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XF 23mm f/1.4 Initial Impressions
Some of that good old Fuji magic.
After quite some time with the baby Fuji f/2 primes (50mm f/2 and 35mm f/2) this is my first “fast” prime. Having the 50mm and 35mm already, the 23mm filled the wide angle hole in my collection, and as such has been a blast to use, both in experiencing the focal length with an XF lens and it being a fast prime as well. So far, my initial impressions after about a month of owning and using it on every photo outing since has been resoundingly positive.
The lens is incredibly sharp. The edges sharpen up as you stop down, but the center is brilliant at f/1.4. Color reproduction seems fantastic so far, and the out of focus areas are generally soft and smooth (although like the f/2 primes there are certain times the background can get messy and busy, but much less so than the f/2 compact lenses).
The handling of the lens is great. Mounted up to my X-S10 it feels amazingly well balanced. The clicky aperture ring is great, and the focus clutch that simulates the feel of a traditional manual focusing ring with hardstops is an absolutely brilliant design choice. More modern lenses need to have this kind of functionality baked in. It's an absolute joy to use.
In conclusion, this lens has been an absolute joy to use. It packs a lot of functionality into a really usable focus length, and just produces magical images with all the right amounts of sharpness, color and focus rendering that I could want.
Written on Tuesday, 11 May 2021, by Aaron Brown. Last edited on
