Fuji X-Pro1

Ultra wides are fun to use however the all encompassing field of view can make good compositions difficult to achieve, while being even slightly off true level in any plane can introduce unnatural distortions. Ok the latter can be used to good effect creating dramatic perspectives, but it can also look gimmicky if not done well. The obvious impulse is to go large and look for grand vistas. I find this is invariably a mistake. With a field of view of 21mm on the X-Pro1, the Fujinon 14mm is still a 14mm lens and its perspective reduces even the mightiest of mountains to hillocks in your images if you are not close enough. My wife took me up a mountain recently to show me the perilous route she took across the mountain on horseback. The image below was shot for fun with the X-Pro1 panorama feature and the 14mm lens. The mountains in the background are not that far away and they are over 1200m high. Where I am standing is at around 600m. The image is….well…rubbish really and gives no sense of the dramatic route that she took. A better way to take this shot would be to stitch multiple shots using a lens that is closer to the perspective of the human eye, say 50mm or so. The second impulse, at least for landscapes, is to use F11 or higher and use the hyper-focal technique. This works well in most cases, particularly if the intended display medium is the web, but my personal preference is to use an aperture of around F8 and to manually focus on the subject. Ultra wides like the 14mm at F8 have buckets of DOF without having to worry about diffraction. Manually focusing on the X-Pro1 is very straight forward. With longer lenses the 10x magnification on the view finder is a challenge, but I find it ok on this lens. If you find it tough, drop to 3x. The real bonus of this method is that if you do decide to print large you will have a better quality image in the sense that the key subject is on the plane of sharpest focus. The Fujinon XF 14mm is remarkably devoid of distortion which makes it an interesting lens to use for architecture. I tend to travel a lot on business and I always carry a camera with me. Recently I was near Tower Bridge in London heading to the Regus offices there for a meeting. It was all foggy an atmospheric first thing in the morning. The City Hall  building caught my eye but I was late for the meeting so  I took a  a quick snap to remind me to go back after work, or later in the week to take some photos......

Salzburg train station in Austria. For this trip I mainly used Fujifilm XF 14mm f/2.8.

Post process: Fuji RAW (RAF) + Adobe Lightroom 4 + VSCO PX-70 and PX-680 film simulation + Adobe photoshop for architecture/Barrel Distortion for 14mm lens.

The Fujinon XF 14mm ƒ/2.8 R was released in February 2013, offering a wide-angle field of view for Fuji's X-mount camera bodies. At the time of writing, this includes the Fuji X-E1 and the X-Pro1. Both of these bodies use an APS-C sensor with a 1.5x ''crop factor'', thus the 14mm lens offers an equivalent field of view of 21mm. The lens ships with a petal-shaped hood, takes 58mm filters and is available now for around $900.

Please note that if you're an existing X-E1 or X-Pro1 user, you'll want to upgrade the firmware of your camera to the latest version to ensure compatibility with this lens; happily, the lens also comes with an SD card with the firmware ready for you to install.

Sharpness
The Fujinon 14mm produces very sharp images. Used at its widest aperture of ƒ/2.8, the resulting image is sharp throughout the majority of the center of the image, moving to notably soft corners. Stopping down reduces the impact of corner softness; stopping down to ƒ/4 produces results which are almost tack-sharp, and these results are essentially the same with the lens stopped to subsequently smaller apertures. Diffraction limiting begins to set in at ƒ/11, but overall sharpness isn't really impacted until ƒ/16, where edge-to-edge sharpness is just slightly soft. Fully stopped-down at ƒ/22, the lens produces images that are somewhat soft, but not exceptionally so.

Chromatic Aberration
Results for chromatic aberration were excellent; looking at the sample images, I'm hard-pressed to see any color shifts at all.

Shading (''Vignetting'')
There is always some light corner shading when using this lens: we note extreme corners that are 1/3EV darker than the center. When set to ƒ/5.6 or ƒ/8, it's slightly less: either way, it's not especially significant.

Distortion
Remarkably, there is no distortion at all for images shot with the 14mm ƒ/2.8 R.

Autofocus Operation
The Fujinon 14mm ƒ/2.8 R focus very quickly with an electrical motor housed in the lens. The lens focuses from infinity to close-focus in less than a second: it's fast, and locks on to your target easily. The front element does not rotate, making life that little bit easier for polarizer users.

Macro
The 14mm ƒ/2.8 was not designed as a macro lens, and offers only 0.12x magnification, with a minimum close-focusing distance of just over seven inches.

Build Quality and Handling
The Fuji XF 14mm ƒ/2.8 R is a well-built lens, harkening back to the days of metal rangefinder cameras. It's significantly larger and heavier than the other prime lenses available for the camera system, but the lens still handles very well on either body. The lens is textured in a satin black finish.

There are two rings for this lens: a focusing ring, and an aperture ring, something of a rarity in modern digital cameras. The aperture ring sits closer to the lens body, around 3/8'' wide, with click-stops between aperture settings. We found the aperture ring a bit looser than we would like, which means if you like the be able to move quickly between settings, you'll be happy with this action. There is a selector which allows you to choose between manual aperture selection, and automatic aperture selection.

The focusing ring is about 5/8'' wide, made of polycarbonate with deep grooves that offer excellent tactile feel. The X-Pro camera concept uses a fly-by-wire in its lens focusing method, so the focusing ring is not actually directly connected to the lens elements in a mechanical way. Rather, turning the focusing ring moves the elements electronically. Unlike the other prime lenses in the series, the 14mm uses hard stops at either end, offering around 120 degrees of turning action, and there is no lens extension when the lens is focused.

It's worth noting that the manual focusing system is engaged by sliding back the focusing ring to reveal a distance scale etched in feet and meters. While there is no depth-of-field information on the lens, the X-Pro 1 offers a distance scale on its LCD or viewfinder readout.

The 14mm ƒ/2.8 R lens hood is a petal-shaped hood that attaches by a bayonet mount. The hood can be reversed for storage and its interior is painted a matte black to reduce stray light. The hood is 1 1/2'' long, adding about 1 1/4'' of length to the lens when attached.

Alternatives

Currently, there are no third-party lenses offered in the Fuji XF mount. However, there are several lens adapters which allow non-Fuji lenses to be mounted on the X-Pro 1. Fuji's own M-mount adapter allows Leica M, Carl Zeiss and Voigtlander lenses to be used, and some comparable focal lengths would be found in the Carl Zeiss Distagon T*15mm F2.8 ZM or the Voigtlander L Super Wide-Heliar 15mm F4.5 Aspherical.

Fujinon XF 18mm ƒ/2 R ~$600
While not as wide as the Fujinon 14mm, the 18mm opens up a stop faster, offering a choice between light-gathering ability and wide-angle. Optically, the lenses are both of very high quality: the 18mm might be a hair sharper, but the 14mm has very impressive results for distortion (as in, there is none).

Conclusion
There's no question Fuji has spent a lot of time on this lens: Sharpness at ƒ/2.8 is very good, and excellent at ƒ/4 or smaller; distortion is non-existent (quite a feat in and of itself on a wide-angle lens), and chromatic aberration is also hard to come by. While the price tag for this lens might be high, there's no doubt that you get what you pay for.

I have spent a few weeks with the new Fuji XF 14mm f2.8 R lens. I had heard good things about it, yet it was not love at first sight for me. And that is not to say that it is not a pretty lens. It is very attractive looking and the markings for the DOF indicator clearly separates it from the rest of the current Fujinon XF lens lineup. But the timing for getting the XF 14mm was a bit off for me. I had just finished some intense testing of the Samyang 8mm f2.8 fisheye and absolutely loved the 180° field of view and image quality. And my main lens for the X-Pro 1 has been the light and very compact XF 18mm lens for the past year. Compared to the XF 18mm the XF 14mm is big (41mm/1.6" vs. 58mm/2.28") and heavy (116g/0.26lb vs. 235g/0.52lb). Will I be using the XF 14mm enough to justify the purchase? After all it is currently the most expensive X-Mount lens made by Fuji. And in the end it is only 4mm wider than the XF 18mm and even one stop slower.

Anyway, I now had the lens in my hands and did what I always do when I get new gear – I attached it to the camera, emptied my camera bag and locked all other lenses and camera bodies into my closet. The best way to get familiar with new gear fast is to use it intensely and exclusively.

So I went out on my first stroll with the new lens. But when I stepped out of my door I felt an unfamiliar strong pull on my camera strap (which I lug across my shoulder like a messenger bag). Not only is the XF 14mm heavier, it also sticks out longer to change the weight balance a bit into the “uncomfortable” department. Additionally, I do not like the style of lenshood that the XF 14mm requires. The XF 18mm and 35mm lenses have small and unobtrusive square lens hoods. But this is the Tulip style lens hood that draws much more attention and makes the camera look bigger than it is – not good for a stealthy aspiring street photographer.....

After tons of photos in all different lighting situations I am nothing short of impressed. I hear a few complaints about the price of this lens. And at a MSRP of EUR 899,- / USD 899,- it does not generally appear to be a bargain for a Fujinon XF lens at first sight. But imagine you could buy a Leica 14mm f2.8 lens for this price – you would not think twice. And from my image quality point of view I would say that the XF 14mm is the most Leica like wide angle lens I have tried so far.
If you take a look at it from this point of view the lens is almost a bargain! :)

+ Great image quality, color and contrast
+ DOF scale on the lens
+ Handles flare well
+ Value for money!

o Normal wide angle vignetting
o 58mm filter thread vs. 52mm on XF18 and 35mm
o 1 f-stop slower than the XF 18mm lens

- Weight and size
- Bulky lens hood

I finally jumped the gun and bought the FUJINON XF14mm F2.8 R yesterday. I am used to shooting with ultrawide angle lenses like the Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L on full frame DSLR like the 5D Mark III, so the initial prime lenses XF prime lens like the 18mm (28mm equivalent FOV on a full frame camera) was really not wide enough. Ideally, I would like to get the XF 10-24mm, but although on the Fujinon lens roadmap, but it is unlikely that it will be available until at least 3rd or 4th quarter this year. So I finally bought the 14mm.

I have only briefly used it for a day, but I quite like it so far. So just some initial impression about this lens.

- The construction of the lens is first rate like any other Fujinon XF lens

- f2.8 aperture is good for indoor and night shots

- There is very little distortion

- Image quality seemed good

- Although it is certainly not a macro lens, but with a closest focusing distance of 18cm, the macro ability is not bad in emergency use

Here are just a few photos of the packaging, the lens itself and some test shots. All are jpeg straight out from the X-Pro1....

Thank you for all the kind words and comments we received following our last publication “Just Get It.” Many of you asked for more samples. All images taken with the Fuji X-Pro1 and the Fujinon XF 14mm F2.8. Processed in Capture One 7 and Lightroom 4.

Although I love my Fujinon 18mm pancake lens I still couldn’t wait to get out with the new Fujinon 14mm (21mm full frame Equivalent) lens. There has been quite a buzz about this ultra-wide lens and I couldn’t want to get out to see how it compared to my other wide angled glass. Please note this is not a definitive review but simply the documentation of my first hour with the lens. At f/2.8 I wanted to play with the depth of field / capturing action as well as using it for long exposure photography. The output really is ultra sharp so I was able to snap away and then crop in Lightroom if I wanted to add focus on one particular aspect of the image. I know a number of people have asked if the 14mm is really worth the investment over the 18mm. I personally think it is, 21mm (full frame equiv.) offers a fair bit more image than the 28mm. I’ve marked the approximate scale factors between the 14mm,18mm and 35mm lenses. In addition, even after an hour I can see that the 14mm offers remarkable optical output and the only trade off appears to be physical size. The 14mm is obviously larger and and heavier than the 18mm pancake and although normally in photography terms a larger size and weight is normally a negative I really like the balance the lens has with the X-Pro1. An ultra wide at f/2.8 offers a fantastic level of flexibility. I couldn’t wait to explore a few long exposure photographs at this wider ratio. On a positive note the filter size for the 14mm lens is the same as the 18-55mm Fujinon zoom lens which is great news for long exposure photography as the same ND filters fit both lens systems.he eBook covers everything from the equipment you will need right through to post-production processing in Adobe’s brilliant Lightroom 4. This guide has been written with the beginner to the long exposure process in mind; however, the enthusiast and professional alike may find something of relevance also. The Book comes with 6 dedicated Lightroom Presets. I headed out to a local jetty and took four quick images from four different angles. The first long exposure at f/11 / ISO 200 was for 20 seconds. I’ve shot long exposure images with the 35mm Fujinon lens and although I don’t believe you need to go ultra-wide for landscapes if you really want to capture the silence of space it is a massive help. This next image is at slightly different angle and a full 90 second exposure at f/22 / ISO 200 which then brings out the shadows on the water. For the final image of the visit I want to maximise on the 14mm / 21mm view. The image is a 30 second exposure at f/10 / ISO 200. I haven’t even scratched the surface of what this lens is capable of. There is a massive versatility of speed + ultra wide + stunning output and I can’t wait to get it know it better. The Fujinon 14mm lens looks like the perfect companion for both landscape photography as well as general street / documentary work....

I've been on the fence about the new Fuji 14mm - I was pretty sure I was going to return it at first. I'm still not totally sure I'll keep it, but after a full day of shooting with it, I'm leaning that way. No question about the quality of the lens - it's excellent to say the least - but just whether I'll use it enough to justify. I spent yesterday in Philly, doing a combination of street shooting and scenic/architectural shooting. My shooting in the various underground rail stations and related tunnels actually drew the attention and a brief interview with the good folks from Homeland Security. I won't get into a discussion about rights - I had no problem with their concern - but if I suddenly disappear....

So, there's no doubt in my mind that the 14mm is an excellent lens in any respect that matters. My only hesitance is still based on a combination of price and wondering if I'll use it enough to justify it. The other lenses I have similar costs into are the Olympus 12 and 75. The 12 is probably my most-used lens, so no question there. The 75 I don't use that much, but I can do things with it I can't do with ANY other lens and I value those things. This lens is a great wide lens, but I have the focal length well covered with the Olympus 9-18 and so its main "unique" capability is being able to zone focus with it in pretty low light. And I really love the manual focus "snap" ring that this lens shares with the Olympus 12 and 17, although Fuji's implementation is slightly different. As of today, it stays, but I've gone back and forth on this and I can't promise I won't again...

El nuevo Fujinon Super EBC XF 14 mm f/2,8 R se propone como un avanzado objetivo angular equivalente a un 21 mm en ángulo de toma sobre las Fujifilm X-Pro1 y X-E1. En Labo DSLR Magazine ponemos a prueba su anunciada calidad de imagen, tanto en lo que se refiere a resolución como –especialmente– a distorsión. En efecto, en el argumentario de la firma para este objetivo, capaz de un ángulo de toma de casi 90º, se pone especial énfasis en que, merced a su avanzado diseño óptico que incluye lentes aesféricas y en vidrio de baja dispersión, se consigue una muy baja distorsión sin recurrir a correcciones por firmware. Mecánicamente, el Fujinon Super EBC XF 14 mm f/2,8 R se caracteriza por incorporar un aro de enfoque retráctil, que permite no solo pasar de AF a MF de forma muy rápida, sin intervenir sobre el selector de modos de enfoque de la parte frontal, sino a un tiempo de gozar de enfoque manual de tacto directo, así como de una muy completa escala de profundidad de campo, con valores reflejados para todas las aberturas de diafragma ofrecidas por el objetivo: todo un lujo, que nos permitirá no solo afinar en cuidadas y meditadas tomas con muchos planos a mantener con nitidez, sino también llevar el objetivo preenfocado a hiperfocal, para tomas muy rápidas. Por ejemplo, a f/8, la escala nos indica profundidad de campo desde infinito hasta algo menos de un metro.

Ahora bien, a la hora de manejar ese aro de enfoque retráctil observaremos que al pasarlo del modo de enfoque manual al de autoenfoque, algún tipo de acoplamiento mecánico interno hace que la distancia que teníamos seleccionada, se “desplace, podríamos decir que “se pierde”. Nada grave, pero no deja de ser una lástima.

Es de destacar la distancia mínima de enfoque de 18 cm, que nos ofrecerá la posibilidad de juegos de perspectiva más que notables.

El perfil especial de las siete palas de diafragma hace que –tal como promete el fabricante– la apertura sea extremadamente circular desde plena abertura (lógicamente) hasta ligeramente superado el valor de f/5,6: adecuado para un bello bokeh, si bien con focales tan cortas no resulta fácil hacer desenfoques selectivos.....

My 14mm/2.8 lens arrived just before the start of King Norodom Sihanouk's cremation ceremony and I was finally able to capture beyond what the 18mm lens could see.

The 14mm has superb build quality and the best feature would be the pull MF ring and seeing the DOF scale. Aperture click stops were a little too smooth and easily moved accidentally though.

This lens will prove to be a top-performer in anyone's travel bag and I can't wait for the 55-200mm to complete the kit later this year.

All of the photographs in this link are with the X-Pro 1 with two from the OM-D and one from the 5DM2

Fujifilm’s 14mm f2.8 was announced a while back, and the lens is now starting to ship into the hands of reviewers and buyers everywhere. To date, this is the company’s widest angle lens–rendering a 21mm field of view in full frame terms, and when you incorporate the aperture’s depth of field on 1.5x crop APS-C sensor on the X Pro 1, it really comes out to around 21mm f4.5 (1.5 stops away from f2.8.) This is the lens that the company is marketing to street photographers, landscape shooters, and architecture shooters. Fujifilm has a long history of making lenses, but how does this one stand up?

First Impressions

In our tests so far, we’re fairly impressed with the image quality but still don’t think that this lens can touch the 35mm f1.4. However, we love the fact that Fujifilm decided to put a working depth of field scale on this lens. The build quality is also the best of the X series lenses released so far.

We’re a bit disappointed with the autofocus performance on the X Pro 1, so far, with the latest firmware updates.

I’ve been shooting with this lens for a couple of days so far and I can’t truly pinpoint who would buy this lens. While the focal length appeals to certain photographers, it has its caveats that we’re going to need to explore more in the full review. Stay tuned.

Oh goody! I just received my Fujinon 14mm f2.8 lens today. I'd been waiting for it since September. Hopefully, if the temperature is not too brutal for my old bones, I'll get out and shoot with it this weekend. When I was shooting film with my Leica M6 my favorite lens to use was the Leica 21mm, the equivalent to the Fuji lens in focal length. So I'm going to have a chance to dig deep into my bag of tricks (that's a euphemism for trying to remember old techniques). We shall see.....

Both these shots were made with the 18-55mm zoom lens. I would like to have been able to zoom out wider for the first image, but street happens so fast that's not always possible. Would have been a much better shot with some space at the top of the frame. But I still like her expression. I caught this gentleman with the very cool beard on 34th Street just after leaving a critique session at B&H Photo. There's just something about facial hair, whether on a man or woman, that's so much fun to shoot.

I’ve had my X-Pro1 for about five months now, and I’d like to think I’ve put it to good use. Up until recently, all I had was the 35mm lens, which I’m very fond of. I’ve been wanting a wider lens for a while, but I was torn between Fuji’s 18mm and the 14mm. The difference in focal length was only one of the reasons I chose the XF 14mm 2.8 R. I first put it to use on my trip to Trinidad & Tobago. My very first shots were taken at Reagan National Airport, but I used it quite a bit throughout the whole trip. When my friends and I got to the beach, I had the 14mm locked in. I wasn’t too pleased with a lot of the shots I got, but one of the main reasons for that was the overcast weather.  At first, I wasn’t sure whether or not the lens or the weather were to blame, but now I’m sure it was the latter. I took many other pictures in Trinidad, mostly on the beach. Unfortunately, I didn’t do any street photography on the entire trip, but when we got the beach in Tobago, I put the 14mm to the test once again. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t cooperating as much as I would have liked, but I still think I got some good shots. The 14mm was often my lens of choice during the trip, not because I preferred it to the 35mm, but because I wanted to put it to the test as much as possible. But while I was shooting with it, I sometimes found myself wishing I had the other lens on. The opposite wasn’t true as often. Don’t get me wrong, the 14mm is a great lens, but the 35mm has it beat when it comes to image quality. The larger aperture surely has something to do with it, but that can’t be all. I’m no technical expert when it comes to lenses – I just go by what I see. The shot below was taken a little past 3am. It’s an 8.5 second exposure that was shot wide open at 2.8. I was trying to shoot the moon, and my friends’ shadows got in the way. When we saw the image in the viewfinder, we decided to position ourselves in the shot. The results were pretty cool........

PROS:
- nice and wide with very little distortion

- great bokeh when shooting objects up close

- distance and depth of field indicator

- smooth manual focus ring

- superior image quality

- solid build and feel

- great lens hood

CONS:

- price $900

- somewhat heavy

- outside gathers dust very easily

- not always as sharp as one would like

- sometimes yields problems with blown highlights and shadows

CONCLUSION: 

This is a great lens, although I’m still not sure that I wouldn’t have been better off with the 18mm. I’m all about the image quality, and it seems the 14mm might lag slightly behind in that regard. But the extra width and other features make up for the slight difference in sharpness between the two lenses. The images shot with the 14mm look great and they’re virtually free of distortion. Manual focusing is very smooth, and the sliding ring that reveals a distance and depth-of-field indicator is a very useful feature. The 35mm is still my preferred lens of the two, and although it is my choice for a walk-around lens, I will be using the 14mm a lot more in the weeks and months ahead. I’m looking forward to seeing what it can do with sweeping landscapes and on the streets. Of course I’ll be sharing the results. I don’t think I’ll be buying anymore lenses anytime soon.

Avere tre giorni di tempo per organizzare e realizzare un test di un obiettivo non è esattamente il sogno di chiunque debba scrivere una recensione. L'idea di essere il primo a poterlo fare però rischiava di essere una tentazione irresistibile e così è stato. Il nuovo Fujinon XF-14 Super EBC è arrivato in redazione giovedì sera, mentre a Milano il tempo cominciava a volgere al brutto, complicando ulteriormente le cose nella pianificazione dei test da compiere entro lunedì mattina, data di riconsegna del nuovo obiettivo. Tolto dalla sua confezione il 14mm ha fatto subito una buona impressione "fisica". Corpo metallico dall'aspetto solido, generoso paraluce e un fermo per la ghiera della messa a fuoco tanto utile quanto ben congegnato. La ghiera che regola il diaframma, invece, è sembrata subito piuttosto lasca e troppo sensibile così come peraltro ci era stato detto dai responsabili Fujifilm al momento dell'invio, spiegando che si trattava di un "difetto" dei primi sample disponibili per i test. Dopo aver passato un po' di tempo a soppesare fisicamente l'XF-14 ho deciso di cominciare dalle odiate foto di "gattini" e simili che tanto spopolano su FB e Flickr e che personalmente tollero poco. Questa specie di contrappasso era però inevitabile: tutto sommato la pelliccia della più piccola dei miei tre mici sarebbe stato un buon banco di prova per capire le doti del nuovo obiettivo almeno quanto a definizione e capacità di restituire i particolari anche più piccoli. Più o meno all'ora del tramonto ho così scattato una serie di ritratti a distanza piuttosto ravvicinata e variando sia diaframma che ISO, operando sempre in priorità di apertura. Le immagini analizzate successivamente hanno fornito un primo riscontro positivo. Come si vede facilmente ingrandendo l'immagine in scala 1:1, il Fujinon 14mm ha garantito un'ottima definizione di tutti i dettagli anche dei più piccoli, come per esempio il riflesso delle ciglia all'interno dell'iride o la trama della pelliccia in tutte le sue sfumature. Al centro l'immagine è perfetta e solo allontanandosi verso le zone più periferiche dell'inquadratura si può trovare una lieve perdita di dettaglio, cui però non corrisponde una caduta di luce. La distorsione prospettica è quella tipica di una lunghezza focale così corta ma non è eccessiva e, gestendo bene l'inquadratura, le linee curve sono quasi invisibili. Per riuscirci, se non si ha un treppiede a disposizione, meglio affidarsi alla "bolla digitale" della X-Pro 1 usata per il test.....