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63 About this deal
I’m a 35mm (full frame equivalent) kind of guy. It’s really about the way my brain works – I can walk up to a scene and put the camera to my eye and the framing is exactly where I expected it to be. I know a lot of guys like 50mm and even more like 28mm but for me it’s 35mm or nothing. The XF 23mm f/2 has a 63.4° field of view, and a full frame equivalent 35mm focal length. From my experience, the 23mm f/2 feels like a 21mm lens, and shoots a little wider than other 35mm lenses I own. The natural question is if it’s worth ‘upgrading’ from the older XF 23mm f/1.4 lens. For a travel photographer who values compact size and weight (and WR) over ultimate optical quality and faster glass (I do believe the XF 23mm f/1.4 is optically superior), the XF 23mm f/2 WR is the clear winner. In fact, if you like the XF 35mm f/2 WR lens as well, the filter thread, lens cap and hood are exactly the same. Like many, I swapped hoods and both work equally well on each other. Another bonus is the lens cap actually fits on top of the funnel-like lens hood of the XF 23mm. It looks a bit weird but works perfect. I hope this compatibility of lens hood and cap size makes its way throughout this f/2 WR lens line-up. The lens hood is also added to stop flare, but even without it, the lens doesn’t let much flare into your images which is a great positive. Colour and Contrast
Looking first at the resolution results, we see some very impressive figures. Centrally, sharpness is outstanding from f/2 right through to f/11. It remains excellent at f/16, which is an amazing performance. The edges show slightly lower figures, as we might expect, but results are excellent from f/2 to f/11 and still very good at f/16. Basically, all apertures give totally satisfactory sharpness, both centre and edge, and it is hard to imagine a performance that could be significantly better. While walking around the streets I forget everything around me. I like this feeling a lot. When I get a good shot, I am very happy, and the whole day was worth the travel and walking.Shooting subjects at fairly close range also revealed the older XF 23mm f1.4 to be sharper than its newer sibling. The text on the beer bottle in the example above is noticeably crisper on the XF 23mm f1.4 version than the XF 23mm f2 version – see below. It also has a maximum reproduction ratio of 0.13x. The aspherical elements are positioned, so the image plane is flat, providing edge-to-edge sharpness. The Fujifilm’s 23mm F2.0 WR, FF equivalent focal length of 35mm, is simply awesome and covers all – landscape to portraiture. Of course, shooting portraits with 35mm FF equivalent lens with a widest aperture of F2.0 is not easy, and you will not get a creamy smooth bokeh, but it is great to take portraits with the surrounding environment! In my eyes, the Fujifilm X-T20 paired with the small, lightweight and compact Fujifilm 23mm F2.0 WR is the perfect combination to take wherever you go. Fuji X-T20 . Fuji XF23mmF2 @23mm . f/11 . 3.7″ . ISO 200 – Coimbra Fuji X-T20 . Fuji XF23mmF2 @23mm . f/8 . 1/1600″ . ISO 200 – Coimbra My thanks to the writer of this most informative and well structured article. Also a question – do you ever use the Fujinon 18-55 kit zoom?? If yes, please can you write a piece about it?? I for one would greatly appreciate your thoughts about, and maybe a few images taken with this often maligned but also excellent small zoom.
The image quality is particularly good across the entire aperture range. Even at the widest aperture, corners are still useable. Stopped down a little bit, the entire frame is razor-sharp. The bokeh is very pleasing, also is only an open aperture of F2.0 on a crop body, the bokeh is very unobtrusive and smooth. The close-up limit of just 10cm is great, and the Fujifilm 23mm F2.0 WR can almost be used for macro work 😉 Fuji X-T20 . Fuji XF23mmF2 @23mm . f/8 . 1/340″ . ISO 200 – Faro Fuji X-T20 . Fuji XF23mmF2 @23mm . f/2.0 . 1/26000″ . ISO 200 – Faro The 23mm F/2 lens has an incredibly sturdy and robust build quality. The all-metal body and mounting plate give the user the assurance that this lens can deal with rugged use. On the lens itself, there are no plastic parts at all.At the 23mm focal length, the angle of view is 63.4 degrees, to give a 35mm equivalent length of 35mm. Above left: XF 23mm f2 at f2. Above right: XF 23mm f1.4 at f1.4. At closest focusing distance of each lens. The f2 is nearly half the price of the f1.4, so unless the latter specifically calls to you, a pretty penny could be saved by getting the f2. When Fujifilm first released the XF23mm F1.4, I was thrilled of course. It was fast and it was much smaller than the DSLR equivalent I'd used all those years before.
The biggest difference between the XF 23mm f2 and the earlier XF 23mm f1.4 is their focal ratio: one stop brighter on the old model, allowing it to gather twice as much light and deliver shallower depth-of-field effects. To find out what sort of difference in depth-of-field – not to mention rendering of blurred areas – you can expect from each lens, I performed a number of comparisons at their maximum apertures. In each comparison below, the XF 23mm f2 is pictured on the left and the XF 23mm f1.4 on the right.
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As ever, this post is not a full blown review. I'm not a photographer who produces technically perfect work; I'm a photographer that shoots candidly and I see "the moment" as far more important than "the technically perfect pictures".
In addition, there’s an increase in awareness and demand for prime lenses, including options within a single focal length. The XF 23mm f/1.4 is an amazing lens, but not everyone needs the speed at the cost of size and weight (and price). Since the release of the XF 35mm f/2 WR last fall, photographers demanded more f/2 ‘Fujicron’ lenses, and the boys in Japan listened by giving us the new XF 23mm f/2 WR. Thank-you Fujifilm. I took the XF 23mm with me as my primary lens while on vacation in Osaka, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed shooting with this lens.
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Bokeh and subject separation aren’t lens qualities that rank high for me on a 35mm focal length lens, but I know I’m in the minority on that. When cross shopping the XF 23mm f/2 against the older 23mm f/1.4, I realized how many people were using the f/1.4 version for portraits, food photography, and other applications that showcase the f/1.4’s pleasant bokeh. For this reason, I thought it would be worth posting a few photos from the XF 23mm f/2 for those of you that are interested. I thought the max aperture of f/1.4 on the older XF 23mm would provide a much shallower DOF than the max of f/2 version, but the differences aren’t really that great. There 23mm f/2 really holds its own here. The Fujinon 23mm f1.4 is definitely heavier, weighing a total of 300g, so it may not travel as easily as the f2. It also makes handling the f1.4 somewhat harder than the f2. And carrying it around on city walking tours is much less comfortable. It’s one of three in Fujifilm’s weather-sealed Fujinon f2 series. The Fuji 23mm is a compact, lightweight, weather-resistant, silent autofocus wide-angle lens and is not bad looking.
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