I remember Fuji Guy Billy saying, at the launch of the Fujinon XF50-140mmF2.8 R LM OIS WR lens, that this will be a “legendary” lens. First full size samples were already shared on Fujirumors here weeks ago, but now we have the first official Fujifilm high-resolution samples online. Check them out the three images here (shot by Zack Arias).
And also Rico Pfirstinger is testing the XF 50-140. He posted some samples at his Flickr page here.
Fujifilm XF 50-140F2.8 WR: USA: BHphoto / AmazonUS / Adorama / EUROPE:WexUK / WexDE / PCHstore /
101 Responses
And all shot at f/5.6 or f/8… because the reason photographers tolerate the size, weight and cost of an f/2.8 tele zoom is so they can stop it down…?
OOooooOOoor it might have to do with it being shot in the studio 😉
But I agree, give us outdoor samples at 2.8
I agree. I’m sure it will be great, and I generally have a lot of time for Zak Arias, but I find these example shots a bit baffling. Rico’s showed the capabilities of the lens far better. I won’t be rushing into buying it, as I’m pretty happy with the 55-200 in the studio and thats where I would use it most ( for fashion shots ). When I’m shooting wide at weddings I’m finding the 56 1.2 gives me enough reach for most situations and I wouldn’t want to carry this thing around all day.
Yeah doesn’t seem very helpful to give examples of a 2.8 WR lens in a studio at 5.8-8.0. I think they rely too much on the superstars to give the masses a taste of what’s possible without much oversight.
that’s what a lot of people use fast lenses for. You know once they’re stopped down they’ll perform their best, while still leaving some headroom. Using a lens that is diffraction limited wide open doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Really? They buy fast lenses so they can stop them down. Wow, learn something new every day. Must buy fast zooms because they are heavy so they can work out while shooting. Multitasking.
Some of us like to have more than a fraction of the photo in focus and don’t walk around shooting wide open all the time.
5.6-8 is way far from wide open. All snark aside, I would guess most photographers don’t buy constant 2.8 zooms to walk around shooting a f/8. I own a plethora of Fuji lenses, including the 55-200, which is pretty big and plenty fast with the OIS. Unless you weren’t planning to use the 2.8 wide open quite a bit why would you even consider this lens. And again, why wouldn’t you post examples of what it can do wide open if that is what you are selling.
really need to see shots at 2.8 – under a range of lighting conditions – Hopefully they will post some soon… ( the lens needs to be as good as a Canon or Nikon 70-200 f2.8 – if it is they will sell a lot of them – 1 to me etc) there are shooters i like me in full frame ( D3S and D800) who will take an XT1 and a XF 50-140 and make it work for many projects – with a lot less wear and tear on our necks and shoulders. td
these shots are not going to sell this lens…I can put my weatherproof bonnet on my 55-200 and shoot at f/ 5.6 or f/8
Ok so we know its sharp at F/8 like my old Canon FD lenses… and like the 55-200. Now, what about some f/2.8 shots ?
does anyone want to talk about how insanely sharp those photos are? i mean it’s ideal conditions, but they’re promising shots for sure.
Is there a single lens in the Fuji lineup that couldn’t produce tack sharp images at f8 in a studio?
Most modern lenses are sharp under these condition. I love Fuji but these studio shots didn’t show much except for strange skin tones and not great DR.
So this lens performs well at f5.6 to f8 in a studio setting. Well I guess the lens isn’t broken then, now how about something handheld in low light at f2.8?
…and with very flat lighting…..
He needed the DOF is why or had to much light unlikely. Im sure its sharp at f2.8 Others are posted at 2.8. But this lens will by most be shot at 2.8 only if they have to.
Now when will Fuji produce a 1.4x and 2x teleconverter for this lens?
I have shot several samples over the weekend, it really is an amazing lens: https://www.flickr.com/gp/25805910@N05/22ekS8/
The OIS is a marvel, too.
That is what we need to see…
Not to be hard on Zack or Fuji, but the samples they are showing are pretty irrelevant. Fuji, when you are ready to release the future wide angle zoom or primes, send a copy my way. I will make good use of it… No joke!
Rico, thanks for great versatile samples. These are great. They make some limits of this lens clearly evident. These limits seem to be very distant. Sharpness wide open is great as expected. OIS is amazing. AF tracking seems to be at least OK or better (I am looking forward to testing it myself as the images can’t tell everything). My only concern is bokeh. It seems to be little negative under harsh conditions. In normal situation this negative tendency is almost invisible and bokeh looks quite neutral. This is very disappointing as I expected 50-140 to have great bokeh like 56 std.
These are my personal observations based on your samples. I’m looking
forward to see your impression.
Thank you, Dis. Bokeh is always a hot topic, as it appears to be very much a matter of taste. For example, unlike you, some users don’t appreciate the background bokeh of the 56mm lens, hence the APD version to smoothen things out. Also, pleasing background bokeh can mean less pleasing foreground bokeh due to the nature of spherical undercorretion. As for the 50-140mm, this lens appears to be extremely well-corrected with virtually no (logitudinal) CAs to speak of and incredible sharpness and detail rendering wide open over the full spectrum of focal lengths. It’s also pretty well-corrected distortion-wise, exhibiting minor to medium pincushion distortion between 50 and 140mm which is digitally corrected during RAW conversion. I recommend reading this standard Carl Zeiss white paper on lens design and bokeh: http://www.smt.zeiss.com/C12567A8003B8B6F/EmbedTitelIntern/CLN_35_Bokeh_EN/$File/CLN35_Bokeh_en.pdf
Thank you for your recommendation. I understand this part of theory of optical design. I also have a Nikkor 105/2 DC, that helps to feel the effect of SA corrections. I’ve noticed the tendency that landscape oriented lenses like nikkor
70-200/4 have perfectly corrected SA, while action lenses such as nikkor 70-200/2.8 tend to be slightly undercorrected in order to improve background bokeh.
I expected XF 50-140 to have this philosophy too. As I’ve understood from your samples, Fuji had decided to go the other way and to design this lens with no SA. That’s quite disappointing because I love Nikon’s tendency as it allows one using action lens as great portrait lens.
Thank you for your input. If I can keep the lens a bit longer, I’ll try to add a few specific bokeh samples covering both foreground and background bokeh of this lens. You might also want to take a look at the product shots I took with a Zeiss Sonnar 2.8/180mm and the new Metabones Speed Booster Ultra. Very smooth bokeh and very little vignetting even at 128mmF2.0, but very strong longitudinal CAs that require an external Lightroom workflow to remove or mitigate.
Thank you for your concern. You’ve already done a great job in offering bokeh samples. That’s quite enough for me but some readers could demand more samples. I’m very
familiar with messing around with green and magenta fringes in LR as I shoot my 105/2 DC on X-T1 too. Hopefully the mapped XF 90/2 lens will deliver both great bokeh and automatic in camera LoCA correction.
another good product by fujifilm
A little variety would help… Indoor, outdoor, different f and such…
These images are all noticeable soft. I’m sure the lens is far better than these images show.
They are tack sharp on my screen when viewed at full resolution.
You’re right. I shouldn’t have looked at them in my browser on a Retina MacBook Pro. Google Chrome doesn’t handle HiDPI screens quite right. I downloaded them, imported into Lightroom and viewed at 100%. They are indeed sharp. I think apps that aren’t written for HiDPI just show basically a smoother 200% view.
Fuji has a very unique talent of creating metal lens barrels that look like plastic.
I also wish they worked to make their barrels a bit more solid feeling.
Well, I can live with the “less solid” feeling, but I have to admit that both bodies and lenses in Fuji X systems feel very cheap (sans X100 series). No one would write a review about Fuji “…feels like it’s been carved from a solid block of unobtanium” – that statement I saw once upon a time in a Canon 1D review (and memorized it only because I had the very same feeling about that particular body).
Fujis are very light, both camera bodies and lenses. When you first pick up an X-E body, it feels like just another piece of packaging foam, for some reason shaped and colored like a real camera. I have no idea how to make something unbelievably light and give it a feeling of “solid and reliable”. Maybe that’s why I don’t design cameras. Maybe that’s why Leica took a shortcut and uses brass and bronze in their cameras and lens barrels. Maybe Fuji could add a “solid” feel to their gear in form of some texture or coating (I, for one, won’t mind if future Fujinons were coated like old “pre-G” Nikkor primes).
There are a few things they could do: add sizeable, inlaid hinges to interface/card doors and make sure they close on deep rubber flanges ala Nikon’s D200/800 line. Even a card lock would be nice.
Dials shouldn’t rock as much as they do. That could be fixed by anchoring the dials above drive/metering rings on intermediary metal pylons. Buttons should have greater travel time, and where possible, aluminium, not plastic should be used in switches. The X-T1’s baseplate is a big step up over the one in the X-Pro 1 the but interface of the camera is overall too spongy.
Simple things like larger bearings, deeper bearing groves, tactile full-stop markers, and real helicoids would make their lenses feel and react much better than they do now.
Their exteriors are polished a bit too much. Even finishing them like current Leica-M ASPH lenses would be a big step up.
And add more weight? No thanks. Compared to the others in my kit this one may be a tank. This is why I’m considering passing on this, and going with the lighter, and slower 55-200. I would have loved an equivalent to my Nikon 70-200 2.8 but… I’m trying to lighten the load.
They don’t have to be any more heavy. Check Canon’s and Nikon’s F/4 zooms. They are just as solid and while not boasting real helicoids, focus on gears that can be adjusted whether the lens is attached to a camera or not, whether the lens is powered or not.
Mirrorless trends for fly-by-wire is really really limiting with no end-user benefits. The manufacturer can make a cheaper lens and sell it for better profit, but that lens offers less functionality and more wasted space than a geared lens without being lighter or smaller.
I’d love to see a ‘premium’ manufacturer of non-M mirrorless cameras actually spend time making real premium products that stand up to scrutiny not just within the cheapened mirrorless world, but from wider perspectives.
We in the Fujifilm and Olympus and more recently, in the Sony camps are so cheap that we think anything with aluminium in it is ‘well built’ rather looking at the entire picture: and how the lens is put together internally and how that translates into a good, or bad, or limited, user experience.
In a few months later, probably Fuji might released 50-140 APD
Come on Fuji, your 56 APD is not good as I expected but the price is way expensive
and about these images. How come $1600 lens is soft? it’s f5.6 anyhow. I wonder how softer f2.8 might be
You might want to check your monitor. They are tack sharp on mine.
On my Retina, the first two are not sharp in the eye region, the third is.
Agree!!
Oh. Well excuuuuuuuse us. Retina… oooooh.
mine too – not soft at all.
Do you actually own a camera? Download the jpg, open it in Photoshop and look at it at 100%. If you then still maintain it is soft I give up…
Yes, I have Canon 5d3 and Fuji XT1. Hope it answer your question
check your eyes or your monitor, something is wrong on your end.
Maybe something wrong with your eyes or your monitor too
I want some of what Erwin is smoking…
That must be some heavy shit, be careful 😉
There is nothing soft there. I suggest you upgrade your 13″ 640 x 480 screen. LOL
To be fair, f/5.6 @140 mm for a tight headshot is probably as wide as you’ll ever open the aperture for such studio scene. It also perfectly illustrates focus falloff at this “workhorse” aperture, something that is seldom addressed in manufacturers official samples. And it looks very good.
As for why Zack didn’t shot the same scenes wide open… My guess, his lighting setup won’t allow it without an ND filter, most studio strobes are way too powerful for shooting at f/2.8… On the other hand, PCB Einsteins that Zack uses can be dialed all the way down to 2.5 Ws (!!!), so I really have no idea why he chose to not shoot anything wide open.
I’m willing to give Zack the benefit of the doubt and say maybe he did shoot wide open with that lens in the studio.. and that Fujifilm chose the three images to be shown as official samples.
I’ll add: If you use multiple lights and want to achieve a certain lighting situation you probably need them on different levels of power, so you can’t have them all on the lowest setting.
Also, maybe he did want to make ambient light disappear without shooting in the dark. 😉
I am sorry to say (at least for my wallet): This lens seems to me to be exceptional good.
Sharpness is a little soft for studio lighting conditions (not necessarily a bad thing as it hides bad detail). Colour tone is nice for SooC.
Was going to say the colour tone looks good – anyone with an XT-1 care to comment on whether these look as waxy as people keep saying? I’m not seeing it on these? (I have an XE-1 so I’m not familiar with the waxy tone that people talk about)
“Waxy” does not apply to the base ISO. You can clearly see waxy skintones at ISO 1600 and upwards. And it looks hideous even in b&w. Need an example? Here’s a random high ISO snapshot (no artistic value whatsoever): http://yadi.sk/d/0NkDMdwCKCmkG
Thank you for sharing! I can see what you are talking about. Even the shirt fabric doesn’t look quite right. The skin tone for the hands are quite bizarre, and for the face it still isn’t right.
Don’t believe all the bull shit you read. I had the X-E1, and now the X-T1 and BOTH were fabulous!
Thank you for an alternate view! Nice to hear someone is happy with the results 🙂
Yes, agree with Trenton. I have X-E2 and at low ISOs it is not a problem. Waxy skin does appear at higher ISOs – when it does surface it looks really awful.
I would have been happier if he shot the studio floor. Zzzzzzzzz
in the same studio setup, my 400$ EF 85mm 1.8 is way sharper.
Any modern 70-200/4 lens will be just as sharp. Ditto any 400$ or equivalent modern, but cheaper lens stopped down to f/8 on FF or 5,6 on APSc.
How about a sample there?
I think you’ll find thousands, if not more, available all over the net. People have been using sharp and unsharp lenses for sharp portraits under controlled studio lighting for decades now.
EDIT: I was stupid for not writing ‘centuries’ but let’s let it stand.
Sorry, I was under the impression you had specific samples in mind.
Not as many protraits taken a hundred years ago were taken up close. But trust me, the portraits taken on 8×10 cameras are just as sharp up close on their native films. That is all to say that getting sharp stopped-down portrait under controlled lighting is easy as pie.
Of course I know most lenses are sharp at 5.6 today. But as long as you don’t provide an example all you say is just fluff. 😉
Also keep in mind 8×10 is far smaller than the 16MP images at 100% on you screen. And a 8×10 film is much more forgiving to your lens and very far from the diffraction limit. You can almost shoot this with a pinhole. 😉
Dirk, you have just proved everything I had to say.
From the “lowly” 24-120mm F/4 @ F/5.6. The almost imperceptible loss of detail is due to shooting at ISO400. Otherwise it’s tack sharp. Oh, and this at 70mm which is this particluar lens’ weakest point 😉 RAW file, import, no sharpening (except default LR). Unlike jpegs, RAW files have no sharpening whatsoever, so this is a good example.
Love Fuji btw, and the samples show good performance, but since they are stopped down, this is very much expected. F/4 FF zooms of the same range all perform well stopped down throughout their focal ranges – in terms of sharpness at least.
Hey Csaba,
Sharpness aside, don’t the skin tones seem off and certainly the DR is quite diminished. On my monitor all the highlights are blown, blacks okay. All this with really flat lighting. It all seems like a really bad way to sell a lens that might have a lot of potential.
My iMac is datacolor calibrated and I love my Fuji gear so I’m not trying to pick a fight. Just my observations.
Blown highlights? Are we looking at the same photo? Just take a look at the histogram. Diminished DR? Don’t take me wrong, I’m not offended or anything, especially since none of what you wrote makes much sense. Oh, and can I see your portfolio? http://molnarcs.500px.com I wouldn’t be surprised if you turned out to be one of those armchair photographers 😀
I’m not talking about your sample I’m talking about Zack’s. And no I’m not an armchair photographer. I’m a film/TV director. Check on IMDB Michael Switzer. Over a forty-five year career I was a still photographer turned cinematographer (for which I won 2 emmys) and finally a dramatic film director. You are welcome to rent any of my films, or perhaps ypu’ve seen Prison Break? For someone not offended you seem pretty angry. Maybe we have disagreed over on Nikon Rumors where I thnk your anger has been displayed more than once. Don’t know why. You are a very good photographer.
Sorry mate, I didn’t realize you were talking about Zack’s photos. I’m not angry, just a bit shocked at your blown highlights comment. You seemed to have missed my point, which was that Zack’s photos don’t tell anything about this lens. Any 70-200mm F/4 lens (same size, DoF) would be just this good at F/5.6-f/8. That was all 😉 Anyway, I was assuming you’re talking about my screenshot.
Your name seemed familiar, but had no idea we had any personal exchange before. I’m not sure which of my posts you are referring to. Must be one of my rants about Nikon’s lack of direction 😀
Well, it is a nice and sharp shot. I’d say most comparable to the third sample and I’d say they are about the same in sharpness.
But zooms are usually best in the middle of their range, so I won’t
believe it is a weak spot of the lens. The Fuji sample was shot at the
long end of the lens and the 24-120 is not exactly a cheap lens
either…
Of course you can get good results with most lenses at 5.6 nowadays, especially in the middle of their zoom-range. I find it funny though, how instantly after the examples are posted people come around and say: “any lens can do this in this setup.” but nobody cares to give an example.
What do you want? The lens is sharp on pixel-level. No lens can do more. Of course more examples in different situations and apertures are needed to judge the overall performance and they will come. So let’s not jump to conclusions.
There are more important features of a lens than pixel level sharpness though. But of course they are not as easy to evaluate. 😉
I agree, that’s why I added “in terms of sharpness at least” at the end. I expect this Fuji lens to be a much better performer in terms of bokeh, especially rendering specular highlights, etc.
As to shaprness, at 5.6+ doesn’t really matter, but wide open at f4, this particular lens is sharper at 24-35mm and again at 120mm then at the rest of the focal range. At least, this is my experience. I’m talking about center sharpness.
My point is that Zack Arias’s samples doesn’t tell anything about this lens. As somebody above stated, pretty much any 70-200 F/4 lens would be just as sharp as these shots at F5.6-f8. I’m not trying to “sell this lens” (my 24-120mm) to anyone. Well, maybe later if I switch to Fuji which I’m considering, that’s why I’m here. At least as a secondary system for now, but who knows, a 24mpx XPro2 could be tempting if Fuji comes up with a capable flash system (radio, TTL, higher flash sync speed, and I wouldn’t mind HSS from time to time).
Does your EF 85mm 1.8 also allow you to vary its focal length from 50mm to 140mm?
Or your 2,8 lens to open up to 1,8? Both ejaculations/questions are ridiculous.
Of course it’s ridiculous, that was my point.
Then point taken.
Who said anything about focal length veratility. I said it is sharper.
Yes and my point was: so what? It’s a completely different type of lens, for a different camera system. Why even bring it up?
‘Way sharper’ is probably false, but ‘as sharp’ isn’t. That said, it’s better to compare the most apt lens, the 70-200/4 IS to the Fujifilm, as both work out to equivalent terms on their native mounts.
That said, expect similar results.
And of course if sharpness is what you’re looking for, any modern FF lens stopped down to F8 will be just as sharp. Rico’s images below show how nice OOF elements are- certainly one reason to consider this lens.
Maybe you are right, I shouldn’t say WAY, but is it sharper, yes it is. And btw i wasn’t starting an argument about comparing brands, but when you pay this much on aps-c lens you expect alot and imho the posted samples was sharpened in one way or another (in camera or post).
Finally it is up to you if you find it razor sharp, I shot and saw sharper portraits.
For me i will buy both the 135mm f/2 and the 85 1.8 for almost the same price and they are both sharper.
There is no way any of the 3 samples are soft. Some people on the Internet are odd. That said the thistle looking shots in Rico’s Flickr looks like a tough shot for a long lens and will always look busy due to the grass no matter what is used and isn’t a favourite but see no problems in any of the other images.
On my Retina display the first two are not sharp in the eye region, the third is.
Make sure you download the files and view in Photoshop or Lightroom. Safari and Chrome (I didn’t try Firefox) do not show an accurate 100% view. It’s like a smoothed 200% view. This bit me at first as well.
You are right, much better. Looked at it in CO7, looks very good there! Preview renders it soft.
We are not saying they are soft images per se. We are saying the sharpness is not as good compared to the results we get from other lenses under studio lighting.
Soft? There is so much detail that it is almost unkind to the model
Actually, it is unkind to the model. And the make-up artist.
It’s a shame they used a numpty like Zack Arias for this, there’s a wealth of talented pixel peeping forum gods on here who would, no doubt, have made a much better job.
Those portraits are nice without any doubt, but he should have used the lens at f2,8. There is no interest to buy a heavy and ultra expensive f2,8 lens just to use it at f5,6 and f8 then.
I also do not think it is helpful to build up unreal expectation by using words like “legendary” for a lens. Customers can decide this after a few years that a lens may have become quasi legendary.
The pics shown here are certainly good with wonderful skin tones, but legendary? Not really. 70-200 f2,8 lenses tend to be excellent, Canon, Nikon, Sony – everybody gets them right, and so does Fuji as it seems.
But seen the price and the weight/ bulk/ size I probably would prefer the 55-200 OIS or the forthcoming 90/f2.
The large radius sharpening makes the hair look crunchy and strange. Poor processing. The lens is probably good and the files look like they might show more detail with proper processing but these samples tel. you nothing.
I think those are JPEG OOC.
both canon, nikon & sony 70-200mm f4 full frame equivalents are cheaper and lighter by 235g, 145g, 155g respectively. the only thing heavier on FF is the canon & nikon bodies. only sony FF bodies has comparable weight to Fuji’s. zack’s studio samples are insanely sharp.
YEs but they are f/4 – which is comparable as far as DOF is concerned, not the amount of light – And the Fuji is weather sealed ….
The Nikon’s are not? Boy, you must all have Fuji stocks to make this kind of exaggerations. All Nikon FFs and AFS G gear is weather sealed and really playing in a completely different league than Fuji X. The Nikkor 70-200mm F2.8 is one of the best lenses I’ve ever seen. No way this APS/C lens has the same kind of ‘isolation’ capabilities, what is so wonderful in this tele.
No stocks (I wish) I am not denying that the Nikon 70-200 2.8 is a really good lens (at least the version II) I was using it on an aps-c (D2hs and D2x) and it was really excellent, I was not remembering the fact that it was weather sealed. Point taken
Not the density of light, but more light.