Friday, December 21, 2012

Fujifilm XF14mm 2.8 Lens Hits the Street

 I am loving the new 14mm lens!!  This is a winner and with it's smooth focusing in both manual and auto-focus modes it has a great feel.
I am going to try and pump a bunch of images out this weekend and show off the performance of the lens.  When it ships early in 2013 it will have a USA retail of $899.95.
http://www.fujifilm.com/products/digital_cameras/x/fujinon_lens_xf14mmf28_r/


 Note the lens focus ring - it snaps back to perform manual focus and reveal the distance scale.




























 I had to capture a few shots with the X-Pro1 and 18-55 while also shooting with the X-E1 and 14mm.
 



 All the images below are with the XF14mm lens.
























I love using my flashlight for a quick bit of spot light.

















 The writing on the arc across the top is very sharp when viewed at 100%.

The other day I walked into the shoe repair place and took a quick behind the scenes look at their cramped work area with the X-E1 and XF14mm at ISO 800.















I also took a quick pit stop at a beach area on Long Island.
Having the effective full frame focal length of 21mm really makes shooting a joy for those of us who love wide angle views.  The lens is sharp and has very little distortion as you will probably notice.






 





Large pano made from five frames.

I am an employee of FUJIFILM North America Corporation.
The statements, comments and opinions expressed here represent my own, personal views and are not endorsed by, or affiliated in any way with, FUJIFILM North America Corporation or its affiliates.
bremler@fujifilm.com

32 comments:

  1. Ishkabibble Von Tink7:07 PM

    How does this compare to the Zeiss 21mm Distagon?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous7:15 PM

    White balance looks pretty awful in these images. Unless there were really blue rocks on the shore. I thought Fujifilm had better white balance than this.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous8:04 PM

    Looks allright...just.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yup, pretty much so.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous5:51 PM

      +1
      Not impressed...regardless of all those below that see negative responses to this post as "whining".
      Go and get set of new eyes...

      Delete
    3. Anonymous12:07 AM

      Why a "just"
      What am I seeing here in these images that I should be seeing if it were a better lens in your opinion?

      Delete
  4. Anonymous1:56 AM

    Hi Brandon, how exact is the manual focus? Is there enough way to screw?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous5:39 AM

    Not so productive review, none professional. Where RAW files ?
    Only author opinion.

    KG

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous6:06 AM

    Jesus, guys, really! Can you do anything else than whining? White balance, no raw, not a professional review... Can you just appreciate having the chance to see a preview of the image quality of the lens?
    By the way, thanks Brandon, it really looks interesting!

    FB

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous7:39 AM

      +1

      Delete
    2. Anonymous7:44 AM

      +1
      Brandon please give us a full size pictures!

      Delete
    3. Anonymous5:15 PM

      +1

      Delete
    4. Anonymous3:43 PM

      +1. Whining is annoying. Look at the photos.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous12:12 AM

      I agree..
      -Ive shot with primo Leica & Kern APO lenses Cook optics and then all the best of the japanese lenses most of my career and nothing they make at this focal length comes close to what I see here.. nothing.
      Theres no CA or edge distortion, or fringing etc, what the hell are you looking for?

      Delete
  7. Anonymous9:49 AM

    Ha-ha,
    ...mysteriously silent and feverishly preparing a response. It is easy to shout to the world about the wonderful camera and optics for it. Difficult to prove that it is. Wishing success guy in this difficult matter. Good luck!

    KG

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sheesh what a bunch of whiners, but then they probably don't take pictures they just natter, but they are doing without showing their names so that is also a good indicator of lack of skills.

    Great shots, looking forward to when it ships, hope they can step up production of the next lenses on the roadmap. The sooner the better....

    Alan

    ReplyDelete
  9. What is the weight of the lens? How does the weight compare to the 60mm?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous1:12 PM

    Another whiner who has no skills.

    dpreview:http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/post/50519651

    I'm very underwhelmed
    In reply to muadgil, 7 hours ago

    I don't know if it's the lens, or the photographer, but I'm NOT impressed. To my eyes, nothing seems to be sharp or completely in focus. Most likely it's the photographer. I hope. Up until now Fuji's released 4 great lenses and I have faith this lens will be rock solid. So most likely the photographer is at fault.

    KG

    ReplyDelete
  11. klehmann1:47 PM

    Hi Brandon,

    Nice to see some shots from a lens I personally have been very eager to lay my hand(-s) on... I must agree with a few comments regarding the lack of bitingly sharp-in-focus images here... I mostly fear though that it could be the EVF not quite up to the task of nailing focus manually with this WA... if thats the case I will most likely be even worse off on my X-Pro1, I suspect. Perhaps its Your OOC-JPG settings, perhaps it's a pre-production or battered-up demo sample, I dont know... Looking forward to be showed I'm in the wrong here and looking forward to bigger RAW-samples. Thanks for your report/post.

    Best regards
    klehmann

    ReplyDelete
  12. I can comfortably say that i have a trained eye for these things, and i see nothing wrong with the sharpness from this lens.

    Now i get why some of you think otherwise because from what i can tell these images (the unedited ones) are quite brightly exposed, cold WB, unsharpened, low contrast, with weak blacks. Basically the default Fuji JPEG output. Add to that low quality JPEGs (highly compressed, through Picasa says EXIF), meaning much loss of detail.

    All things considered, many flaws in these images working strongly against perceived sharpness and actual detail of the image, but none of which actually from the lens! It might be difficult to look through all that, but it's easy for me, and i see only one image where the lens shows flaw and that is the beach-sand shot, where it shows a slight loss of sharpness towards the very corners. So i wonder what aperture that was taken at.

    But everyone who thinks he's disappointed with the lens, don't be. It's looking great so far.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Thank you Mjr - you are right - the Picassa/Blogger compression upload hurts!
    The sand was shot at F/4 and from about 15" away.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Always interesting to read some helpful comments here. I appreciate the feedback. I include my email on every posting so I'm easy to reach any time. I'm not here to give a professional review - I work for Fujifilm - what would be the point? That's a no win situation. I am sharing some images, rather than not sharing anything. I do use the OOC jpeg in this instance and if you click the images to enlarge I think they are sharp (this is relative to the comments above - Google compression for the post). The X-Trans sensor IS sharp and the lens is sharp. I don't spend ANY time in CS6 - these are straight out so you don't have to look and say something like - man he must have worked on this for hours....I think the lens is going to be reviewed very soon by people and companies who do that for a living. They are much better suited to the task of technical reviews. Let's keep this in perspective - I'm just a guy sharing some images. More on the way soon.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous7:27 PM

    One of the biggest selling points to me of this lens is the lack of crazy distortions it makes it much more usable. Just wish it was a tad cheaper . Still think I'm gonna get one.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I wish this lens was available sooner. I'm headed overseas for 5 weeks and need a good wide angle lens. I'm taking the 18-55 and 35mm f/1.4 as well as a tokina 11-16 for canon with an adapter. I will probably lock the aperture at f8 on the tokina before going. The x-e1 will be the only camera I am taking and I really wish I had a dedicated ultra wide angle. This one looks like a stunner particularly with the manual focus feature.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Anonymous2:06 AM

    I'd be interested in any comments re: the manual focusing - this is the only possible deal breaker of the Fuji X system for me. After getting the XE1+35mm, I knew it had fly-by-wire focusing, but I wasn't prepared with the horrendous implementation.

    I don't mind that the AF has a tendency to miss, as long as I can easily and quickly over-ride it in manual focus, but the current implementation just doesn't allow for fast and precise MF tweaking.

    I'm hoping that there is some improvement on the 14 and the upcoming 23mm, which from what I understand, will also have markings to allow easier zone focusing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:56 PM

      The 14mm will have such a great depth of field, focusing shouldn't be of concern.

      I am vexed by the focusing on my X-Pro1 in general (and the 60mm in particular), but I'm not worried about this one...it looks like "fast and precise MF tweaking" will be easy with the new design.

      Delete
  18. Brandon, Thanks - your previews/intros of new FujiFilm gear are greatly appreciated. The photos are fine. The 14 mm is a bit wide for my uses but am looking forward to the 23 mm lens. Like my 18 and love the quality of the 35mm lens.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Brandon, thanks for sharing. This is the very lens I have been waiting for. Keep up the good work and show us samples from future XF lenses! Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  20. Anonymous10:34 PM

    I really do not understand what the ppl who complain about sharpness is referring to. If you look at the shots from the shoe shop, the part that are in focus, such as the plate on the machine itself, you can read the texture of the letters just fine. I don't understand what else is there?

    For whom have problem w the fly by wire, have you updated both your lens and xpro1 to the latest firmware? I thought the new manual focus just fine, and I shoot mostly rangefinders.

    Brandon, thank you for sharing the photos. I am w another comment, the lack of distortion in many cases are mind blowing. Granted much of it comes to internal software, but hey, the hardware ppl r making the correction via their own software, much better than lens profile in Lightroom or even corrections in Photoshop.

    People, Fujinon lenses are used mostly for broadcast HD TV. Last I checked Fujinon is the same company as Fuji Films. If a person has used Cook lens think the quality is good, then I really don't have much to complain.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Al pictures are really nice. The white light balance is perfect in all pictures. This lens gonna rock. Very pretty and outclass pictures. thanks for sharing
    Regard's,
    Ben Linus,
    Here you go

    ReplyDelete

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