Fujinon XF 27mm F2.8 Review

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A fits-in-your-pocket lens that delivers an angle of view similar to what you see, the FujinonXF 27mm f/2.8 delivers lightning-fast focus and versatility so you never have to miss a shot.

Fujinon XF 27mm F2.8 Features

Made for Fuji’s X-Mount cameras, the 41mm equivalent is a “perfect normal” lens, meaning the lens is equal to the about the same angle of view of the human eye. Even at the size of a Mason jar lid, it’s one lens that is capable of delivering high-quality photos for every situation.

Build

Just how compact is it? At less than 1” in length, and 2.75 oz., is made up of 7 elements in 5 groups including an aspheric element which reduces image distortion, a metal focusing ring and mount, seven rounded blades for the iris diaphragm, and proprietary HT-EBC Coating.

Auto Focus

The AF system, driven by a built-in high-torque DC coreless motor, is incredibly speedy (at about 0.1 seconds) and accurate, though loud, allowing for those sudden-opportunity moments to be caught with confidence. Keep it in AF-S mode though. The AF-C (continuous) mode has a tendency to hunt. AF-C works great for telephoto shots.

Manual Focus

Moving from Auto to Manual focus requires moving a switch. As with other Fujifilm XT lenses, the manual focus ring is an encoder that communicates with the camera. Unlike many other Fujifilm systems, there is no aperture ring. F-stop changes are made by way of the camera body controls. No worries about the front element and 39mm filter thread rotating on focus so you can easily use polarizers.

Though amazingly fast, I’d still suggest using a different lens if you want to track moving objects.

Image Quality

The only slight drawback of the Fujinon XF 27mm f/2.8 lens is that the edge sharpness isn’t fantastic until you stop down to f/8. And while diffraction is found at f/16, you can expect crystal sharpness in the center using the entire range of apertures.

Light falloff, vignetting, ghosts, lateral color fringes, and spherochromatism (aka “color bokeh”)are absent. Though you might experience chromatic aberrations, they’re controlled.

Bokeh doesn’t really exist as almost everything is in focus.

In order to get sunstars, you need to stop down to f/14 or f/16. You won’t see them at f/11.

Pros

Extremely compact and lightweight
Great sharpness in the center
Human eye angle of view
Super-fast and accurate autofocus

Cons

Not good for tracking moving objects
No aperture ring
Not weather resistant