Fujifilm 56mm f/1.2 lens review and sample gallery: Fuji’s first f/1.2 prime knocks it out of the park
posted Friday, March 14, 2014 at 1:32 PM EDT
We've just published our review for the Fujinon XF 56mm f/1.2 R, the hot new ultra-fast portrait prime from Fujifilm. Just now hitting the store shelves, this f/1.2 lens is absolutely stunning with excellent sharpness, even wide-open and corner-to-corner, as well as shockingly low CA, vignetting and practically zero distortion.
The lens features an optical design that's comprised of 11 elements in 8 groups, including two ED (extra low-dispersion) elements and one double-sided aspherical element, plus four elements with a convex surface facing the subject, which altogether reduce spherical and chromatic aberrations. Following outstanding optical quality, the build quality of the Fuji 56mm lens is equally impressive -- our senoir lens technician even nicknamed it a "Zeiss Jr." The professional-grade, all-metal construction feels very solid while still being fairly lightweight making it well-balanced on both larger Fuji cameras like the X-T1 to smaller ones like the X-E1.
While not as pocketable and portable as the typical mirrorless system lens, the Fujinon XF 56mm f/1.2 R is definitely much more compact -- and significantly less expensive -- than competing 85mm lenses with an f/1.2 aperture (the Canon 85mm f/1.2L II weighs 2.3 lbs. and costs over $2,000, for example). But of course, a full-frame f/1.2 lens is going to have a much shallower depth of field than a APS-C lens, despite opening up to f/1.2.
This new Fuji lens ships with front and rear lens caps, bayonet-style lens hood and soft cover for around $999 and is now available for purchase -- Adorama, Amazon, B&H. By purchasing this lens, or any other product, by clicking on one of our trusted affiliates, you help keep these reviews coming!
Jump on over to SLRgear to read our full Fujinon XF 56mm f/1.2 R lens review and see our test results and final verdict.
In addition, below are a few sample gallery images shot by our production editor Dave Pardue. You can view more sample photos, plus download the full-resolution image files, by visiting our Fujifilm X-E1 gallery page (the camera we used to shoot these images) and scrolling down to the shots with "56mm" in the title. Clicking on any of those will bring up a larger 800px-wide image, and clicking on that image will bring up the full resolution image to better show you the sharp detail and gorgeous background blur this lens is capable of delivering.
