{"id":7088,"date":"2017-04-02T13:32:07","date_gmt":"2017-04-02T18:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/?p=7088"},"modified":"2024-09-05T16:46:04","modified_gmt":"2024-09-05T21:46:04","slug":"review-fujifilm-fujinon-xf-50mm-f2-r-wr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/review-fujifilm-fujinon-xf-50mm-f2-r-wr\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Fujifilm Fujinon XF 50mm f\/2 R WR"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today’s review: the new Fuji 50mm f\/2 R WR. This is the third lens in Fuji’s new compact f\/2 prime series, joining the 23mm f\/2 and 35mm f\/2.  All three of these lenses offer slower apertures than similar faster primes in the Fuji lineup, but Fujifilm has maintained high optical quality with these slower lenses, truly offering them as a more compact and still very high quality option, unlike many manufacturers whose slower lenses are often sub-par optically.  The 50mm f\/2 doesn’t quite match the faster 56mm f\/1.2 in focal length, but rather provides a slightly wider angle of view, equivalent to a 75mm on a full frame camera.  Let’s take a deeper look at this new lens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/a>
The Fuji XF 50mm f\/2 R WR on the Fuji X-T20<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Construction and Handling<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If you’ve seen the 23mm f\/2 or 35mm f\/2 from Fuji, the 50mm f\/2 shares the same design language.  The lens features a fully metal exterior with a slightly tapered profile.  The 50mm f\/2 is slightly longer than the other two lenses in this series, as you might expect, but it is still a very compact lens.  The lens is extremely solidly constructed, with no movement anywhere in the lens body, and beautifully crafted aperture and focus rings.  The aperture ring keeps the wonderful gear-like feel that the 23mm f\/2 and 35mm f\/2 have, and this really helps the lens feel like a premium offering.  The focus ring is well damped and smooth to turn, though like almost all Fuji XF lenses, it lacks a focus scale and operates the focus by wire rather than by direct coupling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/a>
The lenses of Fuji’s compact f\/2 prime lineup: 35mm f\/2, 23mm f\/2 and the new 50mm f\/2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The 50mm f\/2, like most of Fuji’s lenses over the past two years, carries the ‘WR’ designation, denoting its weather-resistant construction, providing some protection against dust and water intrusion. Due to the light weight and compact size, the lens handles beautifully on any of the Fuji X-Series cameras, and feels quite at home on a smaller body like my X-T20.  The lens includes a plastic lens hood that is a simple cylinder shape and is reversible for storage.  The hood locks securely on the lens and provides reasonable shading of the front element.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/a>
The XF 50mm f\/2 with lens hood mounted<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The f\/2 prime series is a great addition to the Fuji X-Series.  This series gives Fuji a fairly complete small lens setup, including the existing 18mm f\/2 and 27mm pancake.  This really allows for an extremely portable system that is only slightly larger than a typical Micro 4\/3 setup.  It’s nice to see Fuji give users a choice: larger, but faster lenses, along with compact slower lenses that maintain the high optical quality of the rest of the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Autofocus<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The 50mm f\/2 features a very quiet autofocus motor that is fairly quick in speed, but not as fast as some of the other lenses in the Fuji lineup.  In all, it’s perhaps a touch faster than the autofocus in the 56mm f\/1.2. I found focus to be very accurate in my time with the lens, and it also performed quite well in good light with continuous autofocus.  The shot below was taken with continuous AF as my son ran towards me.  The 50mm was able to maintain focus quite well throughout the run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Running<\/a>
Running – Fujifilm X-T20 with Fujinon XF 50mm f\/2 – Continuous AF<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now let’s take a look at the optical qualities of the lens:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coninue: Image Quality<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Image Quality<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The previous two entries in the f\/2 compact prime series showed strong optical performance despite the lower cost.  The 50mm follows in much the same manner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sharpness<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The 50mm f\/2 R WR puts in a very solid performance when it comes to sharpness and resolution.  I found the lens to be quite sharp over almost the entire frame right from f\/2.  The corners are a bit softer than the center, but certainly nothing to worry about.  Stopping down sharpens up those corners quite well, and brings the center into excellent territory. I felt like I could shoot the 50mm f\/2 at any aperture for the depth of field, and not worry about sharpness, as I was pleased at any setting. The image below was taken at f\/2, and you can see from this 100% crop<\/a> that the lens is more than capable of excellent wide open shooting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Portrait<\/a>
Portrait – Fujifilm X-T20 with Fujinon XF 50mm f\/2 @ f\/2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Bokeh<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The 50mm f\/2 also displays very nice bokeh, or background blur.  The lens renders specular highlights very neutrally, with barely a hint of any outline on them. There is mechanical vignetting of the blur disc towards the edges, which will result in a cat’s eye appearance to the specular highlights as you get to the edge of the frame, but otherwise it’s a very neutral and very pleasing rendering. The lens does well at any focus distance, but as you can see in the shot below, produces beautifully creamy blur when focused up close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Grass<\/a>
Grass – Fujifilm X-T20 with Fujinon XF 50mm f\/2 @ f\/2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Color, Contrast and Chromatic Aberration<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The 50mm f\/2 displays very similar color and contrast renderings to the rest of the Fuji XF lineup.  As I’ve mentioned in many previous reviews, Fuji seems to truly design their lenses to have a certain drawing style, which provides consistent color and contrast across the lens lineup. The same is true for the 50mm f\/2, which shows nice even contrast that is punchy without being overbearing, and accurate tonal response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lens controls lateral chromatic aberrations quite well, and you will likely not see any evidence of this in real world conditions.  The 50mm f\/2 can show some green and magenta fringing from longitudinal CA at wider apertures, so you may have to do some selective cleanup in the right circumstances where it may raise its head. It isn’t a major concern for most situations, though, as it generally is only really visible on high contrast subjects, or sometimes in the background on white specular highlights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Distortion, Flare and Vignetting<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The XF 50mm f\/2 shows a touch of pincushion distortion when the built-in distortion profile is used, and a touch more if using a RAW converter that doesn’t take the profiles into account.  It’s a minor error, though, and will only be visible in your final images in very specific circumstances. I had to really examine the files, looking for distortion, to see it in any of my images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Knowlton<\/a>
Knowlton Curves – Fujifilm X-T20 with Fujinon XF 50mm f\/2 @ f\/5.6<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The 50mm f\/2 controls flare fairly well, and while some ghosting and purple flare can be induced in the right circumstances, most of the time there are few ghosts and only very minimal loss of contrast when faced with a strong light in the frame.  The lens also controls vignetting quite well, with just a minor amount visible at f\/2 and only negligible corner darkening at smaller apertures.  Some of this is the result of a built-in profile, but even without it, vignetting is really only noticeable at f\/2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In all, the optical performance of the 50mm f\/2 is very solid.  It’s sharp, produces very pleasing background blur, and controls most of the common lens aberrations with only a few missteps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue: Conclusion and Image Samples<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Pros<\/h4>\n\n\n\n