Review: Fujifilm Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS

April 15, 2014

Jordan Steele

Conclusion

Pros

Well-built and solid lens with well damped zoom and focus rings
Relatively light weight for its size
Quite sharp, especially at the wide end of the zoom range, providing good resolution into the corners stopped down and excellent central sharpness at all apertures
Excellent color and contrast throughout the zoom and aperture range
Great control of chromatic aberrations for a wide-angle zoom
High resistance to flare, especially at the wide end of the zoom range
Good optical stabilizer allows for longer handholding
Good control of distortion
Quick and quiet autofocus
Low vignetting

Cons

Large for a mirrorless lens
Aperture ring is unmarked and has no hard stops, despite being a constant aperture zoom
Autofocus can sometimes fail to lock on in dim light
Busy bokeh (when you can create some blur)
Expensive

Fuji has created yet another very solid lens for the X-System. The 10-24mm provides a very useful focal range, covering everything from the extremely wide 10mm to a much more moderate wide-angle view at the 24mm end. Image quality is very high throughout, but especially at the wider end of the zoom, where the lens is simply outstanding. While it’s not going to best the truly excellent Fuji 14mm in this range, it really doesn’t end up too far off of that lofty standard of performance.

Ultimately, this lens is about quality imaging and convenience. Rather than carrying two or three lenses to cover the wide-angle range, one can simply grab this one lens and get excellent images over a wide range of focal lengths. The image stabilizer and quick focus add even more of a reason to pick up this lens. At $999, the lens isn’t cheap, though it’s not a particularly out of line price compared to the competition. High quality ultra-wide f/4 zooms typically come in around the $700-850 mark, but few feature optical stabilization. If you are in the market for a versatile, high quality lens with some extreme width, this is it.

Image Samples

Click on an image to enlarge

Broad and Marconi, Columbus, OH - Fujifilm X-E2 with Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS @ 10mm, f/8 — Broad and Marconi, Columbus, OH – Fujifilm X-E2 with Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS @ 10mm, f/10

Under the Town Street Bridge, Columbus, OH - Fujifilm X-E2 with Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS @ 14mm, f/8 — Under the Town Street Bridge, Columbus, OH – Fujifilm X-E2 with Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS @ 14mm, f/8

Looking Up - Fujifilm X-E2 with Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS @ 10mm, f/8 — Looking Up – Fujifilm X-E2 with Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS @ 10mm, f/8

McKinley Statue, Columbus, OH - Fujifilm X-E2 with Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS @ 12mm — McKinley Statue, Columbus, OH – Fujifilm X-E2 with Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS @ 11.5mm, f/9

Hayden Falls, Dublin, OH - Fujifilm X-E2 with Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS @ 12mm, f/22, 1/5s (handheld) — Hayden Falls, Dublin, OH – Fujifilm X-E2 with Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS @ 16.6mm, f/22, 1/5s (handheld)

Graffiti - Fujifilm X-E2 with Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS @ 22mm, f/8 — Graffiti – Fujifilm X-E2 with Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS @ 13mm, f/5.6

Town Street Bridge, Columbus, OH - Fujifilm X-E2 with Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS @ 10mm, f/8 — Town Street Bridge, Columbus, OH – Fujifilm X-E2 with Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS @ 10mm, f/8

Statehouse at Dawn, Columbus, OH - Fujifilm X-E2 with Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS @ — Statehouse at Dawn, Columbus, OH – Fujifilm X-E2 with Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS @ 14mm, f/8

Huntington Building, Columbus, OH - Fujifilm X-E2 with Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS @ — Huntington Building, Columbus, OH – Fujifilm X-E2 with Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS @ 11mm, f/8

Under Broad Street, Columbus, OH - Fujifilm X-E2 with Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS @ 10mm, f/8 — Under Broad Street, Columbus, OH – Fujifilm X-E2 with Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS @ 10mm, f/8

Banks of the Scioto - Fujifilm X-E2 with Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS @ — Banks of the Scioto – Fujifilm X-E2 with Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS @ 11.5mm, f/11

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Comments

14 responses to “Review: Fujifilm Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS”

2014-04-16 | NEWSGRAPHY

April 19, 2014

[…] To Go Kit by Joe Farace at shutterbug.com // Fuji Fujinon XF 10-24 mm f/4 R OIS Jordan Steele by at admiringlight.com // Fuji FinePix S9400W by Mark Goldstein at photographyblog.com // Nikon Coolpix P7800 by Mike Lowe […]

Reply
Anurag

April 24, 2014

I find heavy barrel distortion in the first photo and so I found on many other photos on other posts. The only reason I am holding back my purchase of this lens is that I have Canon 10-22mm which has much lower barrel distortion than this lens and as per my knowledge, it has the lowest distortion amongst all superwide lenses available in the world in this focal length range.

Also, you no where mentioned whether in-camera correction (or correction in post processing) was applied or not. Fujifilm corrects distortion in-camera which keeps you from knowing the real distortion level of the lens.

Reply
1. Jordan Steele
  
  April 25, 2014
  
  Where are you seeing heavy barrel distortion in the first photo? There is heavy PERSPECTIVE distortion, which causes the verticals to converge due to the angle of the camera in the scene, but this is a function of camera position and not the optical characteristics of the lens. Look at the last two images and see how straight the vertical lines are. Heavy barrel distortion would cause those vertical lines to bow from the center out. There is a tiny bit that’s perceptible, but it’s quite a small amount for a UWA zoom.
  
  All of these images were processed from RAW, mostly in Lightroom. Lightroom can apply distortion correction, though I’m not sure if it does it for Fuji lenses. However, C1 Pro doesn’t apply corrections (to my knowledge), and the images look the same to my eye in C1.
  
  Reply
  1. Anurag
    
    June 29, 2014
    
    As per imatest, the distortion at 10mm on this lens is 5.03% and on my Canon 10-22mm, it is around 1.25%.
    
    Reply
  2. Zach Wagner
    
    October 24, 2014
    
    Just FYI; I know this is an older review and this particular query may have been sorted by now, but C1 Pro does actually automatically apply corrections. At least on my version (8). While I have yet to use this lens personally, if you take a look at the review over on Lenstip, they show comparisons of raw and jpeg distortion, and the distortion in the raw files is significant.
    I don’t use Lightroom anymore, but I’ve read you can’t turn off distortion correction that is being applied due to information imbedded in the raw files. In C1, you can.
    
    I think it’s important to recognize this type of thing going forward with lenses, as more and more often manufacturers are relying on software to fix what would otherwise be a more difficult manufacturing task. While I’m generally okay with this philosophy, many aren’t, and certainly an argument can be made that to pay so much for an instrument that in itself is poorly corrected is a bit hard to swallow.
    
    That all said, I’m excited to receive my copy of the lens (I just ordered it) and enjoy its merits, through software or otherwise.
    
    Cheers.
    
    Reply
Fujifilm Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS | NEWSGRAPHY

April 29, 2014

[…] fujivsfuji.com undated martin-doppelbauer.de undated news.mapcamera.com (JP) 2013-04-15 admiringlight.com 2014-03-31 photographyblog.com 2014-04-15 […]

Reply
Michel

June 20, 2014

How would you rate this lens in comparison to the 14mm? I’m still not decided yet – the flexibility and wider focal length of the zoom vs. the smaller dimension, and probably slightly(?) better image quality of the fixed one.

Reply
Kevin

July 22, 2014

Hi Jordan, since you have reviewed both the Panasonic 7-14 and this Fuji 10-24, is it possible that you give some comment about these two UW lenses.

Reply
1. Jordan Steele
  
  July 23, 2014
  
  I have a lot more experience with the 7-14, as I owned it for about 2-3 years, while the 10-24 I only had for a week when I had my review sample. Both are excellent lenses. The 10-24 is a significantly large lens and has optical stabilization, so that may make a difference, unless you’re shooting the 7-14 on an Olympus body. The 7-14 on the E-M5 (not sure if it’s this way on the E-M10 or E-M1) can produce some odd purple flares, which is something to be aware of. Both are very sharp throughout. The 7-14 might better at the long end than the 10-24, but the 10-24 is probably a little better at the wide end. It’s really hard to pick between, considering the different formats and the total image quality is tied to the camera a bit as well. If I’m remembering correctly, the 10-24 controls CA a bit better overall. Both are very sharp. If I had to pick, I’d guess the 10-24 is probably the slightly better lens overall, but it would be very close, and again, that’s with the caveat of only having used the 10-24 for a week.
  
  Reply
  1. Tank Johnson
    
    September 20, 2014
    
    The Fujifilm lens has far too much distortion compared to the Panasonic.
    
    Reply
    1. Zach Wagner
      
      October 27, 2014
      
      Where do you get your info? Just curious. In comparing technical reviews from 2 sites, photozone and lenstip (lenstip is one of the best technical lens review sites, but they didn’t have a review for both lenses), the distortion (speaking geometrically) is worse on the Panasonic. Not too much worse; the Fuji runs around -4.62% and the Panasonic clocks in at -5.24% (at the wide end of course). However, vignetting is worse on the Fuji to be sure, with the Fuji putting in a pretty much abysmal showing at -1.93ev, with the Panasonic tossing in a much more respectable -1.2ev. Fuji does a little better with CA, except at small apertures at the 24mm setting (a bit odd).
      
      At any rate, it seems to me that the Fuji and Panasonic are in pretty close company as it relates to distortion.
      
      Reply
Kevin

July 24, 2014

Thank you so much for your reply. Good to know either choice will be a good one. As for 7-14 on EM1, Cameralab did a test on that combo and the result is discouraging. So Olympus body may not correct Panasonic lens after all. Anyway, really appreciated your reply and I enjoyed your reviews a lot. Very user oriented. We’ll done.

Reply
John Wright

August 20, 2015

With thin filters, is it possible to stack a CPL and ND on the 10-24 without vignetting? I use the combination with waterfall images on my 16-35 to blur the water and saturate the color (and typically avoid the sky).

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Aaron

March 8, 2016

Amazing images and review! Thank you!

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