Fujifilm Fujinon XF 56mm f/1.2 R Lens Review

Fujifilm Fujinon XF 56mm f/1.2 R Performance

At maximum aperture, sharpness in the centre of the frame is very good, but the clarity towards the edges only reaches fairly good levels. This won't pose too much of an issue for portraiture, or for other photographic disciplines that require high sharpness in the centre of the frame.

As the lens is stopped down, sharpness levels increase across the frame, with outstanding sharpness being achieved from edge to edge between f/2.8 and f/11.

MTF @ 56mm

How to read our charts The blue column represents readings from the centre of the picture frame at the various apertures and the green is from the edges. Averaging them out gives the red weighted column. The scale on the left side is an indication of actual image resolution. The taller the column, the better the lens performance. Simple. For this review, the lens was tested on a Fujifilm X-Pro1 using Imatest.

Chromatic aberrations are well controlled, with fringing only just exceeding half a pixel width at f/1.4 towards the edges of the frame. This low level of CA should be very difficult to spot, even in harsh crops from the edges of the frame, or in large reproductions.

CA @ 56mm

How to read our charts Chromatic aberration is the lens' inability to focus on the sensor or film all colours of visible light at the same point. Severe chromatic aberration gives a noticeable fringing or a halo effect around sharp edges within the picture. It can be cured in software. Apochromatic lenses have special lens elements (aspheric, extra-low dispersion etc) to minimize the problem, hence they usually cost more. For this review, the lens was tested on a Fujifilm X-Pro1 using Imatest.

Falloff of illumination towards the edges of the frame is typical for a wide aperture lens, with the corners being 1.7 stops darker than the image centre at f/1.2. Visually uniform illumination is achieved with the lens stopped down to f/4 or beyond.

Imatest was only able to detect a level of 0.0216% barrel distortion. For all intents and purposes this extremely low level of distortion can be considered negligible.

With, or without, the deep circular hood attached, this lens is very resistant to flare, even in harsh backlit situations. Contrast levels remain good when shooting into the light also.

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