DPRTV: Fujinon XF23mm f/1.4 and Fujinon XF33mm f/1.4 Reviews
Fujinon XF 23mm f/1.4 R LM WR:
B&H Photo / Amazon / Moment / Adorama
The Fujinon XF23mm f/1.4 will be coming a little after the XF33mm f1.4, which DPRTV covered on launch day, but we haven’t summarised it yet so I included it below in addition to the XF23mm f/1.4 summary:
- Chris doesn’t love 35mm, but he is doing his best to be fair
- Updated older prime lens
- Larger than the old 23mm and 63g heavier
- About the weight of a C battery
- Has weather sealing
- Filter size is smaller at 58mm and the old 23mm was 62mm
- No more manual focus clutch due to the linear motor
- AF speed should make up for MF
- Aperture lock setting
- The older 23mm was low getting from far to close and it was noisy
- New 23mm is smooth, quite, quick and a big improvement
- The old 23mm couldn’t close focus well at about 1:10 macro at 28mm from the sensor
- The new 23mm is around 0.2x magnification, 1:5, or about 2x better than the old 23mm
- Still using a preproduction lens since the coatings aren’t finalized
- You can get some interesting sun stars with the 9 blade aperture
- Linear focus makes it hard to manually focus for video so you should use AF
- There is almost no focus breathing on this lens which is nice for video
- LoCA is very clean
- Bokeh has a little cats eyes in the corners at f/1.4 but it goes away as you stop down
- There are some onion rings in the bokeh balls
- The new lens is outstandingly sharp even wide open and it is an improvement over the old lens, but by f/2.8 both are excellent
- The old 23mm was mushy in the corners and never got super sharp, but the new 23mm holds together a lot better
- Yet another nice improvement
- The old lens is still great optically, but you should only get it if you like the manual focus clutch over the new design
Fujinon XF 33mm f/1.4 R LM WR:
B&H Photo / Amazon / Moment / Adorama
Fujinon XF 35mm f/1.4 R:
B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama
DPRTV Fujinon XF 33mm f/1.4 R LM WR summary:
- 2mm less than the older XF35mm f/1.4 that is a decade old, but Fujifilm isn’t replacing the old lens
- The old XF35mm f/1.4 has a lot of character which is why they are keeping it around
- The new XF33mm is a lot heavier and larger at 360g vs 187g
- The new XF33mm has a 58mm filter threat while the old one had a 52mm filter thread
- The new XF33mm is weather resistant
- Both lenses are similar with a bright light source in the frame with the older lens losing a little more contrast
- The XF33mm has some more ghosting and rainbow patterns pointed into the sun but has much better sun stars
- The old XF35mm has a little jitter while autofocusing while the XF33mm does not have this jitter
- As for autofocus speed, the XF35mm and XF33mm seem to be pretty similar in performance
- The XF33mm has great bokeh for video work and focus breathing isn’t a problem, but manually focusing the lens isn’t great even when set to linear because it is too fidgety
- New XF33mm has less cats eye and more rounded bokeh balls
- The transition from in focus to out of focus on the new XF33mm is similar to the XF35mm
- The XF35mm is a little sharper wide open than the XF33mm in the center, but the XF33mm is a little sharper in the corners
- When you stop down it is hard to tell the difference between the XF33mm and XF35mm
- It’s rare to keep two similar lenses like this on the market
- The XF33mm is a little better than the XF35mm in almost every way so it’s probably best to go with the XF33mm
- The XF35mm is still a classic lens that is worth using
Other New Products
Fujifilm GFX50SII:
B&H Photo / Amazon / Moment / Adorama
Fujifilm X-T30II:
B&H Photo / Amazon / Moment / Adorama
Fujinon GF 35-70mm f/4.5-5.6 WR:
B&H Photo / Amazon / Moment / Adorama
Fujifilm X-T3 Without Charger
B&H Photo