DPRTV: Fujinon XF23mm f/1.4 and Fujinon XF33mm f/1.4 Reviews

• 3 years ago

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