Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS

SLRgear Review
February 22, 2015
by Andrew Alexander

Fuji announced the 10-24mm ƒ/4 R OIS lens at the end of 2013, but the world didn't get its hands on it until several months later. The ultra-wide zoom lens offers an equivalent 15-36mm field of view, optical image stabilization, and a constant maximum aperture of ƒ/4.

The lens ships with a petal-shaped lens hood, takes 72mm filters, and is available now for around $1,000.

Sharpness
The Fuji 10-24mm ƒ/4 R OIS offers excellent results for sharpness across all its range of focal lengths, with a slight bias towards the wider angles, which is good, as it's probably the reason people will get this lens.

Wide open at its widest angle (ƒ/4 at 10mm) the lens offers a generous central region of almost tack-sharp performance, with a very small area of corner softness. Stop down to ƒ/5.6 and the lens is almost tack-sharp across the entire frame. You'll get results like this at almost all focal lengths, with the exception of 24mm, where sharpness is a little less impressive, and stopping down doesn't improve it as much.

Diffraction limiting sets in at ƒ/11, but you won't notice any practical difference until ƒ/16 or ƒ/22, where we note generalized softness across the frame.

Chromatic Aberration
We've noted in previous Fuji lens reviews that the X-E1 applies in-camera correction to CA, corner softness and distortion, and these corrections are even applied to RAW images in Adobe Camera RAW conversions.

The results for chromatic aberration tolerance are very good for the 10-24mm ƒ/4, no doubt aided by in-camera correction - however at the 20mm and 24mm focal lengths we do note an increase in CA as the lens is stopped down. It's fair at 20mm and very noticeable at the 24mm focal length.

Shading (''Vignetting'')
Corner shading is essentially insignificant for the lens, again, aided by in-camera correction - the corners are around 1/4 EV darker than the center, at any focal length and aperture.

Distortion
Distortion is well controlled for the lens, no doubt corrected by the camera from what would be impressive barrel distortion at the wide end, and significant pincushion distortion at 24mm.

Note: It should be noted that the X-E1, our Fuji test camera, does feature in-camera correction of CA, vignetting and distortion, and it's important to note that our results here were taken from RAW files. However, when converted with Adobe Camera Raw, as it our usual procedure, ACR carries over these in-camera corrections. It was only by converting the same RAW images with DCRAW (which does not convert the images with these corrections) that we were able to confirm this.

Autofocus Operation
The Fujinon 10-24mm uses an electrical autofocus system, which is very fast. The design is fly-by-wire, so there is no direct connection between the focusing ring and the autofocus system. Autofocus results are very quick, and near-silent. Also, attached 72mm filters will not rotate.

Macro
The 10-24mm isn't a dedicated macro lens, offering only 0.16x magnification with a minimum close-focusing range of 24cm (around 10 inches).

Build Quality and Handling
The Fujinon XF 10-24mm ƒ/4 R OIS is a well-built lens, with an all-metal barrel construction and textured in a satin black finish. For a ultra-wide zoom lens, it isn't all that heavy (just over 14 oz.), but mounted on the smaller X-mount bodies it does make for a package that's not quite as compact as you might have hoped. The lens features optical image stabilization, which is activated or deactivated with a dedicated ''OIS'' switch.

There are three rings for this lens: a zoom ring, a focusing ring, as well as an aperture ring, which is something of a rarity in modern digital camera lenses -- though it's been a standard feature on Fuji's X-mount glass. The aperture ring sits closer to the lens body, around 3/8'' wide. The lens features a selector, which allows the user to choose between auto-aperture mode, or manual aperture selection (you just have to remember that the "A" stands for Automatic, not aperture).

The zoom ring is 3/4'' wide, with deep rubber ribs running parallel to the length of the lens. The zoom action is very smooth, going from 10mm to 24mm in a forty-five degree turn, with only a minor amount of force required to transition between focal lengths. The lens does not extend as it is zoomed out. Zoom creep was not a factor in our testing with this lens.

The focusing ring is about 1/2'' wide, made of polycarbonate with deep grooves that offer excellent tactile feel. The lens uses a fly-by-wire system in its lens focusing operation, so the focusing ring is not actually directly connected to the lens elements in a mechanical way. Rather, turning the focusing ring moves the elements electronically. In practice this means the focusing ring will turn forever in either direction, and you'll have to rely on the on-screen readouts to know if you have reached minimum or maximum focus.

There are no distance scales or depth-of-field information on the lens, but the X-E1 test camera we used offers a distance scale on its LCD or viewfinder readout.

Our testing of the OIS stabilization system showed around 2 stops of hand-holding improvement. Be sure to check our IS Test tab for more detailed information.

The petal-shaped, scalloped lens hood is made of plastic and attaches via standard bayonet mount. The hood is 1 3/4'' long.

Alternatives

Fuji's X-mount system is still (at the time of writing) in its relative infancy, and Fuji itself is still just starting to roll out a large set of lenses. More problematic for users looking for alternatives, is that Sigma and Tamron have not yet shown any interest in producing lenses in the X-mount.

Fujinon XF 14mm ƒ/2.8 R ~$900
Offers an extra stop of light-gathering ability, but corners are much softer at ƒ/2.8; at ƒ/4, the lenses are optically very similar.

Fujinon XF 18mm ƒ/2 R ~$600
Offers two extra stops of light-gathering ability, but the 10-24mm is overall much sharper.

Conclusion
There's not a ton of choice for shooting wide-angle in the Fuji system - either this lens, or either of the 14mm or 18mm primes. That said, the 10-24mm ƒ/4 R OIS is a very capable performer, offering sharp results at every focal length with the possible exception of 24mm, plus the added versatility of a zoom design and OIS. If you want to shoot ultra-wide on a Fuji X-mount camera, there's no alternative at this time that offers the same features.

Product Photos

Sample Photos

Click here for Real-world Gallery Images on our Flickr page!

The VFA target should give you a good idea of sharpness in the center and corners, as well as some idea of the extent of barrel or pincushion distortion and chromatic aberration, while the Still Life subject may help in judging contrast and color. We shoot both images using the default JPEG settings and manual white balance of our test bodies, so the images should be quite consistent from lens to lens.

Still Life shot

VFA target

As appropriate, we shoot these with both full-frame and sub-frame bodies, at a range of focal lengths, and at both maximum aperture and ƒ/8. For the ''VFA'' target (the viewfinder accuracy target from Imaging Resource), we also provide sample crops from the center and upper-left corner of each shot, so you can quickly get a sense of relative sharpness, without having to download and inspect the full-res images. To avoid space limitations with the layout of our review pages, indexes to the test shots launch in separate windows.