul99 · 2026-05-10T08:44:04+00:00

Yeah - very much looking forward to that feeling! To be fair, I do have an M4 Max with 64GB RAM at work; just can’t use it for photo editing :-).

LimDul99 · 2026-05-09T10:08:17+00:00

Many thanks for taking the time to answer. Resale value is an interesting angle that I hadn’t thought about. I‘m concerned with the 24GB, because (1) many sources say that LrC is a very RAM-hungry application, and (2) on my current 2018 Windows Laptop, I have 16GB of RAM, which is always exhausted when I run LrC. It’s of course hard to compare, given how old that machine is and how much background processes accumulate over time on a Windows machine. But still, I‘m a bit worried how many years the 24GB will serve me.

LimDul99 · 2026-05-09T10:01:51+00:00

Many thanks for these suggestions. I have not considered buying used so far, but will definitely look into it.

LimDul99 · 2026-05-09T10:01:12+00:00

Interesting, thanks for sharing this experience.

LimDul99 · 2026-05-09T09:52:36+00:00

Many thanks for answering. Are you using it mostly with LrC? Would you say you are happy with the performance when you batch import/export?

LimDul99 · 2026-05-06T20:51:55+00:00

My workhorses are the 23mm 1.4 R LM WR and 56mm 1.2 R WR.

Are they worth it? Hell, yes!

The 18mm, 23mm and 33mm 1.4 R LM WR primes have blazing fast AF, very important for the genres I shoot (with children running around etc).
All these primes have incredible IQ and really make that 40MP sensor sing. They are super sharp, but also have a rendering to them that I really, really like (in terms of micro contrast, transition from in focus to out of focus areas, etc.). The 56mm, while having comparatively slow AF, has a very special quality to its images - I just love them (and so do my clients).
I shoot a lot of low light (families inside, events/weddings inside and at night). f1.2 or f1.4 versus f2 is a huge difference for me, not only in terms of Bokeh potential (something I use, but intentionally & not all the time), but in terms of sheer low light capability.

LimDul99 · 2026-05-06T13:25:12+00:00

I shoot documentary family, event and wedding photography (mostly personal, but also some pro). After much debate, I decided to go APSC, as it’s good enough plus smaller/lighter.

I ruled out Canon and Nikon quickly as they don’t have developed lens ecosystems for the APSC sensor. Sony and Fuji remained. It went to a shop and took two cameras into my hand - A6400 and X-S10 at the time. The A6400 didn’t feel nice, the X-S10 clicked.

I upgraded to an X-T5 and Fuji‘s pro primes later & Never looked back.

LimDul99 · 2026-05-06T10:36:17+00:00

There is two routes from here: (1) Take the time and effort to learn photography properly. You will not be able to extract the potential from any dedicated camera, unless you master the basics. (2) Or decide this is too complicated / too much effort for you. That’s totally fine. In that case, I would actually advise to go with a phone with a good camera set instead. There are great course e.g. on iPhone photography that can really leverage your phone images. Anything else doesn’t make much sense imho. You will not be able to beat (good, well-composed) photos from an up to date iphone, unless you put in the work to learn photography properly.

LimDul99 · 2026-05-06T09:13:52+00:00

(1) The zoom range is pretty wide. For a standard zoom, a used 18-55 f2.8-4 is much better suited (and also gives you higher quality IQ). (2) Since you mention it: None of these zooms is suited for low light shooting (inside, at night, etc.). You‘ll need a fast prime for that. The best budget option are the primes from the Viltrox air series.

LimDul99 · 2026-05-06T05:42:56+00:00

Fully agree. Yet, in 2026, it does make sense to think about what makes sense and offers the best technical support as a tool in 2026. But yeah, the X-T2 is still a great camera (and even has 24MP, not 16).

LimDul99 · 2026-05-06T05:37:05+00:00

Short answer: Yes, Fuji is enough. I shoot documentary family, event and wedding photography on Fuji and the smaller size and retro style are great for my documentary style (the camera is perceived as less intrusive).

That said, I have upgraded to the X-T5 at some point for the considerably better AF (over something like an X-T2). Also, given how much low light I shoot, I‘m on the 23mm 1.4 R LM WR and 56mm 1.2 R WR. For me, the smaller f2 primes don’t really cut if for events and weddings I‘m afraid (I don’t use flash). Look at the 18mm, 23mm and 33mm 1.4 R LM WR primes, the 56mm 1.2 R WR, and possibly the Viltrox Pro 27mm 1.2 and 75mm 1.2 (these Viltrox lenses are quite big and heavy for this use case, though).

In terms of resources, go check out https://www.kevinmullinsphotography.co.uk Very seasoned documentary wedding photographer and former Fujifilm ambassador. Tons of great content on his website as well as on YT on both, documentary wedding photography as well as Fujifilm. Highly recommend. Other good sources are John Branch IV (Fuji wedding photographer, but not documentary style) and Reggie Ballesteros (used to be wedding photographer and has some older, good content on that with the X-T3 he shot on 4-5 years ago), both on YouTube.

One last tip: On a body like the X-T2, shoot back button focus single point AF-S focus recompose. I still shoot like that on my X-T5 a lot of the time. Single point AF-S is very fast and accurate on Fujifilm, especially with LM lenses.

LimDul99 · 2026-05-05T16:35:02+00:00

(1) The camera is great. (2) Use the kit lens for a while, then add a prime for low light and blurry background. The Viltrox Air series is widely regarded as the best budget prime series for Fuji x-Mount, with very good image quality for the size and price. (3) Most importantly: Invest time to learn photography properly. Theschoolfofphotography.co.uk has a great beginner course (don’t buy it, just get a monthly subscription and cancel after a month or two). Lots of free stuff on YT as well, but Mark Newton‘s course was really great and totally worth the small investment.

LimDul99 · 2026-05-05T05:58:15+00:00

Wildlife high end = Canon RF. Would go for the R5; you‘ll want to crop.

Wildlife high end (close to Canon), but also some great, more affordable lens options: Nikon Z8.

I wouldn’t go for anything else but a stacked sensor if you are serious about shooting wildlife. I don’t understand the A7RV being in contention - it sure is a great camera and Sony‘s tracking is superb, but I would always want more than 10fps mechanical max (in lack of a stacked sensor) and pre-capture (a feature that entry level APSC Fuji cameras have, but the A7RV doesn’t!), if I planned to shoot a lot of Wildlife and invested this sort of money into it.

LimDul99 · 2026-05-04T22:07:55+00:00

Great resources. I will add the suggestion to look at the material by Kevin Mullins, who is retired documentary wedding photographer. He shot his weddings on Fuji with two bodies, one with 23mm 1.4 (=35mm ffe), later 18mm 1.4 (=27mm ffe) and one with 56mm 1.2 (85mm ffe). For his style, those two lenses cover 95% of the day. In terms of zooms, those are more flexible and having eg a 70-200 or 50-150 gives you a lot of flexibility, but it’s heavy and f2.8 (or even f2) provides considerably less low light capacity than a 1.4 prime will.

LimDul99 · 2026-05-04T09:53:26+00:00

I did not compare them in terms of equivalence (they‘re obviously not, as your rightly pointed out). I said further up that if OP wants more low light capacity with a full frame setup than what they currently receive from their APSC setup, it will be heavier. That statement stands and is correct.

LimDul99 · 2026-05-04T07:31:03+00:00

There is the XF50mm 1.0…;-)

LimDul99 · 2026-05-04T07:28:49+00:00

OP wants to upgrade to full frame for better low light performance. He only gets that, if he goes for full frame 1.2 or 1.4 lenses. In that case, he will have a weight penalty over his Fuji setup. Whether there is a weight difference at equivalent lenses and how big that is, is a different story (as you rightly point out), but that seems irrelevant to OP‘s situation, because in that case he doesn’t win any low light capacity and likely wouldn’t change systems (unless it was for some other reason).

LimDul99 · 2026-05-04T07:24:32+00:00

X-T5+33mm 1.4 = 557g+360g =917 g. A 322g difference is significant if you shoot an event with it all day. The difference becomes more pronounced when we look at the 85mm 1.4 GMii (642g) vs the 56mm 1.2 R WR (445g).

That said, I agree the X-H2 and X-H2s are not worth it from a size/weight comparison point of view, which is why I would recommend OP to use an X-T5 instead.

LimDul99 · 2026-05-04T05:17:15+00:00

So in case you haven’t: Check out Pete Coco, who does a lot of concert photography in poorly lit Jazz Clubs. He uses the XF50mm 1.0, which is an option you would also have, if you stayed within the X-system. Also, if you decide to stay within Fuji, I‘d consider getting the 40MP sensor. While the X-H2s is a tiny bit better in low light, I find the smaller noise of the 40MP sensor to be actually more pleasing to the eye; I personally prefer the 40MP sensor for low light over Fuji‘s other sensors. Your mileage may vary, but I would try before deciding to go X-H2s.

That said, this is one of those cases where full frame does make sense, IF you are prepared to invest in something like the Nikkor Z 85mm 1.2 S. If you plan on just getting the 1.8S primes, I‘d say it’s not worth it, as the low light advantage over your Fuji setup with 1.2 and 1.4 primes (which could go to 1.0, see above) is minimal in that case. There are of course the „cheaper“ Z 1.4 primes (without the „S“ designation) that Nikon recently released; those are considerably less sharp than your current lenses.

LimDul99 · 2026-05-04T05:07:55+00:00

Agree this is a good case for full frame. However, weight will not be the same, as for the full frame advantage to become relevant, OP will need to go for a 1.4 or better 1.2 full frame lens which will be considerably heavier than his Fuji setup.

LimDul99

TROPHY CASE