Fujinon XF56mm F1.2 R WR is upgraded version of the legendary lens and it became very important part of my photography gear few months after it's release. After more than half year of usage I wanted to share my experience and impressions on this beautiful glass from Fuji X system. I always use to love this focal length and tend to gravitate towards short telephoto field of view in my photography, cause I am very used to 50mm lenses on APS-C cameras for many years now. However, for this specific lens I was waiting until Fujifilm decided to upgrade the first version. There are a few reasons for not getting the old XF56mm f1.2 R in my case. The first one is lack of dust and weather resistance, mostly because I carry my gear while traveling and love to take photos on rainy and snowy days. Second reason is very long minimum focus distance, since I am into product photography primarily and the third reason is slow and noisy autofocus system, that was little bit unreliable in some scenarios. The new version fixed all of these complaints for my needs for such prime lens. The minimum focus distance is shorter for close-up shots, the autofocus is better and the dust and weather resistance is added. All that did not compromise image quality and did not add much weight compared to first version of the lens.

Fujinon XF56mmF1.2 R WR

SPECIFICATION

Fujinon XF56mmF1.2 R WR

Focal length: 56mm (equivalent to 85mm full frame)

Weight: 445g

Filter size: Ø 67mm

Aperture: f/1.2 to f/16

Miminum focus distance: 50 cm

Build quality

Build quality is obvious step up compared to the old version of this lens. Metal body, with high quality rubber gaskets around the mount and several sealing points inside, feels very hefty and powerful in the hand. The aperture ring is not that loose as on the old one, but still it is not as firm as the rings on the Fujicrons. The weight is not compromised as I said earlier, the lens is still compact, versatile and portable. It weighs only 445 grams for an f1.2 glass, however the external build of the lens body feels somehow more muscular, solidly built, tough and robust.

autofocus

Autofocus is accurate, reliable and snappier, not as fast as the one in the Fujicrons or in the fastest linear motor Fujinon lenses, yet it is more than sufficient for every type of photography that I have been doing at the moment.

IMAGE QUALITY

Optically this prime lens is perfect for my taste in every term. I simply love the output that this new version produces in every scenario.

As one of the Fujifilm Bokeh Masters in the X-Trans system, main feature of this lens is obviously fast f1.2 aperture, with large light gathering capabilities that helps in the low light situations. Also this lens produces the most pleasing bokeh by completely blurring the out of focus areas on the images. The foreground and background are so smooth and buttery, due to shallow depth of field created by combination of the focal length and fast aperture. The focus plane is very thin in these situations, but the lens is very sharp, even wide open at f1.2 and I love to use it in that way, specially for product photography, where I need high level of details of the subject.

Smoother bokeh and increased sharpness are not the only optical quality that has been improved, in terms of tonality, colour and contrast there are also noticeable enhancements. This lens is more contrasty, more colour saturated and the nice highlight rolloff is something that I appreciate too. Also well balanced rendering of the skin tones for portrait photography is very important feature of this lens, as expected it is on the professional level of quality for high end Fujinon glass.

final note

As a versatile and fairly compact fast aperture short telephoto lens the XF56mm F1.2 R WR is my choice when subject separation from the background is really needed. Also due to light transmission capabilities of the lens for the low light situations, usage of f1.2 aperture is very helpful to avoid high ISO values on the camera, retaining the accurate colours, high contrast and tack sharpness, introducing less noise on the images taken in these scenarios. As I use this lens further, I will share more photos in the future in addition.

Fujifilm Bokeh Master