[Music] Foreign Abbott and I'm here today to give you my Definitive video review of the fujinon XF 23 millimeter this is an Rlmwr lens a lot of you requested that I Take a look at this lens because after I Did the review of the 33 millimeter F 1.4 and recommended it as a lens one of The few that I've reviewed so far that Could keep up with the 40 megapixel Resolution point on a couple of Fuji's Most recent bodies and so I did follow Up on that and you know what you were Right this is a fantastically sharp lens It is one of the best performing lenses On the demanding new 40 megapixel sensor That I have seen thus far and as you can See it combines a very compact size with Extremely good Optics good autofocus and A very nice build all of that comes at a Price however it retails for about 900 US Dollars which makes it far more Expensive than any of the competing Lenses that exist already and of course Also the rumored release of Sigma 23 Millimeter F 1.4 in an X Mount we'll see How it can that lens Compares if and When it comes to Fuji X Mount but right Now this lens is more expensive than any Of the existing Alternatives from Viltrox tokina things like that and of Course the existing Fuji options but at The same time it is extremely high
Performing and I think probably after Spending some time with it it may just Be worth the money we'll dig down into All of those details right after a word From our sponsor Today's episode is brought to you by Phantom wallet the minimalist modern Wallet that is now even better with the New Phantom X that is crafted from Aluminum right here in Canada it is 22 Percent smaller and 35 percent lighter While still making it easy to access Your cards and money when you need them Thanks to their unique Fanning mechanism You could even customize your wallet due To its modular design with accessories Like a money clip cash holder ID display And even chipolo and air tag tracking Integration visit Store.phantomwallet.com to check out Their unique sizes Styles and finishes That span from aluminum to Wood to Carbon fiber and use code dustin15 for 15 off when you're ready to check out So let's start by talking about the Build and handling and we'll start by Breaking down what all of those letters Mean in the name if you're not familiar With Fuji's naming process the r refers To the aperture ring and so this is an Important component of Fuji's design in That it is a clicked aperture and it has One third stop to tense you can put it Into an automatic mode if you have this
Depress this button here on the side Which takes you either into automatic Mode and will lock you there or we'll Lock you out of automatic mode and keep You in the manual aperture mode if that Is your preference I will say this and That is that to this point aperture Racking is just not a thing on Fuji and That's an area where if you're wanting To do some serious video could be Important for you not everyone does Aperture racking but right now not only Is there quite a lag in the input there But it's a very obvious stepping process As you can see and so it works fine for Stills but for video aperture control Still leaves a little bit lacking LM Stands for linear motor and so we'll Talk more about autofocus in just a Moment but LM or linear Motors are Fuji's kind of superior autofocus system And that results in a very good Autofocus performance that will shortly Break down WR refers to the fact that This is a lens with weather resistance Or weather sealing starting with a Gasket at the lens mount flooring Coating and then also some internal Seals throughout at probably at the Typical spot so I haven't seen a cutout It shows me exactly where the seal Points are This lens is near identical to the 33 Millimeter F 1.4 in size it is ever so
Slightly longer and a little tiny bit Heavier but by and large they look very Similar and have very similar size that Is 2.6 inches in diameter or 67 Millimeters and it is 3.1 inches in Length or 77.8 millimeters there's a 58 Millimeter filter thread up front and it Weighs in at 375 grams or 13.2 ounces Now that does make it slightly larger And heavier than lenses competing lenses Coming from viltrox and tokina makes it Very similar in size to the sigma 23 Millimeter F 1.4 at least in e-mount and So in that lens very likely we'll come To x-mount and they will be more similar In size and more similar in performance Than either of the two less expensive And less High performing options outside Of that our only other feature if you Want to call it that is just the manual Focus ring the manual focus string does Move nicer here than what I saw in the 33 millimeter not that there was a big Problem with the focus ring per se but I Did see some visible stepping sometimes When manually focusing with that lens I Don't see that here so I like this Performance a little bit better Fuji's finish here is tends to be Consistent and consistently good there's Nice exterior materials a mix of metals And some engineered Plastics it feels Well built in the ham but while still You know it has heft to it but neither
Is it large or heavy I walked around on The campus of Notre Dame in South Bend Indiana taking photos I'll walk around For hours I'd forgotten to take a strap On the trip it's always just kind of Dangling the camera in the grip and with This lens on it an xh2 with this lens I Had zero issues walking around with it It still is a lightweight combination It has nine aperture blades in that Aperture Iris and it does do a fairly Good job of keeping a circular shape as You can see here and another strength Here relative to the competition on the Platform is that it can focus as closely As 19 centimeters and gives you a quite High 0.20 times magnification I love Lenses with high maximum magnification Because it just gives me more options With the type of photos I can get and my Ability even with a wider focal length Like this to more compress the Background and make it blur out and so I Appreciate that and it's something that Definitely best the competition all Around So overall we have a nice package at This stage you know you know what you're Going to get with a Fuji lens in terms Of features I would like to Advocate to See them kind of Step that up to the Next level uh you know a de-clickable Aperture for example you know maybe Something like an AF MF switch on the
Lens some things like that that are kind Of standard fare on other platforms that I wouldn't mind seeing on Fuji but at The same time this is a premium lens it Handles very nicely as mentioned this Lens is equipped with a linear Focus Motor and it is as I mentioned Fuji's Best and it performs very well here Focus was very Snappy on my xh2 and I Felt like I could make Focus changes From close to distance with good speed I Also found that I had good Focus Accuracy now in this section I'll give a Few caveats and that is that Fuji's Autofocus while it is really improving It's still not at the level of what I'm Accustomed to testing on with either Sony or Canon and so as a byproduct of That you do get a few more Focus misses And as we'll talk about on video video AF is still not quite at the level of Other platforms at this stage however I Have reviewed several dozen lenses on Fuji and it's a byproduct I now have a Fairly good standard of how lenses Perform within that platform without Comparisons you know outside of the Platform and I can say that amongst Those lenses this is a very very good Focusing lens I had very good Focus Accuracy during a wedding type setting This shot in particular kind of stood Out because I wasn't the wedding Photographer I was just a guest at the
Wedding and so I had to turn like Everyone else and shoot up the aisle and I was trying to shoot the whole trip With just this 23 millimeter lens so I Shot at F 1.4 the the Father of the Bride and the bride they were strongly Backlit despite about 10 rows of people I was able to nail focus on the face of The Bride or not the bride and groom but The Father of the Bride and the bride And I was able to get well focused Results in that setting also as people Were coming down the aisle things like That so I was pleased with that I saw Good results for portrait type shots Where I had good accuracy in those Settings I found that the iaf did work Fine with various subjects that I took Photos of and so no complaints on that Point When it comes to Stills I actually have Zero complaints at all I think this is One of the better performing lenses that I have tested on Fuji both in the Overall quality of focus and in the Accuracy of focus when it comes to video The same is true though there are this Is an area where I think Fuji lags lags Even a bit further behind over an Overall performance so the focus pulls As you can see here there were they were Nicely damp they moved quickly but there Is that just a little bit of Step there At the end you can see that there is
Very little Focus breathing and so that Did help to kind of mitigate any kind of Hunting there but what I also found was That you'll see on in that clip that There are moments where nothing is Happening and that's because I had Touched on the screen to a very obvious New high contrast subject and sometimes There's just a delay between the input On the screen and then something Actually happening in camera almost like A reluctance to initiate Focus pulls in Those settings and that's just something That I see fairly frequently on Fuji a Little bit of a frustration I don't Think it it's actually the lens I think It's more the camera I also noticed that When I was doing my hand test that while The snap back to the eye was good when I Held up my hand even though the hand is Was the most obvious subject there it Didn't always go to my hand and instead It would choose the background sometimes Instead so just a few kind of little Minor frustrations as a part of video Capture at the same time from more Typical video capture less extreme Focus Pools I saw very good results and then Obviously having very low focused Breathing does make this a desirable Lens for video capture as well So let's talk about the optical Performance as noted this is a lens that Is very sharp and as I noted it's one of
The very few lenses that I've seen so Far that really seems to fully resolve The 40 megapixel sensor of my xh2 that I Use for testing Fuji glass let's dive Into an actual breakdown to see the Strengths and the weaknesses of this Lens optically together so we'll start By taking a look at vignette and Distortion as you can see there is a Decent amount of barrel Distortion and Some fairly heavy vignette here now Fuji Does have good correction profiles as You can see that cleans things up fine If I do a manual correction here I Dialed in a plus 13 to correct for the Barrel Distortion as you can see it was Nice and linear no kind of wave effect That's left behind so that's very good Vignette not so positive that's a lot of Vignette a plus 81 to correct for that And when you're correcting that high of A level in some lighting conditions it May introduce some additional noise into The corner so not much you can do about It but just something to be aware of now This is a lens that controls a Longitudinal chromatic aberrations Really well you can see here that in the Kind of Crystal facets there is no Fringing there and as we transition Towards defocus also very nice control Of fringing as we get out to this area In the bokeh you can see no fringing Around the edges of things that's all
Looking very good likewise if we look For lateral chromatic aberrations near The edge of the frame you can see here At high magnification we're just not Seeing any kind of fringing around these Areas the lens is doing a good job on Both of those fronts now here's a look At our test chart here so once again I'm Going to show you these results at 200 Percent and this is on the 40 megapixel Xh2 so this is as demanding a platform As I review anything on this lens is Very impressive at F 1.4 in the center Of the frame lots of sharpness lots of Contrast it's able to handle this high Resolution sensor without any issue Likewise in the mid frame which stays Really consistently good and as we pan Down here even towards the corners you Can see that the corners while there is Some reduction in contrast we've got Nice detail right off into the corner And what I particularly like is the fact That there is fine detail here across The frame in different places that I Look where the detail is actually crisp And nicely resolved whereas in many many Lenses I just everything looks just kind Of a little bit mushy as far as the Textures go on this high resolution Sensor that's just not the case with This lens and it shows a very good Centering the various places that I've Looked around the frame as you can see
Very good detail very good contrast Everywhere Now that is very very nice because it Extends the flexibility of this lens so Here at F 1.4 you'll notice here I've Already kind of referenced this shot as Terms of the autofocus but you can also See that under the setting we've got Really really great detail even though As you can see we're zooming way into That image to get to a hundred percent Magnification there is plenty of room For cropping that which is very very Useful likewise in this tasty shot of a Donut tree here you can see that in the Area of focus just look how nice the Detail is there and the contrast it's All just really really nice and what That means is that either for portraits As I'm showing here but also for those Indoor events that you're going to be Able to get nice detail at F 1.4 without The need to stop down to get better Detail that's really important Now as you can see if I compare F 1.8 There is some extra Improvement Available there you can see the contrast Is just better still there's finer Detail there in the text we can look at The mid frame and you can see there's Just look at this cheek for example more Detail and contrast that's there and off Down into the corner the corners look Considerably better even that mild stop
Down to F 1.8 now from F 1.8 to F2 you See just a little bit more contrast We're now at a really excellent levels All the way across the frame stopping Down from F2 to F 2.8 does give us a Mild uptick in contrast here in the Corners of the frame if we pop back to The middle it's maybe a tiny bit better But we're already pretty near Peak Performance there at f2 just mildly Better at F 2.8 Now from F 2.8 to F4 you can see that There isn't any real Improvement we've Kind of already hit our Peak Performance There by about F 2.8 and in fact if we Go from F4 now to F 5.6 things do look Mildly better at F 5.6 but from F 5.6 to F8 you actually see that diffraction is Already starting to slightly soften the Image so it doesn't look quite as good And from f8 to f11 you see that there's More softening still and then from f11 To F16 which are minimum aperture you See that we are considerably softer There at the edge of the frame so I Would recommend f8 as the upper limit F11 only of absolutely necessary so not Only do we have a good level of Magnification we also have fairly good Detail now contrast isn't as good at This close of a focus distance but if You look for example in the weave of the Bill here there's actually quite a lot Of detail that is there kind of in that
Sweet spot there so if I take that into A real world shot we can see that while Depth of field is obviously quite small Here there's good detail not a lot of Bleeding there along that edge if I look Over in this Zone here you can see that The detail is nice and crisp there on This uh subject texture here that shows A little bit more contrast another shot Here and you can see up close that we Can see really nice detail there and as You look towards the background things Are blurred out but here is the area Where I would say is probably our Optical weakness sometimes with the Lenses that are really really sharp and High contrast wide open what you end up Seeing is that the bokeh tends to not be Quite as soft and so for example here You can see that there is quite a bit of Outlining here in this the bokeh circles Of the early morning do that's not Atypical in this Zone kind of right Below beyond the plane of focus but what I'm not seeing is this transition to war Where usually by this point here it's Starting to get really creamy but you Can still see a fair bit of outlining as We progress further out And here this shot which I think Actually does look quite good you know What's great is the detail there in the Subject so that's wonderful but as we Transition towards the defocus there
Still tends to be some edges there you Can see it particularly here with some Of these look at these votive cam Candles but if you look towards the Defocused area the geometry isn't Amazing but neither does it kind of Bleed away to anything that's really Soft and creamy ever and then I Particularly noticed it on this shot and So we've got a focus here on these you Know wrought iron rails you can see in a Lot of these transition zones there's Just a lot of outlining of circles there Some people really like that look kind Of a bubble bokeh look I'm not Personally fond of it and so again bokeh Is subjective I'll let you make your own Decisions this shot I would say is maybe One of the best of the bunch I think That even though there is some outlining It looks you know fairly good in the Defocused area and it looks really Really good on these subject area now One thing you can pretty consistently Count on with Fuji glass and that is That the color rendition is going to be Quite nice and that's true here colors Are rich they're nicely saturated but They're not garish makes editing the Photos you know really quite a joy and Everything holds up really well when You're editing photos and here in this Shot you know skin tones are looking Natural I'm shooting at just F 1.4 but
If we pop in here we can see that the Skin tones and the skin textures look Good on my wife there so all of that Holds up well colors here again they Look really great and of course this Lens has as we've discovered already has Great contrast and detail so it was Really good with a shot like this where There's just tons of little texture Information because the colors and the Contrast all look great here's another Shot where the colors look really really Good in this shot which I appreciate That appreciate the detail here vocal Looks pretty decent but here I've also Introduced some bright Sun into the Frame and so we can see that even though It's there there's a little bit of a Veiling effect that I find quite Artistic here it is again in this shot Actually really really like that kind of Look again your mileage may vary this is A taste thing you can see there's a Little bit of a some ghosting artifact There but it all kind of fits into the Framework of the image now this shot Stopped down a bit more I really really Like the shot detail looks fantastic It's you know dynamic so there's lots of Little things going on in the photo so I Really appreciate it from as a Photographer but you can see here from Kind of a artistic standpoint that there Is a little bit of a ghosting artifact
That's taking place here but you know Nothing terrible and I do think that the Sunburst effect looks really really nice In this image you can see it here as Well where I've stopped down even Further really nice long blades that Come to a point which I something I Really really like in the look of a Sunburst so in conclusion kind of Comparing it to If you're looking Comparing this with the 33 millimeter F 1.4 kind of debating which lens to buy If you can't afford both of them I would Say I would break them down as this the 23 millimeter is the sharper lens and The higher contrast lens particularly at Large apertures and so if your priority Is getting very very crisp results this Is a fantastic performer I see it as a Very good option for a wedding type Setting for portrait work in general Particularly if you're wanting to stop Down a bit and care less about a shallow Depth of field so it's very sharp very Good performing in that way the 33 Millimeter while it's still a sharp lens Is not as sharp not as high contrast Wide open but it compensates by having Both more background compression All Things Considered but also a softer Bokeh rendering and so I kind of like Images off the 33 millimeter just a Little bit better but at a pixel level I Like what I see off the 23 millimeter
Both of them are very very good lenses And so if you have a kind of a Preference between those two two focal Lengths one is essentially a 35 Millimeter equivalent the 23 millimeter The 33 millimeter is essentially a 50 Millimeter lens equivalent and so if you Know if there's a preference you have Between those two I would make my Decision based on that because both of Them in all honesty perform very very Similarly these are lenses that I Certainly would put on a short list of Lenses that I would like to use on a High resolution sensor and so if you're Moving to either an xt5 or an xh2 or a Future body that houses that same 40 Megapixel sensor I would put these two Lenses along with the viltrox 75 Millimeter F 1.2 has three lenses that I Have tested since those bodies have Released it I really felt like they held Up to that obviously a lens like the 200 Millimeter F2 is also going to be on That list there are lenses that are Going to perform just fine there and Then other lenses that you know look a Little bit softer they just can't quite Keep up to that higher resolution point And so I will keep you updated as I move Along with all of those things but this Is a fantastic lens and Fuji is really These kind of Mark II generation 2 Lenses they're really moving in the
Right direction in my opinion a little Bit larger and heavier yes but much Higher performing optically much better Focusing and that is what we need in the Modern era on Fuji cameras I'm Dustin Abbott and if you look in the Description down below you can see Linkage to my full text review also to An image gallery there are buying links There if you'd like to purchase this Lens there's also linkage there to Follow myself for Craig on social media To become a patron to get channel Merchandise please like And subscribe if You haven't already thanks for watching Have a great day and let the light in [Music] Wait
