Life with Fujicrons
Fujinon compact and weather sealed prime lenses, known as “Fujicrons” in photo community, are the main lenses for all types of photography that I’ve been doing at the moment. When I made my decision to start using the Fuji X mirrorless cameras, the lenses that were my choice are Fujicrons, due to small-compact size, fast and accurate autofocus, great image and build quality and weather-resistance that match the weather-sealed camera body. Lightweight cameras and highly compact lenses with fantastic optics provides me an opportunity to capture moments wherever I go.
From the start of my photography journey I was using only the prime fixed focal length lenses and one important feature of all four lenses is that they have very similar image quailty and output, which makes my images look consistent. All the lenses are very close in terms of sharpness, they have similar contrast and color saturation, so I could achieve the same look easily in post-processing.
This generation of Fujinon lenses have the same feel in the hand, they are all metal construction, very well built, fully weather, dust and moisture resistant, which is important for me when traveling. Also all four have the aperture rings, which is really tactile and intuitive to use for photography. Aperture rings are clicky, decently stiff and they couldn’t be easily or accidentally turned.
Alongside my X-T2 and X-T3 these lenses are part of my equipment for few years now.
Fujinon XF16mmF2.8 R WR
Fujinon XF16mmF2.8 R WR
Focal length: 16mm (equivalent to 24mm full frame)
Weight: 155g
Filter size: Ø 49mm
Aperture: f/2.8 to f/22
Miminum focus distance: 17cm
Overview
Out of all four lenses XF16mmF2.8 is the one that I use occasionally. It is wide angle lens and it is very useful for wide scenes. That focal length allows me to capture the whole scenery and shows the broad picture including everything in the frame. I find it the best for interior shots, arhchitecture, landscape, cityscape and some behind the scene moments. It is such great travel lens, with a little bit wider than the standard documentary field of view, which I appreciate for special occasions. One thing that I really like to capture with this lens is famous sunstar or sunburst effect achieved by pointing lens at a bright source point of light, such as the sun. While light passing through a small aperture it makes beautiful star-shaped light sorces on the photos.
Fujinon XF23mmF2 R WR
Fujinon XF23mmF2 R WR
Focal length: 23mm (equivalent to 35mm full frame)
Weight: 180g
Filter size: Ø 43mm
Aperture: f/2 to f/16
Miminum focus distance: 22cm
Overview
XF23mmF2 is always with me in my camera bag. Images that I took with this lens have classic documentary vibe. On Fujifilm cameras 23mm is very vesrsatile focal length and it could be used for so many styles of photography. With normal field of view I capture the scene that my eyes see and using this lens I could create very cinematic pictures. Also I really love to use it in car photography where this lens gives sense of dinamic and some sort of direction in the frame.
Fujinon XF35mmF2 R WR
Fujinon XF35mmF2 R WR
Focal length: 35mm (equivalent to 53mm full frame)
Weight: 170g
Filter size: Ø 43mm
Aperture: f/2 to f/16
Miminum focus distance: 35cm
Overview
It sounds like a cliche, yet XF35mmF2 is true “nifty fifty lens” in Fuji X system. It’s small, compact and lightweight, affordable with stelar performance. Most of my images are captured with this lens. I use it for every type of photography - products, cars, street and travel, portraiture, lifestyle, landscape, interiors…this lens is always attached to one of my cameras wherever I go out shooting. It is very sharp and contrasty wide open at f2, so it allows me to create certain depth for my photography using lower aperture, which is also very useful in low light scenery. This is my favourite focal length and I’ve really trained my eyes to this field of view. Also I appreciate that small compression with this lens, which makes classic perspective of both subjects and ambient.
Fujinon XF50mmF2 R WR
Fujinon XF50mmF2 R WR
Focal length: 50mm (equivalent to 75mm full frame)
Weight: 200g
Filter size: Ø 46mm
Aperture: f/2 to f/16
Miminum focus distance: 39cm
Overview
XF50mmF2 is my favourite Fujinon lens so far! I’ve started my photography journey with 50mm on APS-C format and this piece of glass is special to me when it comes to camera gear. With lens hood it has retro feel on the camera and as far as image quality goes it is spectacular. I have an opinion that all compact “Fujicrons” are derived from superior XF90mmF2 - they are all astonishingly sharp, contrasty with rich and warm colors and I find that the XF50mmF2 is opticaly the best and the closest to the XF90mmF2. I use it for product photography mostly, the f2 aperture allows me to separate subject from the background, while keeping most of the subject in focus, which is very important to me when it comes to product presentation. It has beautiful bokeh and I love to use it for detail shots and also for semi-macro work, because it has really great minimum focus distance combined with focal length, so I could take close-up photos avoiding the distortions, which is also important for product look.
