Fujifilm Fujinon XF 18mm f/2 R

Fujifilm Fujinon XF 18mm f/2 R Performance

Sharpness in the central portion of the image area at maximum aperture is good, but the clarity towards the edges is only fair. As depth of field is reasonably shallow at this bright aperture, the sharpness in the central portion is generally more important.

Stopping down improves sharpness across the frame, but especially in the centre, which reaches excellent levels by f/2.8 and outstanding levels by f/5.6. Clarity towards the edges of the frame never really keeps up with the very high sharpness in the centre, only reaching good levels of sharpness by f/5.6. Peak quality across the frame is achieved between f/5.6 and f/8.

Resolution @ 18mm

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 can be quite prevalent towards the edges of the frame, with fringing exceeding 0.7 pixel widths at f/2. This may show along high contrast edges near the edge of the frame, especially on close inspection.

Chromatic Aberration @ 18mm

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 well controlled for a wide aperture lens. At f/2 the corners of the frame are only 0.959 stops darker than the centre of the image area. Visually uniform illumination is achieved with the lens stopped down to f/5.6 or beyond.

As you may expect from a prime lens, distortion is well controlled. Imatest only detected 0.471% barrel distortion, which will be quite difficult to spot in day-to-day picture taking. If absolutely straight lines are paramount, the low level of distortion is relatively easy to correct in image editing software, as the distortion pattern is uniform across the frame.

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