Intro

As you may know, if you are a regular reader of my blog, I shot with Fujifilm a lot in the past 5 years. Started with the low budget cameras and lenses, and switching between systems and brands, I gradually upgraded my gear. The Fujifilm XF 23mm f/1.4 R LM WR lens is probably one of the best lenses I ever owned throughout my time in the photography realm.

But because this is a day when I switch again, away from Fujifilm, I wanted to assess a few items in the Fujifilm kit, that will always remember no matter what the future brings.

Build Quality & Handling

Fujifilm knows how to make lenses. This lens is one of the best lenses on earth in terms of overall quality. It’s made of metal, it has weather sealing all around. The satisfaction you get from the aperture ring clicking is unreal. The fact that it has a really easily lockable aperture ring to the A mode, so you won’t mistakenly move it is a really thoughtful feature.

It’s has a decent size and weight, so it’s not something that you would mistake for a toy, but it’s not overly heavy so that it will be a hindrance when using it on an X-T5 or an X-S20. I can’t vouch for how well, or not, it handles on a smaller body like an X-M5 or an X-E5, but because those cameras don’t have a grip either, I assume that this lens is not the best pick. I would lean more towards the f2 variants, or some third party option like the Viltrox AIR series.

If you don’t throw it around hitting it to other lenses or items in your bag, then the paint on the metal will also hold up pretty well. I never had an issue with it, no marks, nothing appeared on it since I bought it. Actually, I never had a Fujifilm XF lens that would’ve shown any sign of usage during the time I had with them, so that’s saying something (maybe about the gear or more about me, I don’t know).

I can’t say anything about the weather sealing, because I did not had the chance to shoot with it in the rain, but knowing Fujifilm gear, I’m sure it can handle quite the downpour. I shot with the 50mm f2 in the rain and that did not skipped a beat.

Performance

It has the new linear motors, and it makes a difference. Mostly because this lens has large glass elements, compared to the f2 Fujicron siblings, it needs the better motors to be able to move the elements fast enough. This allows the lens to be even faster than the f2 variants.

The sharpness is also something otherworldly, even wide open at 1.4, I haven’t had an issue. The corners are extremely sharp, and the only issue they have is vignetting. But that’s easily fixable in post or with camera correction profiles. The other way to make it actually perfect is to stop down to f2. If corner sharpness and vignetting is really important for you to be at a 100% perfection, then that’s how you can acheive it.

Shooting RAW without any corrections shows a decent amount of barrel distortion, but in most cases you wouldn’t want to turn off the corrections, so I’m not sure why this info is important.

And last but not least, this lens shows no purple or green fringing at all, at least in my experience I did not see any after using the normal correction profiles that are being applied by default in lightroom or the ones that the camera applies on the SOOC JPEGs.

Minimum Focus Distance & Bokeh

The minimum focus distance on this lens is even shorter than the previous model, or the f2 variant. At just 19cm you are getting real close to your subject , but the image quality stays amazing. While also creating a super nice soft background blur.

The bokeh itself is soft, the balls don’t have any texture, and there is no visible fringing on them. At f/1.4 you have a very shallow depth of field, so you might need to use continuous shooting drive mode on the camera, to “spray and pray” so that you make sure there is at least one image in perfect focus. But this has nothing to do with the lens, rather it’s more the camera’s fault. Fujifilm does not have the best autofocus performance unfortunately. I’m not saying it’s bad, just not Sony or Canon or even Nikon level.

My experience and would I recommend it?

I had this lens for around 3 months now, and shot with it a lot of images in a lot of situations, both street, portraits, pets, details, nature and so on. In my opinion this lens is one of the best lenses I ever owned. It’s the most fun to shoot with and it handles any situation you throw it in.

I would highly recommend this lens for anybody looking for a 35mm field of view FF equivalent lens for the Fuji X mount system. If you can find it cheaper than €600, I’d say that’s a steal. I bought it “new” on the used market for €500, and for that money - there is no question about it.

But if you are more on the budget side of the things, I would highly recommend looking at the Viltrox 25mm f1.7, which is optically amazing too, has just about a few disadvantages compared to the Fuji though. It has a plasticky build, no weather sealing, no aperture ring, but at least it’s very sharp, it has decent coatings and focuses quickly. And all for the low low price of €200. I think that’s a steal too.

Conclusion

The Fujifilm XF 23mm f1.4 R LM WR is a beast of lens with excellent performance and build quality. The price is fair, but as always, I suggest getting it on the used market or on discounts, because then it becomes a really good deal.

I can highly recommend it for anyone without any regrets.

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Fujifilm XF 23mm F/1.4 R LM WR - Review