Just a few years ago, I had never reviewed a Sirui lens. I had reviewed a few tripods from the company, but I didn’t think of them as a lensmaker. They then approached me about covering a few of their cine lenses, and while that isn’t my forte, I agreed to do so out of some interest in the unique materials they were using in their lens design (carbon fiber, in this case). Since that point I’ve reviewed about a dozen lenses from them, including cine lenses, their Nightwalker series, an anamorphic lens, and all five lenses in their Sniper autofocus series. But I’ve never been more excited to do a Sirui review than the one I’m doing today, for a number of reasons. First of all, this is their first full frame autofocus lens, and I would presume that the Aurora 85mm F1.4 is the first in a new series of Aurora lenses. Secondly, while Sirui has always utilized some really cool materials in their designs (they know how to make a unique lens!), the Aurora series if the first time they’ve really kicked up the feature set, with the Aurora 85mm sporting a set of features that would compete with Sigma or even a first party lens. Thirdly, they’ve managed to make a full frame 85mm F1.4 lens that is smaller and lighter than what anyone else has done. Finally, I was a bit slow getting my review copy, so a few reviews are already out, and I found that I really, really liked the look of the rendering from the lens. Add to that the fact that Sirui is discounting the already inexpensive price of $600 down to $500 for the holidays…and throwing in a few bonus filters, and they’ve definitely got my attention. Did they pull off the value 85mm on Sony, Nikon, and Fuji? You can find out my full thoughts by watching the video review, reading the text review, or just enjoying the photos below.
Thanks to Sirui for sending me a review sample of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with my Sony a7RV or Sony Alpha 1 cameras.
One other area that I was interested in was being able to evaluate Sirui’s autofocus on a platform other than Fuji, which is where I’ve reviewed the Sniper series. Fuji’s autofocus is quite a bit behind that of other major brands like Sony, Canon, or Nikon, so I feel like my impression of Sirui’s autofocus has been held back a bit by the limitations of the camera. I’m doing this review on Sony, where no such limitations exist, and it will give me a more accurate view of the “state of play” with Sirui’s autofocus.
I’ll give Sirui high marks for presentation. There’s a clever little tab made of material that allows the box to be easily opened, and inside they packed the lens in a zippered and padded nylon case (like Sigma’s lenses), which actually adds real protection value, unlike, say, a Canon L series drawstring pouch. The lens is shrinkwrapped inside to help it to be perfectly sealed during shipment. I’m not a big “unboxing” kind of reviewer, but I was impressed as I unboxed the Aurora 85mm.
It’s great to see another 85mm F1.4 option on the market, particularly one that does have a number of nice strengths. It’s probably not going to dethrone my Sigma 85mm F1.4 DN for me personally, but I’ll also note that it costs half as much.
This is a very nice full frame portrait lens for $500. Check out the photos to see if it checks the boxes for you.
Keywords: Sirui, Aurora, 85mm, F1.4, Sirui Aurora Review, Sirui 85mm Review, Aurora 85mm F1.4 Review, f/1.4, Review, Sony alpha 1, Sony a7RV, Wireless, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, let the light in, weathersealing, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Just a few years ago, I had never reviewed a Sirui lens. I had reviewed a few tripods from the company, but I didn’t think of them as a lensmaker. They then approached me about covering a few of their cine lenses, and while that isn’t my forte, I agreed to do so out of some interest in the unique materials they were using in their lens design (carbon fiber, in this case). Since that point I’ve reviewed about a dozen lenses from them, including cine lenses, their Nightwalker series, an anamorphic lens, and all five lenses in their Sniper autofocus series. But I’ve never been more excited to do a Sirui review than the one I’m doing today, for a number of reasons. First of all, this is their first full frame autofocus lens, and I would presume that the Aurora 85mm F1.4 is the first in a new series of Aurora lenses. Secondly, while Sirui has always utilized some really cool materials in their designs (they know how to make a unique lens!), the Aurora series if the first time they’ve really kicked up the feature set, with the Aurora 85mm sporting a set of features that would compete with Sigma or even a first party lens. Thirdly, they’ve managed to make a full frame 85mm F1.4 lens that is smaller and lighter than what anyone else has done. Finally, I was a bit slow getting my review copy, so a few reviews are already out, and I found that I really, really liked the look of the rendering from the lens. Add to that the fact that Sirui is discounting the already inexpensive price of $600 down to $500 for the holidays…and throwing in a few bonus filters, and they’ve definitely got my attention. Did they pull off the value 85mm on Sony, Nikon, and Fuji? You can find out my full thoughts by watching the video review below…or reading on.
Thanks to Sirui for sending me a review sample of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with my Sony a7RV or Sony Alpha 1 cameras.
One other area that I was interested in was being able to evaluate Sirui’s autofocus on a platform other than Fuji, which is where I’ve reviewed the Sniper series. Fuji’s autofocus is quite a bit behind that of other major brands like Sony, Canon, or Nikon, so I feel like my impression of Sirui’s autofocus has been held back a bit by the limitations of the camera. I’m doing this review on Sony, where no such limitations exist, and it will give me a more accurate view of the “state of play” with Sirui’s autofocus.
I’ll give Sirui high marks for presentation. There’s a clever little tab made of material that allows the box to be easily opened, and inside they packed the lens in a zippered and padded nylon case (like Sigma’s lenses), which actually adds real protection value, unlike, say, a Canon L series drawstring pouch. The lens is shrinkwrapped inside to help it to be perfectly sealed during shipment. I’m not a big “unboxing” kind of reviewer, but I was impressed as I unboxed the Aurora 85mm.
It’s great to see another 85mm F1.4 option on the market, particularly one that does have a number of nice strengths. It’s probably not going to dethrone my Simga 85mm F1.4 DN for me personally, but I’ll also note that it costs half as much.
This is a very nice full frame portrait lens for $500…so let’s dive in and get the details.
Aurora 85mm Build and Handling
As noted in the intro, the Aurora series is a step up for Sirui in build quality and feature set. In some ways, however, the design language of the Aurora series is more stereotypical than their typical recent designs. Thus far the only color scheme seems to be black, so no white or silver. The overall appearance is nicely clean though with bolder fonts and bigger writing than most lenses. They want you to understand that this is a full frame lens, for example. How do I know that? Because they wrote it right on the barrel.
The fonts on the side, too, are quite bold. This is like the “large print” edition of lenses.
The Sirui badge on the right side of the barrel is probably the most subtle thing here.
The front face is more clean and simple. I always like when there is lens information on the front of a lens.
The lens itself is definitely on the small side for an 85mm F1.4. Not as small as the Sony FE 85mm F1.8, but definitely smaller and lighter than any of the F1.4 options save the Samyang Series II (which I reviewed here). The lens is 80.3 (3.2″) in diameter x 102 mm (4″) in length. It manages to get by with a 67mm front filter thread compared to the 77mm of the Sigma 85mm F1.4 DN or the 72mm of the Samyang AF 85mm F1.4 II. It weighs 540g (1.4lb), which is slightly more than the 509g of the Samyang but less than the 625g of the Sigma. You can see that while the two lenses are similar in length, the Sigma lens is definitely wider in diameter.
The included lens hood (pictured above) is fairly plain. It is a cheaper feeling plastic (relative to the more robust aluminum alloy housing of the lens) that is distinguished mostly by a ribbed grip ring. It bayonets on a little tighter (the tolerances could be a little better here) but at least won’t be jarred free.
This is a fairly feature rich lens. It has a robust approach to aperture control, including a manual aperture ring that can be controlled with clicks (at one third stop detents) or clickless by changing the position of the switch on the right side of the lens.
You also have the option of switching into A (automatic) mode if you prefer to control aperture from within the camera. This isn’t an iris lock, but there is a nice long detent in between F16 and A mode that should keep you from accidentally straying in either direction.
The aperture iris itself is beautiful, with 15 rounded blades, which is well more than any of the competitors.
On the left side of the barrel there is a Function button that can be programmed to a wide range of functions from within the camera along with an AF | MF switch.
The manual focus ring has a nice feel to it overall. The damping is good, and focus smooths well without any apparent lag between input on the ring and the actual focus action. The active focus area will be automatically magnified if you have that setting enabled.
At the rear of the lens you’ll find a USB-C port that allows for quick and easy firmware updates.
You’ll also find a weathersealing gasket located there, and Sirui adds that there is a fluorine coating on the front element. There seems to be some other seals as well. Sirui actually used the word “waterproof” in their marketing, but I’m not aware of any lens actually being waterproof. Weathersealed is probably a better term, meaning that you can use it when it is raining, but don’t drop it in a pool or the ocean and expect all to be well!
Right now Sirui is including two filters as a bonus. One is UV protection filter, which I personally don’t use but some photographers swear by.
The second is more interesting to me, as it is a “Black Mist” filter. This gives you a little more of a glow to an image, a slightly more dreamy look that can be interesting in certain situations. Here’s a quick comparison of a scene with and without the filter. Note that it affects not only the subject but also the bokeh, too.
It’s a nice bonus on a portrait oriented lens, and we’ll come back to that in the image quality section.
The lens barrel is made of metal (aluminum alloy), and it has a nice, anodized black satin finish. Overall I would call it a nice looking lens even if I do find the badging/writing a little overwrought.
85mm lenses are rarely known for great levels of magnification, and that’s true here. Minimum focus distance is 85cm, which is pretty much dead on with what the Sigma and Samyang allow. That will give maximum magnification figure of right at 0.12x, which is obviously very average.
While the Sirui Aurora 85mm F1.4 isn’t precisely the smallest and lightest 85mm F1.4 lens out there, it is very close, and unlike the Samyang, it gives you a metal body and more features, which feels like a nice tradeoff for the additional 31g of weight. Overall I’m happy about what we have here. I love to see when companies “level up” in their lens design.
Stills Autofocus
Sirui has equipped the Aurora 85mm with an STM or stepping motor. While I consider STM motors to be the lower tier of modern mirrorless AF motors (with Linear and Voice Coil motors in an upper tier), the truth of the matter is that there’s a pretty broad range of performance with STM motors. The Sigma 85mm F1.4 DN also has an STM motor, for example, and it costs twice as much. Obviously the Sirui won’t be able to compete with the Sony 85mm F1.4 GM II, which has incredibly fast autofocus thanks to having two XD Linear motors, and those are the largest of their kind that Sony has made to this point. If your plans for an 85mm prime include capturing sports action, you’ll probably want to stick with something like the Sony or, if you’re shooting Nikon, perhaps consider the Z 85mm F1.8 S instead. But for most people in most situations, the autofocus performance on the Aurora 85mm is going to work just fine.
You can see from the shots above that the lens delivered nicely accurate results on either my Sony a7RV or my Alpha 1, with good precision on any kind of trackable subject even if the subject (like Ferrari here) was in profile.
Focus is very accurate on the eye itself, not anything else.
There is almost no noise to be heard even if I put my ear next to the lens barrel. There is the slightest buzz from the motor, but so quiet as to be nearly undetectable. Focus speed is good in most situations, too, though I did notice a little lag when going from a very close to a very distant subject. I would say that in most ordinary situations focus speed will be sufficient. It’s nowhere near as fast as the Sony 85mm F1.4 GM II, but probably only a hair slower than the Sigma 85mm F1.4 DN.
I used the Aurora 85mm to record a birthday celebration for my assistant, Craig, and I got well focused results throughout.
I shot a series of portraits with the Aurora 85mm, and it proved very capable of accurate focus in that setting, whether I was shooting through branches:
Shooting at a closer distance:
…or shooting from further away.
Focus was also good for holiday type celebrations.
Focus for general purpose subjects was just good, delivering good accuracy with no drama.
As with most third party lenses, if your goal is tracking fast action, you might want to go with a first party lens, but for most people in most situations, autofocus for stills was pretty great.
Video AF
On the video front I found mostly good results. Focus pulls were smooth and quick with no visible steps. Focus breathing is fairly obvious, but not unusually so for an 85mm lens.
The Aurora 85mm did fine with my “hand test” as well, where I alternately block the view to my face with my hand and then remove it. Focus transitioned nicely from my hand to my face every time with no lag or misses.
Video footage generally looked good. The Aurora has a different look to the optical glass than competing lenses, including lower contrast and a different color signature. If you like it, you like it, but it isn’t quite like other full frame 85mm F1.4 lenses.
I also had fairly good results with video clips where I slowly moved the camera to force change from one subject to another at varying depths of field. Focus transitions were fairly well damped, and overall autofocus feels pretty capable.
Aurora 85mm F1.4 Image Quality Breakdown
The Aurora 85mm has an optical design of 14 elements in 9 groups, which includes some exotic elements like high refractive elements, extra low dispersion elements, and a aspherical element.
The MTF chart shows a fairly consistent performance across the frame with a dip right past midframe, a correction after than, and than a drop right in the very corners. The stopped down performance is almost flat on the sagittal plane, but the tangential plane shows a big dip, speaking to a bit less contrast.
My optical tests are on the 61MP a7RV, which is currently the most demanding resolution point for a full frame camera. I suspect that my testing results will be a little more punishing than a few of the reviews I’ve seen on lower resolution platforms, as you can see from the blue lines in the MTF chart above that the lens looks great on lower resolution points and a little weaker on higher resolution platforms.
There’s one other clue in the MTF chart that may help you to understand my results. Their MTF chargts were developed at 3.4 meters, which is a little over 11 feet. That’s a bit further than standard. The distance to my test chart, for example, would have been more like 2 meters. This is relevant because I really felt like this was a lens that is optimized for portrait distances. I felt like the lens was less impressive at close focus distances, like here at roughly minimum focus distance (F1.4):
…or at infinity/landscape distances (here at F2.8):
But put it in that sweet spot of 8-20 feet (2.5-5 meters) and it is very sharp even at F1.4:
You may have noticed the real strength of the lens in my first and third examples above. This lens has gorgeous rendering and bokeh. It isn’t the sharpest 85mm out there, but it compensates by having really gorgeous bokeh rendering. And, if you are shooting either in A) the optimized shooting distance or B) on a lower resolution camera, you will also get really great sharpness and contrast as well. This doesn’t surprise me, though, as I felt like this was also the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Sniper series as well.
The Aurora 85mm shows some light color fringing before and after the plane of focus (LoCA, or Longitudinal Chromatic Aberrations), though nothing excessive in my standard tests. You can see some fringing on my chart, but nothing too bad.
One of the key areas that I see fringing is in the imprinting on lenses and cameras, and this only Pentax combination of my Dad’s often will show major fringing if this is an area a lens struggles with. The Aurora 85mm does surprisingly good in this test even at F1.4.
I didn’t see any fringing around the bright specular highlights here (bokeh balls) either.
But this shot at distance was a different story. I see fringing around bare branches, around the geese on the water, and on a few other textures. It’s as if the colors are not quite properly focusing together, and the result is lost contrast and definition on the textures.
This style of fringing is called lateral chromatic aberrations (LaCA), and after what I saw in some real world shots, I was unsurprised to see it pretty strongly on my test chart as well.
Reducing the color fringing isn’t tough (the “Remove Chromatic Aberration” button on your favorite editing software should take care of that without problem), but what you won’t see restored is the lost detail in your images. That makes this a slightly underwhelming lens for landscapes. In many ways the Aurora 85mm F1.4 is the optical polar opposite of the recent Sony 85mm F1.4 GM II. That lens has some of the best microcontrast that I’ve ever seen, able to resolve amazing detail at both close and distance (some of my landscape images at F1.4 amazed me on that lens). But I was bit underwhelmed by the overall rendering and quality of the bokeh. The Aurora is the opposite. I’m completely underwhelmed by the fine detail rendering in many situations, but absolutely love the overall rendering of the bokeh from lens.
There’s a case to be made for both approaches, but if you’re making the case for the Aurora’s approach, it is that clients and viewers will rarely see the pixel peeping results, but they will always see the big picture rendering results.
The Aurora 85mm is a bit like the Sigma 85mm F1.4 DN in that there is a lot more pincushion distortion than expected. It’s as if both companies left some uncorrected distortion as a engineering trick to reduce the size of the lens. The Sirui isn’t as bad as the Sigma, however, as I used a -7 to correct the nicely linear pincushion distortion and only a +38 to correct the vignette (I needed to max out the vignette slider with the Sigma).
A bit of pincushion distortion can be flattering to portrait subjects, but this is probably excessive. You’ll want to correct at least some of it, though you can probably get away with not correcting the vignette.
Unfortunately the Aurora 85mm does not seem to be getting in-camera correction support. I pulled the JPEG file of the chart test above off my second card and it looked just like the RAW file.
So how about resolution and contrast? My tests have been done on a 61MP Sony a7RV, and crops are typically shown at 200% magnification. Here’s the test chart:
Here are F1.4 crops at roughly 200% from across the frame (center, mid-frame, and lower right corner).
I see mostly good detail across most of the frame (a bit of a drop in the corners, as predicted), but contrast is unexceptional. This is mirrors my findings in real world shots, too, though again the contrast results are better in the “sweet spot” of 2.5-5 meters (8-20 feet).
Stopping down even to F1.8 produces more contrast, particularly in the black levels.
You can see that in this real world example comparing F1.4 and F2 as well.
This is one of those lenses that offers you some choice in how you want things rendered. It’s a nice option at F1.4, as it is still sharp enough for portrait work, but still has a flattering quality to the rendering.
For portrait work I felt that there was plenty of sharpness. Even a fairly deep crop at F1.4 shows nice detail.
You can see that there is a very noticeable bump in sharpness and contrast at F2.8:
From 2.8 to F4 is an even bigger jump, and you can see that now even the corners look impressively sharp.
Peak performance in terms of consistency will be from F4 to F8, where sharpness is most consistent for landscape style work (even if that isn’t the lens’ greatest forte.)
Diffraction will start to soften the image after that, with a mild amount at F11 but a more obvious amount by F16:
But the absolute strength of this lens is in the overall rendering. Images just look really fantastic, with enough sharpness and contrast to be compelling, but it is all complimented by very soft, very creamy bokeh.
Geometry is pretty decent, with some geometric deformation near the edges of the frame, but overall the impression is of big, soft bokeh circles.
There is a bit of swirly busyness in those specular highlights, however, which is probably the biggest negative about the bokeh.
I found the backgrounds nice and creamy in a wide variety of situations, however.
This image has a lot in the transition zone, but it still looks pretty good.
Even the foreground bokeh is nice, which is really important for when you want to use out of focus elements to create natural frames for your subjects.
Flare resistance is mostly good. I had good results where the sun was very brightly right out of frame. You can’t really tell it from this image, but this scene was flooded with window light from a bright, directional sun.
This wide open F1.4 shot was shot into very bright sun around this tree, and while you can see some localized veiling at the epicenter of the sun, contrast has held up well in the image.
Stopping down to F11 reduced the veiling but adding just a little ghosting spot.
With the sun right out of frame and at a certain angle, you will get a glowing veil effect, which fortunately is extremely artistic. Here’s a freeze frame from a video clip:
I’ve added that exact effect to a LOT of images in post because I love the warm glow effect.
The Aurora 85mm is a pretty easy lens to get nice looking images with.
I’m also partial to the rendering from the Samyang AF 85mm F1.4 II, leaving us with two pretty great options. Looking back at my review results, I would argue that the Samyang is a hair sharper, but I think the Sirui has nicer bokeh. If you’d like to see more image samples, check out the image gallery here.
Conclusion
The Sirui Aurora 85mm F1.4 is an interesting step forward for Sirui, as it covers a lot of new territory. It moves into covering the full frame sensor, adds weather sealing, more features, and even ups the included accessories to include filters and a case. Doing all of this at the current price of $499 USD is impressive. And it seems like this lens is getting a lot of glowing reviews from those in the target audience – portrait photographers. The optics are optimized for portrait zones, and the gorgeous rendering/bokeh helps make images really look great. There are sharper options if you are just looking for pure sharpness for landscapes or general purpose, but if your priority is the look of images and having great bokeh, then the Aurora 85mm checks a lot of boxes.
It doesn’t hurt that this becomes the least expensive full frame 85mm F1.4 option on Sony and Nikon, and also offers a more feature rich lens than competitors on Fuji.
Sirui is clearly upping their game and moving into a more mainstream market with the Aurora series. There is perhaps the least amount of competition on the Nikon Z space, but here on a Sony there are a lot of alternatives. Some of them are sharper, but none of them are cheaper, and I’m not sure that any have quite as nice of rendering, so if that matters to you, the Sirui Aurora 85mm F1.4 is a winner. It’s a lot of lens for $500!
Keywords: Sirui, Aurora, 85mm, F1.4, Sirui Aurora Review, Sirui 85mm Review, Aurora 85mm F1.4 Review, f/1.4, Review, Sony alpha 1, Sony a7RV, Wireless, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, let the light in, weathersealing, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
My time spent with the Nikkor Z 50mm F1.4 reminds of past eras where first party brands like Nikon and Canada often had three tiers of 50mm lenses: a “plastic fantastic” F1.8 option priced low and built cheap, a mid level F1.4 option, and then a premium F1.2 option. Nikon’s strategy on Z-mount has been a little different, as their initial 50mm release was the Nikkor Z 50mm F1.8 S lens, and that lens was priced (and sized) more like the mid-tier option at roughly $625 USD. That makes the new Nikkor Z 50mm F1.4 lens a little harder to categorize, as it is about the same size as the F1.8 lens and priced a bit lower at right under $500 USD. And yet this also feels right, like the proper price and performance for a mid-tier lens. We’ve got the premium Nikkor Z 50mm F1.2 S in the $2000 zone, so it’s really the 50mm F1.8 that is the oddity. I like the Nikkor 50mm F1.4Z a lot (and I haven’t yet tested the 50mm F1.8 S as I’m new to the Nikon party), so the question is the release of this lens going to confuse potential buyers? Find out my thoughts by watching the video review, reading the text review, or by checking out the photos in the gallery below.
Thanks to Camera Canada for the loaner of the Nikkor 50mm F1.4. As always, this is a completely independent review. All opinions and conclusions are my own.*The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the 45MP Nikon Z8, which I reviewed here.
My biggest takeaway from my time spent with the Nikkor 50mm F1.4Z is “enough”. I feel like Nikon has done a great job of giving us enough of everything – build, autofocus, and optical performance. Yes, there are higher performing 50mm lenses, but this lens feels like enough for most people in most situations, and thus it feels like a really good value to me for a first party F1.4 lens. I had no problem producing images that I liked with this lens.
I also appreciate how they’ve kept the size down. This lens weighs on 422g, which is lightweight enough that you could use it on a Zf body and not feel like it overmatched the camera. It feels positively svelte on my big Z8 body.
Put simply, this is a lens that I really like, and it didn’t hurt that it wasn’t really outclassed in many ways even though I reviewed it at the same time as the new Canon RF 35mm F1.4L VCM…a lens that costs $1000 more! So is the “enough” lens the one for you? Check out of the reviews if you want more info, or just enjoy the photos below.
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
My time spent with the Nikkor Z 50mm F1.4 reminds of past eras where first party brands like Nikon and Canada often had three tiers of 50mm lenses: a “plastic fantastic” F1.8 option priced low and built cheap, a mid level F1.4 option, and then a premium F1.2 option. Nikon’s strategy on Z-mount has been a little different, as their initial 50mm release was the Nikkor Z 50mm F1.8 S lens, and that lens was priced (and sized) more like the mid-tier option at roughly $625 USD. That makes the new Nikkor Z 50mm F1.4 lens a little harder to categorize, as it is about the same size as the F1.8 lens and priced a bit lower at right under $500 USD. And yet this also feels right, like the proper price and performance for a mid-tier lens. We’ve got the premium Nikkor Z 50mm F1.2 S in the $2000 zone, so it’s really the 50mm F1.8 that is the oddity. I like the Nikkor 50mm F1.4Z a lot (and I haven’t yet tested the 50mm F1.8 S as I’m new to the Nikon party), so the question is the release of this lens going to confuse potential buyers? Find out my thoughts by watching the video review below…or just keep reading.
Thanks to Camera Canada for the loaner of the Nikkor 50mm F1.4. As always, this is a completely independent review. All opinions and conclusions are my own.*The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the 45MP Nikon Z8, which I reviewed here.
My biggest takeaway from my time spent with the Nikkor 50mm F1.4Z is “enough”. I feel like Nikon has done a great job of giving us enough of everything – build, autofocus, and optical performance. Yes, there are higher performing 50mm lenses, but this lens feels like enough for most people in most situations, and thus it feels like a really good value to me for a first party F1.4 lens. I had no problem producing images that I liked with this lens.
I also appreciate how they’ve kept the size down. This lens weighs on 422g, which is lightweight enough that you could use it on a Zf body and not feel like it overmatched the camera. It feels positively svelte on my big Z8 body.
Put simply, this is a lens that I really like, and it didn’t hurt that it wasn’t really outclassed in many ways even though I reviewed it at the same time as the new Canon RF 35mm F1.4L VCM…a lens that costs $1000 more! So is the “enough” lens the one for you? Keep reading to find out.
Nikkor 50mm F1.4Z Build and Handling
As noted, the 50mm F1.4Z is a pretty lightweight lens at 422g or 14.9oz. It accomplishes that by being made of engineered plastics, yes, but also by being relatively compact. The lens is 76.2mm in diameter (3″) x 88.9 mm (3.5″) in length.
For some perspective, that’s about 4mm narrow and 8mm shorter than the Sony 50mm F1.4 GM, though the GM is obviously a more feature rich lens. The Nikkor lens is nearly 100g lighter, however. It’s relatively compact for a modern 50mm F1.4, but if you want to go small and light, you might want to consider the very compact 40mm F2 instead.
The front filter size is a relatively uncommon 62mm.
At least the 50mm F1.4Z has a metal lens mount! It also has decent weather sealing, with about 7 seal points by my count.
I will note that the gasket at the rear mount is so small as to be nearly undetectable. Nikon’s language on the lens listing is a little contradictory. They say, “Designed carefully considering dust and drip-resistant performance” but then add this caveat: Thorough dust and moisture-resistance is not guaranteed in all situations.” In other words, there’s some weather sealing here, but no guarantees if you push your luck. On their listing for the 50mm F1.2 S they are more confident in their language (The NIKKOR Z 50mm f/1.2 S is extensively sealed to keep out dust and moisture, especially around the moving parts of the lens barrel. A little water won’t hurt a Z camera or lens, so go out and make the most of that rainy day) but does have a similar caveat in the fine print. I suspect this is just Nikon covering their rears if someone drops their camera into the ocean or pool!
There is a secondary ring on the lens barrel, which is Nikon’s control ring. There’s a different texture to this ring which makes it easy to differentiate from the wider ribbing on the manual focus ring. This control ring, like Canon’s control ring on their RF lenses, can be assigned from the camera to control aperture, shutter speed, ISO speed, or exposure compensation. Unlike Canon’s control ring, however, which has clicks or detents, the 50mm F1.4Z’s ring is declicked and moves smoothly. I typically use the control ring as a manual aperture ring, and I don’t actually love this particular ring for that. Without clicks it feels imprecise, and I find it very easy to blow right by the aperture value I’m looking for.
There are no switches or buttons on the lens barrel, but rather most of it is dominated by the wide manual focus ring. The feel of the ring is fairly good, with good damping and precision. I like Nikon’s options for controlling the behavior of the manual focus ring, allowing you to choose a linear response and your desired focus throw distance.
The aperture iris is made up of nine rounded blades, allowing for a circular aperture shape when the lens is stopped down.
As you stop the aperture down, the overall shape is “roundish” but you can slightly see the shape of the aperture blades.
There is a fairly deep lens hood included. There are ribs inside and a ridged grip section to make it easier to mount/unmount the lens.
We have got a closer that average minimum focus distance of right over 37cm which results in a very useful 0.17x magnification level.
You can see that the plane of focus isn’t particularly flat, however, so the area of sharpness occupies a thin area even with this two dimensional subject.
Stopping down a bit helps to improve up close performance, and here’s a shot at F2 and at the minimum focus distance.
I would consider that useful, particularly since the average for 50mm lenses tends to be in the 0.15x level. Both the 50mm F1.8 S and the 50mm F1.2 S are at that 0.15x level, so I appreciate the extra bit of magnification here.
There really aren’t a lot of 50mm F1.4 competitors on Z mount thus far, but even if they were, it’s hard to imagine them undercutting this price of $499 USD by much. I appreciate the restraint that Nikon has shown with the pricing here. The 50mm F1.4Z isn’t a fancy lens, but it feels like “enough” and the lens doesn’t feel cheap to me. All told I feel pretty solidly impressed by the lens.
Autofocus and Video
The Nikkor Z 50mm F1.4 utilizes a stepping focus motor (STM) that is, for the most part, surprisingly fast. Focus changes happen very quickly whether indoors or outdoors, and most of the time you won’t think about autofocus at all because the job just gets done quickly and efficiently. I was able to track action sequences with good accuracy in a gym even shooting at F1.4. I shot bursts at 30FPS on my Z8 and got nearly perfectly focused long bursts.
I had very good results when shoot portraits, with beautiful focus on the eyes.
I shot backlit shots with very strong directional sun, and I had no problem getting accurate focuses at F1.4.
I used the new Godox AD200 Pro II strobe for this shot, and I continued to have accurate focus results even when shooting at F5.6:
I got accurate results when shooting in low light at F1.4. Focus didn’t seem to really slow down much.
There is a faint whirring sound if you put your ear right next to the lens barrel, but if I held the camera at chest level and racked focus here and there, I couldn’t hear anything. Focus speed in my formal tests was not instant but was nice and fast racking back and forth.
I’ve got no concerns for autofocus for stills.
Video Autofocus
My first test was video focus pulls, and I saw quick, confident pulls from one subject to another in my standard test. The pulls were tuned more towards speed than a slow, cinematic damping, but you could modify that a bit with camera settings. More importantly, I didn’t see any visible steps from the STM motor. There was an occasion little micropulse, but it was rare. I did shoot some low light 8K footage, however, and found an occasional rack in the wrong direction during pulls there, but that was a much more demanding scenario.
Focus breathing felt fairly well controlled. It’s there, but not anything ugly.
My “hand test” where I alternately block the camera’s view of my face with my hand and then remove it was more of a mixed bag. I sometimes had a hard time convincing the camera/lens to focus on my hand (even what that was clearly the domination subject in frame), though other times it would transition fine. That’s fair consistent with what I’ve seen from Nikon relative to the typical performance I see on Sony or Canon. On a positive note, those transitions were smooth due to the relatively low focus breathing.
I had very good results when walking towards the camera, with consistent tracking of my face, and when I ducked out of frame and then back in, the lens was relatively quick in picking me back up. I’ve also used the lens for several review videos for my channel along with about four long format teaching sessions. In every case face tracking has been completely reliable.
I shot one clip where I was tracking dried grasses at F1.4 as they blew in the strong autumn wind. Focus did a great job of staying on the moving subject, as can be seen from the freeze frame above.
All told there is a lot to like here in the autofocus performance. It’s not a high end dual linear focus motor system like what is in my Sony 50mm F1.4 G Master lens, but again, for the money, this feels like more than enough performance to get the job done in just about every situations.
Image Quality Breakdown
The Nikkor Z 50mm F2 is an FX (full frame lens), though it can also be used on DX cameras where it will give a full frame equivalent of 75mm due to the 1.5x crop factor on DX. This is a relatively simple optical design of 10 elements in 7 groups, including one aspherical element. This is clearly not the same optical design as their older DSLR era AF-S 50mm F1.4, which had 8 elements in 7 groups. The MTF chart shows significant improvement all across the frame relative to that older lens.
I really liked the rendering from the Nikkor Z 40mm F2, but I was less impressed with the real world sharpness. Just based on the MTF charts, the 50mm F1.4Z shouldn’t really be sharper, but in real world practice I was perfect satisfied with the sharpness and contrast I got from the lens.
This is the opposite of a paper tiger; it looks better in reality than it does in an MTF chart, and I think the early user reviews reflect that.
This is not a perfectly corrected lens, as we’ll see below, but sometimes a bit of uncorrected aberrations actually allow a lens to have more character.
One of the areas that is not perfectly corrected is LoCA (longitudinal chromatic aberrations), which show up as fringing before or after the plane of focus. You’ll definitely see some of that fringing.
I did see it in real world shots, too, particularly in the places where I have learned to look for it. One example is with fringing around the letters of the lens designation on the Pentax.
You’ll see a bit of a greenish fringe around specular highlights, too.
Lateral chromatic aberrations near the edge of the frame are essentially non-existent, so that won’t be a problem.
Unlike more highly correct lenses, you will have some issues with color fringing, though that can have a positive effect that we’ll highlight in a bit.
If we move on to vignette and distortion we find a tiny amount of barrel distortion which required just a +1 to correct for. It is both minimal and linear, so it corrects fine but would also be fine uncorrected in almost every application.
Vignette is another story. I had to add a +88 to correct for the vignette. That’s not as bad as the 40mm F2, but it isn’t great! The correction profile is able to make a clean correction of the vignette, though I will note any lens with high levels of vignette will result in some less clean corners when shooting at higher ISO values. Even shooting at ISO 3200 you’ll find that the amount of noise in the center of the frame is significantly less than in the corners of the frame because the corners have had to receive nearly four stops of additional correction.
We’ll move on to inspecting our test chart. This test has been done on a 45MP Nikon Z8 sensor. I use a high end tripod and two second camera delay to ensure vibration doesn’t affect images. Here’s a look at the test chart that we will examine at high magnification:
If we take a look at crops (at roughly 200%) at F2 from the center, mid-frame, and lower right corner, we find that center performance is good, but the mid-frame and the corners are definitely much weaker.
The chart results look good but not necessarily great. You can see that the detail extends into the corners, but contrast looks weak there.
To me, however, real world results look better than what the chart shows. In this shot, for example, you can see that there is good 3D pop to the subject.
If we zoom in to the pixel level, we see that the subject looks nice and crisp.
The contrast from the lens will depend on the situation. In a F1.4 shot like the one below, there is a lot of subject on either side of the plane of focus, and the near monochrome subject allows more fringing (and lower contrast to show.
This shot is more two dimensional, with less out of the main plane of focus, and I think that contrast and detail looks better here, while the fringing is much less evident.
Here’s a distant shot at F1.4, and I actually find contrast and detail quite good.
Bottom line is that at close focus distances and shallower depth of field, you will get softer results with more fringing. Move even a bit further out and contrast and detail will improve.
As has been my theme in this review, I think that wide open sharpness is enough. I have tested and even own sharper 50mm lenses, but I’m finding that in most situations that I have the 50mm F1.4Z, I’ve been content with its output.
Stopping down to F2 will produce an obvious improvement in contrast in both the center:
…and more noticeably in the corners.
Contributing to that improved contrast is a reduction of the color fringing. It isn’t entirely gone by F2, but you can see in this side by side comparison that there is significantly less fringing both in the letters that occupy the plane of focus but also on the edges of the out of focus SLR in the background.
There’s a very mild improvement by F2.8, with a slightly larger improvement coming at F4.
Even at F2.8, however, I found real world results to be pretty fantastic. There’s plenty of detail and contrast in this F2.8 shot, and that’s true even in the crop from near the corner.
By typical landscape apertures of F5.6 and F8, you can expect nicely detail and contrast all across the frame.
Expect the typical diffraction pattern on high resolution cameras where the image is a little softer by F11 and softer still at the minimum aperture of F16, though frankly I’ve seen much worse when it comes to diffraction.
I noted a tradeoff for some uncorrected fringing, and that comes in the form of a softer background. Often lenses with a little less contrast and a little more fringing are able to produce softer, more pleasing backgrounds.
That’s certainly true at close focus distances, as the 50mm F1.4Z can produce very nicely blurred backgrounds.
I often use this lock for test shots because it’s an easily repeatable subject, and while the falloff isn’t exceptionally creamy here, overall the shot looks good.
The weakness for the rendering, in my opinion, is the transition zone between focus and complete defocus, as it can get a little “nervous” due to a bit too much outlining.
You can see a bit of this in the grasses in the lower left of this portrait shot, though in general I think that the bokeh quality is really pretty good from this lens.
When I consider that it is priced in a range often dominated by cheaper, third party lenses and also by F1.8 lenses, I feel like the quality of the rendering really stands up pretty well.
Colors also look nice, with good punch but some balance as well.
I find that some of Nikon’s color profiles are a little too biased towards magentas, but if I stick to Adobe’s color profiles I was generally happy with skintones.
Flare resistance seemed generally pretty good. I did shoot a number of strongly backlit portraits, and one of the lenses that I was testing during the portrait session flared very badly to the place where I didn’t consider the results overly usable. The Nikkor Z 50mm F1.4 held up pretty well by comparison in those conditions, however, giving just a bit of a ghosting pattern at F1.4 but generally pretty flawless when stopped down a bit.
The sunstar/sunburst effect also looked pretty decent in the shots above with a smaller aperture (F5.6 range).
One thing that you shouldn’t buy the lens for is to shoot stars. Coma smear in the corners is pretty bad, with the star points looking like pterodactyls surrounded by a blue glow.
The effect is reduced but not eliminated by F2.
So not a flawless optical performance, but the Nikkor Z 50mm F1.4 certainly bests the average 50mm F1.4 lens from the DSLR era by a good margin. I wouldn’t call any of its flaws fatal, and I generally liked the images I was able to produce with the lens. It feels like an easy lens to reach for those family moments you want to capture, for walking around when you feel like shooting 50mm, and for portrait work in this range. You can check out more photos by visiting the image gallery here.
Conclusion
In the mirrorless space the typical 50mm F1.4 has skewed up market, with Sony’s G Master costing $1300, Canon’s new RF 50mm F1.4L at $1400, and even Sigma’s 50mm F1.4 DN (not yet available for Z mount) pricing in at $850. All of these lenses have nicer builds, more features, more sophisticated autofocus systems, and superior optics, but they are also all bigger and heavier than the Nikkor lens. I suspect that the Nikkor 50mm F1.4Z will be “enough” for a lot of satisfied users.
I think that what has pleased me the most about this lens is how rare it is in the mirrorless space. We have mostly had to choose between plastic fantastic F1.8 lenses and then ultra expensive premium options, with very few lenses like this in between. Yes, a lens like this may lack some of the bells and whistles, but neither does it feel crippled. It is perfectly functional in the field, has quick enough autofocus to keep up with action, and is good enough optically that I never hesitated to shoot with it wide open.
There will almost certainly be some third party competitors for this lens that will arrive in the future. I suspect Sigma, Tamron, and Viltrox, among others, will invade the Z mount space more completely in the future, but I also think there will always be a place for the Nikkor Z 50mm F1.4. It’s a reasonably priced first party lens that delivers a fast maximum aperture at a very popular focal length for a reasonable price. Kudos to Nikon for making what I think will be a populist kind of lens – a lens for the people.
Pros:
Great price to performance ratio for a first party lens
Smaller and light than competing 50mm F1.4 lenses
Weather sealed
Has control ring
Autofocus is fast enough to keep up with action
Video AF works pretty well
Good magnification
Good wide open sharpness
Excellent contrast when stopped down a bit
Bokeh is nice
Flare resistance is solid
Real world images look good
Consistent sharpness across the frame when stopped down
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When I completed my review of the Sigma 23mm F1.4 DC DN on Sony E-mount several months ago, I noted that I really anticipated its release on Fuji X-mount for the simple reason that it felt like it was sharp enough to handle the huge resolution of Fuji’s 40MP APS-C sensors. I now have had an opportunity to put that theory to the test, and, even more tellingly, have just completed reviewing Fuji’s own premium 23mm F1.4 (the XF 23mm F1.4 R LM WR – my review here), which gives me a very natural point of comparison. The Sigma 23mm F1.4 DC DN Contemporary is (according to Sigma) the APS-C equivalent of their 35mm F1.4 DN ART lens, though, as we’ll see, Sigma’s design brief for the APS-C series follows a different formula than their full frame lenses. Here’s a look at the DC (APS-C) DN (mirrorless) lineup thus far.
Sigma’s DC DN series has become even more important now that Fuji has lifted their restrictions on third party development for the platform, as the Fuji X-mount is a place where these lenses can really thrive – particularly considering that fact that Sigma likes to make high resolving lenses and Fuji currently has the highest resolving APS-C cameras! I’m doing this review the Fujifilm X-H2 and its 40.2MP sensor! There are also cheaper 23mm F1.4 options on Fuji, including the Tokina ATX-M 23mm F1.4 ($299 USD)and the Viltrox 23mm F1.4 ($299 USD). This Sigma 23mm DN is the closest actual rival to the premium XF 23mm F1.4 LM in size and performance.
The 35mm focal length is one of my favorites, as it works very well as a general purpose walkaround focal length, good for landscapes, cityscapes, street, and people portraits. This Sigma 23mm F1.4 covers that focal length with aplomb, with plenty of sharpness, nice color, and fairly good bokeh.
On paper, the Sigma 23mm DN is the mid-level option, falling between the premium priced Fuji ($899 USD) and the bargain options from Tokina and Viltrox ($299) at a price point of $549 USD. This is familiar territory for Sigma, and the company does its best work when it can provide 90% of the performance of the premium option at 60 or 70% of the price. Sigma hits the first benchmark here, as the 23mm DN is 61% of the price of the Fuji. But how about that performance? I’ll explore the strengths and weaknesses throughout this review so that you can make an informed decision as to whether the Sigma is the best choice for you and your budget. So now you have a choice: watch the video review below or read on to get the full picture.
Thanks to Gentec (Sigma’s Canadian Distributor) for sending me a pre-release review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. I’m doing this review on a 40MP Fujifilm X-H2 camera.
Sigma 23mm DN Build and Handling
The Sigma 23mm F1.4 DN is very slightly longer and heavier X-mount. It is 65.8mm in diameter and 79.2mm in length. That’s 2.6″ x 3.1″. The filter size is 52mm, and the lens weighs in at 333g (on my scale) or 11.6oz. This places it larger and heavier than either the Viltrox or the Tokina (by about 7mm and 50g) but lighter than the Fuji by 40g. Here’s a comparison (Sony E-mount of the Sigma shown here, as the X-mount listing is not yet live):
The target here is the Fuji, however, and in many ways these lenses are very similar in shape and size.
Sigma’s build quality on these lenses is quite nice. Though they position this lineup under their “Contemporary” branding, the aesthetic and feel of the lens isn’t really different than their ART series. The design language and materials are quite similar…just smaller.
The key difference is that the DC DN primes are essentially featureless. The only “feature” is the manual focus ring. There is no aperture ring, no switches…nothing. That’s definitively a disadvantage compared to all the alternatives, which at the least feature aperture rings. I’ve seen this happen before; a lens maker locks themselves into a certain standard of features for a series of lenses and then the market shifts and that standard isn’t really high enough to be fully competitive. Aperture rings are pretty much standard in the Fuji space, and I would like to see Sigma embrace that.
The Sigma 23mm F1.4 has a weather sealing gasket at the lens mount, which isn’t quite as good as having further seals inside the lens itself, but it’s something.
The lens barrel is primarily dominated by a large, nicely made manual focus ring. Like other lenses designed for mirrorless cameras, this is a focus-by-wire system in which input from the focus ring is routed through the focus motor. It is actually the focus motor that moves the elements, making manual focus more of an emulation than a direct movement of the elements. Some lenses pull this off better than others, and the Sigma 23mm F1.4 is one of them. I will note that the lens will automatically alert the body to magnify the image when you are manually focusing, which is a big help in visually confirming focus.
The 23mm DN can focus down to 9.9″ (25cm), where it provides a 0.136x magnification figure. That’s not particularly high for a 35mm focal length, and the Fujifilm 23mm can focus closer (19cm) and has a significantly higher 0.20x magnification, though this is an area where both the Tokina and Viltrox come up short with just a 0.10x magnification level. Here’s what MFD for the Sigma looks like.
The magnification figure isn’t exceptionally good, but up close performance is looks pretty decent (though with some reduced contrast), and for some reason I felt like I could a little closer and get a little higher magnification than what the figure on paper suggests. It’s definitely enough to be useful.
The lens hood is included, and Sigma’s lens hoods are a cut above the basic hoods included with many lenses. They include some soft-touch materials, texture variations, and lens information.
The aperture iris is electromagnetic and controlled from within the camera (no aperture ring). It has nine rounded aperture blades that do a fairly good job of retaining a circular shape even with the lens stopped down. At F2 we have circular specular highlight all across the frame, and the geometry is pretty good even wide open. At F2.8 I can see a hint of the aperture blade shape, but everything is still roughly circular. Here’s a series at F1.4, F2, and F2.8.
All in all this is a beautifully made little lens. I did miss having both an aperture ring and an AF/MF switch, and wouldn’t mind seeing Sigma shake up the formula moving ahead to be more directly competitive on the Fuji space. Viltrox has an upcoming 27mm F1.2 in this class that will have more thorough weather sealing and an aperture ring for about the same money as the Sigma. The standard in the class is changing, and I would like to see Sigma adapt in the same fashion they have with their full frame offerings.
Sigma 23mm F1.4 DN Autofocus
Sigma continues to utilize a stepping focus motor (STM) in these smaller lenses as the elements are smaller and lighter than lenses with an F1.4 aperture designed for full frame. For the most part the STM focus motor gets the job done here, though there was an area that left me wanting a little bit. In most situations, however, focus was fast, quiet, and accurate.
Eye AF seemed to work fine whether I was photographing a human or animal subject:
I’m using the Fujifilm X-H2 for this review, which has one of Fuji’s best current implementations of autofocus. I find that the biggest advantage for these most recent bodies comes via the AI learning/tracking, so they work best when there is an identifiable subject that can be tracked. That means that human, animal, and birds works well, along with the various trackable vehicles. I found autofocus worked well in a series with Nala rolling around and “posing”.
Here’s another shot from this sequence along with the crop to show the accuracy of focus:
That’s great, but the surprising weakness here was an occasional 100% miss when shooting landscapes or subjects where I wanted a large depth of field (AKA the simplest focus scenario under usual circumstances). It wasn’t that focus grabbed the foreground or some other object in the frame; it almost seemed to focus beyond infinity where nothing was in focus. In this shot, for example, I’ve looked and looked to find what is actually in focus. The short answer is nothing. Not the foreground or the background.
You’ll note that in the first shot (not cropped), that the image looks almost in the focus…like focus should be on somewhere. The fact that nothing in the foreground or background is in focus (but the whole image is not obviously defocused) tells me that focus is actually beyond infinity. Hopefully this is a pre-release quirk that can be sorted via firmware.
It was a surprising/disappointing development that really set the lens apart from the Fuji 23mm F1.4. I found myself starting to verify focus accuracy after taking landscape shots to be sure I was getting my shot. Focus just works better when there is a clear subject.
Focus speed was fast enough that I was able to grab birds in flight from a distance:
…but not quite reactive enough to snap a shot of Nala when she refused to stay still and started moving towards me.
Sigma lenses still perform better on Sony than Fuji when it comes to autofocus. That’s not terribly surprising, however, as they have much more experience on the Sony front. Most Sony bodies also have superior focus systems to many Fuji cameras, so there are two parts to the puzzle at play here.
That’s particularly true when examining the autofocus during video capture. Autofocus pulls did not feel particularly confident, with some pulsing and tentative moves at times. There is some fairly obvious focus breathing that draws your attention to the focus changes. The new Viltrox Pro AF 27mm F1.2 was slightly more confident in the same situation, and has slightly less focus breathing, but the real winner in this test was the Fuji 23mm F1.4, which had smoother focus pulls and much less focus breathing. If doing video pulls is your priority, you probably want to spend the extra money on the Fuji.
My “hand test” was slightly better (the AF system has a more definite subject to focus on), but I did note on that one of the three cycles the focus pulled to the background rather than to my hand, which is unusual for this test.
My static video shots were fine. Focus did not jump around, but stayed steady on the subject. I shot a clip of wildflowers blowing in the wind, and the focus stayed locked on them as they moved around. The focus issues seem to be reserved for bigger focus changes.
Thus far I’ve yet to be blown away by any of the Tamron or Sigma lenses that have been ported over to Fuji when it comes to video autofocus. This is still a work in progress.
In most situations, however, I was able to achieve pinpoint focus even at F1.4 for stills.
If video isn’t a priority for you, then the Sigma will work just fine. Those that do a lot of video will probably want to spend the extra cash for the Fuji.
Sigma 23mm F1.4 Image Quality Breakdown
Sigma’s lineup of F1.4 DC DN lenses have all been very strong optically, and the 23mm F1.4 is no exception. It essentially becomes the second sharpest lens in the lineup, falling only behind the 56mm F1.4 in absolute performance. Here’s a look at the MTF charts for each of the lenses along with the 35mm F1.4 ART for comparison.
This suggests a very strong performance across about 2/3rds of the frame before a drop in the corners and also suggests another lens that can handle the rigors of Fuji’s high resolution 40MP APS-C sensor. Real world images are indeed crisp and detailed.
Let’s take a look at some of the technical aspects of performance. Sigma lenses enjoy good profile corrections on either Sony, Fuji, or Leica platforms, but we’ll look past the corrections to the optics of the lens itself. Here’s a look at my vignette and distortion chart, with the uncorrected result on the left and a manually corrected result on the right.
There’s a moderate amount of barrel distortion (I corrected with a +10), but it is nice and linear, so I was able to correct it without any mustache type pattern left behind. Vignette is roughly 3 stops in the corner, requiring a +88 for correction, which continues a trend that I’ve observed where lenses released on both Sony and Fuji mounts tend to have about one stop more vignette on Fuji than on Sony. This most likely has something to do with the smaller X-mount diameter. The correction profiles take care of that, but in most cases you will want it corrected.
It isn’t unusual for a wide aperture prime lens like this one to suffer from some longitudinal chromatic aberrations (LoCA), and that’s true here. It’s not bad, but I did notice a bit of fringing in some extreme instances, like this narrow DOF shot of raindrops with the morning light shining through them.
I saw little evidence of lateral chromatic aberrations (LaCA) along the edge of the frame in either my chart tests or any real world images (all of these bare branches are prime breeding grounds for LaCA:
Nothing too concerning here. We’ll move on to testing sharpness. The sharpness tests are done on the Fujifilm X-H2, with it’s extremely high 40MP APS-C sensor – the equivalent of over 90MP on full frame. Here’s a look at the test chart we’re using for the tests.
If we look closely wide open at F1.4 (crops are at nearly200%), we find that the lens produces extremely strong resolution results across most of the frame. Yes, you can see that the extreme corners are softer, but they are still not bad.
Here’s an F1.6 shot that shows that the lens is capable of producing credible results even near maximum aperture at landscape distances…and that’s on a 40MP body!
Closer shots show great sharpness and contrast at F1.4:
The Sigma 23mm F1.4 also showed very good centering, with consistent sharpness everywhere I looked.
Stopping down to F1.8 produced slightly higher level of contrast with a bit more on tap at F2. Here’s a corner comparison:
By F2.8 we have reached very near peak sharpness, with little further improvement through F5.6. Here’s a midframe comparison with F2.8 on the left and F5.6 on the right.
After F5.6 there is a mild softening effect as diffraction starts to set in. By F16 (minimum aperture) diffraction has really softened the image. This effect is very pronounced on a high resolution body:
This compares quite well to the more expensive Fuji 23mm F1.4 WR lens, which shows very slightly better contrast in the center of the frame:
…and in the corners.
That’s so little a difference that you really wouldn’t see it in real world images.
I also didn’t notice much in terms of sharpness between the Sigma 23mm DN and the new Viltrox Pro AF 27mm F1.2. The Viltrox has a slightly more nuanced rendering, in my opinion, but, as you can see in the crop below, the sharpness and contrast are largely the same:
We’ve established that this is a very sharp lens, but what softness where it is wanted (aka bokeh)? I noted this as a weakness of the 56mm F1.4, as while it could compete with and even best most full frame 85mm lenses in terms of sharpness, the bokeh wasn’t as soft and creamy as many of them. I would say the same is true here, as while the bokeh is reasonably nice, I do see quite a bit of outlining in out of focus areas that should be nice and soft. This is an issue that plagued the Fuji as well, in that there’s a little more busyness than what I would prefer in the background.
Here’s a second shot that illustrates what I’m talking about on the left side.
It’s far from terrible, however, and in some shots the rendering looks quite nice:
In the balance between sharp and soft, the Sigma slightly tilts towards sharpness…in my opinion. Bokeh is subjective, however, so I’ll share a few more “bokeh shots” here to allow you to form your own opinion.
Color rendition is nice, with good color saturation but without a skewing towards garish:
Here’s another nice shot from the lens.
I was also impressed with flare resistance. I shot into the sun pretty much with impunity. There was little loss of contrast and no big ghosting blobs to ruin the image, and as a bonus, the sunstars look pretty good, too.
Image quality is definitely competitive with the more expensive Fuji lens and bests the cheaper 23mm F1.4 options from Viltrox or Tokina. I slightly favor the Viltrox Pro AF 27mm F1.2 optically, but that lens is considerably larger and has a longer focal length as well. The Sigma 23mm DN provides images that hold up to the high resolution sensor points that Fuji is operating at, and my experience has been that lesser lenses are a bit disappointing on it. You can check out even more photos by visiting the lens image gallery here.
Conclusion
It’s great to see Sigma releasing important lenses like the Sigma 23mm F1.4 DC DN on Fuji X-mount, as this lens provides an extremely importance service to Fuji shooters: a high performing mid-tier alternative to the expensive first party XF 23mm F1.4 WR. You can get the Sigma 23mm DN for about $350 less, and, while the build and autofocus are not quite as good as the Fuji lens, the optical performance is very close. There’s a lot of other things you could spend that money on, and still end up with beautiful photos like this:
The Sigma delivers on most fronts with great optics, a nice build, reasonable size and weight, and quick autofocus. I would like to see more thorough weather sealing and the inclusion of an aperture ring in future lenses, but I also recognize that the difference in price perhaps justifies the exclusion. The only problem to that argument is the Viltrox 27mm F1.2 (my review here) which includes both of those things at a identical price point of $550 USD.
But the Sigma also manages to slightly undercut even the Fuji in size, and is dramatically smaller than the Viltrox. Being smaller, lighter, and cheaper will certainly make the Sigma 23mm DN the “just right” option for many people. And, as always, I wholeheartedly appreciate more options for the Fuji platform. It is all of these new lenses that make X-mount a more enticing place to be these days!
Keywords: Sigma 23mm F1.4 DN, Sigma 23mm, Sigma 23mm, Sigma 23mm review, Sigma 23mm F1.4 DC DN, DC, DN, Contemporary, 23mm, F1.4, f/1.4, Review, Fuji X, Sony E, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a6700, Sony a6600, Fujifilm X-T5, Fujifilm X-H2, let the light in, #letthelightin, DA, #SIGMA, #SIGMA23mmContemporary, #SIGMAContemporary, #SIGMAContemporaryPrime, #SIGMADCDN
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
When I completed my review of the Sigma 23mm F1.4 DC DN on Sony E-mount several months ago, I noted that I really anticipated its release on Fuji X-mount for the simple reason that it felt like it was sharp enough to handle the huge resolution of Fuji’s 40MP APS-C sensors. I now have had an opportunity to put that theory to the test, and, even more tellingly, have just completed reviewing Fuji’s own premium 23mm F1.4 (the XF 23mm F1.4 R LM WR – my review here), which gives me a very natural point of comparison. The Sigma 23mm F1.4 DC DN Contemporary is (according to Sigma) the APS-C equivalent of their 35mm F1.4 DN ART lens, though, as we’ll see, Sigma’s design brief for the APS-C series follows a different formula than their full frame lenses. Here’s a look at the DC (APS-C) DN (mirrorless) lineup thus far.
Sigma’s DC DN series has become even more important now that Fuji has lifted their restrictions on third party development for the platform, as the Fuji X-mount is a place where these lenses can really thrive – particularly considering that fact that Sigma likes to make high resolving lenses and Fuji currently has the highest resolving APS-C cameras! I’m doing this review the Fujifilm X-H2 and its 40.2MP sensor! There are also cheaper 23mm F1.4 options on Fuji, including the Tokina ATX-M 23mm F1.4 ($299 USD)and the Viltrox 23mm F1.4 ($299 USD). This Sigma 23mm DN is the closest actual rival to the premium XF 23mm F1.4 LM in size and performance.
The 35mm focal length is one of my favorites, as it works very well as a general purpose walkaround focal length, good for landscapes, cityscapes, street, and people portraits. This Sigma 23mm F1.4 covers that focal length with aplomb, with plenty of sharpness, nice color, and fairly good bokeh.
On paper, the Sigma 23mm DN is the mid-level option, falling between the premium priced Fuji ($899 USD) and the bargain options from Tokina and Viltrox ($299) at a price point of $549 USD. This is familiar territory for Sigma, and the company does its best work when it can provide 90% of the performance of the premium option at 60 or 70% of the price. Sigma hits the first benchmark here, as the 23mm DN is 61% of the price of the Fuji. But how about that performance? I’ve explored the strengths and weaknesses in my reviews so that you can make an informed decision as to whether the Sigma is the best choice for you and your budget. So now you have a choice: watch the video review below, read the text review, or just enjoy the photos below.
Thanks to Gentec (Sigma’s Canadian Distributor) for sending me a pre-release review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. I’m doing this review on a 40MP Fujifilm X-H2 camera.
Keywords: Sigma 23mm F1.4 DN, Sigma 23mm, Sigma 23mm, Sigma 23mm review, Sigma 23mm F1.4 DC DN, DC, DN, Contemporary, 23mm, F1.4, f/1.4, Review, Fuji X, Sony E, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a6700, Sony a6600, Fujifilm X-T5, Fujifilm X-H2, let the light in, #letthelightin, DA, #SIGMA, #SIGMA23mmContemporary, #SIGMAContemporary, #SIGMAContemporaryPrime, #SIGMADCDN
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Fuji’s move to the 40MP resolution point on some of their higher end cameras has been pretty punishing on many of their existing lenses, but it also really makes it clear which lenses are exceptional. I reviewed one such lens earlier this year in the form of the XF 33mm F1.4 R LM WR, and immediately people began to tell me that I needed to try out the Fujinon XF 23mm F1.4 R LM WR as well, as it was even better. Well, they were right; this lens is awesome! It’s a clear and easy choice for those looking for a premium prime lens covering the classic 35mm angle of view (23mm is 34.5mm in full frame equivalence due to Fuji’s 1.5x crop factor). The XF 23mm has been out for roughly a year and a half now, but it feels like it was made for these new high resolution bodies. This is an easy lens to produce lovely photos with.
Fuji has opened up their platform to third party lenses, and there are a number of lenses that look pretty much identical on paper, but aren’t in practice. This includes a Tokina ATX-M 23mm F1.4 ($299 USD), Viltrox 23mm F1.4 ($299 USD, and the Sigma 23mm F1.4 DN that is rumored to soon be coming in Fuji X-mount ($549 USD). The Sigma, in many ways, will prove the most competitive (based on my findings with the Sony E-mount version), but I think there are still a number of ways where the Fuji XF 23mm F1.4 is operating on its own level. It’s got solid features, great autofocus, and gorgeous optics.
But that does come at a cost. The Fujifilm XF 23mm F1.4 R LM WR retails for $899, which means that you are going to pay for that goodness. If we were all made of money, we would all choose the absolute best gear regardless of cost, but in the real world the reality of a lens costing hundreds of dollars more than the competition is going to be a factor. My review will remember that tension that you, as the consumer, have to deal with as a part of my assessment.
So should you add one to your kit? We’ll try to answer that question in this review. If you would prefer to watch your reviews, you can choose watch my definitive video review below…or just keep reading.
Thanks to Fujifilm Canada for loaning me the 23mm F1.4. I’ll be doing this review on my X-H2, which I reviewed here. As always, this is a completely independent review and my conclusions are my own.
Fuji XF 23mm Build and Handling
Fuji likes to essentially build the feature list of their lenses right into the name, so if you learn to “speak Fuji” you can quickly get a sense of what a lens does and does not have right from the name. In this case, the name includes R, LM, and WR, which is a robust feature set.
R = Ring, or specifically an aperture ring.
LM = Linear Motor, Fuji’s premium focus system
WR = Weather Resistance
That adds up to a fairly premium lens despite the compact size of the lens. This lens is slightly larger and heavier than the previous generation 23mm F1.4, but the tradeoff is that it is better at everything. The Fuji XF 23mm F1.4 is pretty much identical to the 33mm F1.4, having very pleasing proportions that look very nice when mounted on the camera.
Now, to be fair, I tested both of these lenses on one of Fuji’s largest APS-C bodies – the X-H2, so if you are using one the very small bodies and want to travel as light as possible, there are smaller/lighter alternatives (the XF 23mm F2, for example). To me, however, this is a great size lens on the X-H2.
The dimensions of the XF 23mm F1.4 are 2.6 (D) x 3.1″ (L) / 67 x 77.8mm with a 58mm front filter thread size. The weight is a very moderate 13.2 oz or 375g. That makes the 23mm very slightly larger and heavier than the 33mm, but barely; it is just a few millimeters longer and about 5 grams heavier. As with the 33mm options, the two competing lenses from Viltrox and Tokina are identical in their own proportions and specifications. Both are 2.6 x 2.8″ (65 x 72mm) though the Viltrox weighs in at 260g while the Tokina is slightly heavier at 276g. But there’s more – they both have the same optical design (11 elements in 10 groups) and the same MFD (30cm) and maximum magnification (0.10x). Same filter thread size (52mm) and same number of aperture blades (9). That’s weirdly similar. The Sigma (in Sony form) is more unique at 65.8 x 79.2mm and 330g in weight, making it the most similar to the Fuji. Here’s a look at a comparison chart between the for lenses:
Bottom line is that while the Fuji is the heaviest of this group, it is also the best made, has full weather sealing, and has a slightly larger/more robust linear focus motor. The weight is still very light and I found the camera and lens effortless to carry around even without a strap for hours while exploring the Notre Dame campus in South Bend, Indiana.
The aperture ring is the Fuji standard. It moves nicely with defined detents at the one third stop marks and with markings at the full stops (F1.4. F2, F2.8, etc…). Rotate the lens all the way to the right and click the little button on the ring if you want to move into A (automatic) mode and control aperture from within the camera.
The manual focus ring works fairly well. I could focus with fairly good precision and didn’t notice visible stepping despite being a focus by wire system.
The Fuji XF 23mm is a very nicely made lens despite its light weight. It feels very “metal” and dense. The lens has a classic semi-glass black finish to it and is completed with thorough weather sealing (as already noted) that has a rear gasket and internal seals.
The included lens hood is is made of plastic but feels more substantial than the one on the 33mm that I tested.
There are no switches on the barrel, as AF/MF is handled via a lever/button on Fuji camera bodies. But many other lensmakers are including things like a focus hold button and/or declick option in lenses in this price zone, and it feels like the standard has been raised and Fuji isn’t quite meeting it. There is also no lens based optical stabilization. I used the X-H2 for this review, which has good in-camera-image-stabilization, so I didn’t actually miss it, but if you are shooting with an older camera, you might.
There are nine rounded aperture blades and I felt like the aperture did quite a good job of retaining a circular shape when stopped down. Here’s a look at the geometry at F1.4, F2, and F2.8:
There is significant lag in the aperture when trying to do aperture racking for video (already difficult because of the clicks) along with visible “steps”. There will be no smooth opening and closing of aperture for an aperture rack.
The minimum focus distance is 19cm, which allows for a reasonably high 0.20x, which is the best amongst these competing lenses (Viltrox and Tokina have 0.10x and the Sigma has about 0.14x). Here’s a look at MFD:
Up close performance is good, and this real world shot shows both the magnification level and the detail available.
Contrast certainly isn’t at macro level, but there’s enough detail there to make up close shots with strongly blurred backgrounds a definite strength.
Overall, the build and features of the lens are very nice, and, as noted in the intro, the compact nature of the lens makes it easy to bring along.
Fujinon XF 23mm Autofocus Performance
The Fujinon XF 23mm F1.4 Macro is equipped with a linear focus motor, and that motor does the job of moving focus quickly and smoothly. It was also very accurate on my X-H2, which gave me more confidence using it than I typically feel when using Fuji. I really felt like I could rely on getting accurate autofocus in a wide variety of situations. I was a guest at a wedding, and when the bride and groom came through the door I only had a quick moment to turn and take a shot. They were backlit, there were about 10 rows of people between me and them, and I shot at F1.4. Autofocus was accurate despite all these factors.
General portrait work was very good, with consistently accurate focus.
Autofocus up close was good as well, allowing for lovely close shots:
Focus was quiet and quick, allowing me to grab shots even during action, like on the golf course.
As odd as it may seem, I was also relieved to see good focus at smaller apertures, like for landscapes or architecture. Sometimes lenses focus fine at wide apertures, but not at smaller apertures.
The XF 23mm F1.4 was also quite good for video work, though I continue to see a few Fuji quirks. Focus pulls were good, with no visible steps. Focus breathing is extremely low, which helps focus transitions look very smooth. But on the negative side, touching a new focus area on the screen doesn’t always produce a reaction, or sometimes the move to focus to a new area is delayed. I think that is largely on Fuji’s focus system and touchscreens, which just aren’t as responsive as some competing brands, but there is clearly the potential in the lens for strong performance for video.
When doing my hand test (blocking focus on my face with my hand and then removing it to allow focus to return to the eye), I saw mixed results. The problem was never focus on my face, but rather sometimes the focus system didn’t move to my hand. It would focus on the background beyond me instead. Bottom line: there’s still room for improvement on the video AF front for Fuji, but I actually don’t think that the lens is the problem.
Autofocus was definitely better than average, however, so I’m satisfied. Most of the time focus very – ahem – sweet:
This is the kind of lens I would want to have on my Fuji camera in critical focus situations.
Fuji XF 23mm Image Quality Breakdown
The Fuji XF 23mm has a complex optical formula of 15 elements in 10 groups, which includes 2 aspherical and 3 ED elements – essentially an identical optical design to the 33mm. The MTF chart shows very sharp center performance, a dip in the midframe, and then a minor correction where the edges of the frame are slightly sharper.
It’s worth noting that Fuji displays their MTF charts at higher values than usual. Most MTF charts use 10 and 30 lines/mm, but Fuji shows their MTF charts at 15 and 45 lines/mm. That’s actually useful since the release of their 40MP sensors, as the more demanding MTF chart (at 45 l/mm) is a more accurate representation of how lenses will perform on a high resolution body. As noted in the intro, I feel like the XF 23mm F1.4 has joined a very short list of lenses that I feel really thrive on the 40MP cameras.
Fuji’s correction profiles are typically quite good, but I’ll turn them off to take a look at the actual lens performance when it comes to vignette and distortion.
We can see that there is some barrel distortion and fairly heavy vignette present. If I do a manual correction I find that the distortion pattern is quite linear and is corrected with a value +13. The vignette is heavy, requiring a +81 to clear it up (about 3 stops). The correction profile does all of this easily either in camera for JPEG/Video or in software for RAW files.
Nothing too troubling here. How about chromatic aberrations? First of all, nothing jumped out at me in real world testing. When I went looking for longitudinal chromatic aberrations, I really could not find much of anything. Bokeh highlights were neutral, and there was little fringing to be seen. In this shot I don’t see any fringing either in the crystals or in the bokeh highlights beyond.
I saw next to no lateral chromatic aberrations near the edge of the frame either on my chart in on bare branches in real world shots, so nothing to worry about on that front.
Here’s a look at my test chart that the crops came from (40MP images from the X-H2):
Here’s a look at F1.4 crops (about 175% magnification) from the center, mid-frame, and corner:
The XF 23mm F1.4 has more consistent sharpness, contrast, and detail across the frame than the 33mm did, making it one the sharpest Fuji prime lenses that I’ve yet tested. The results look very much like a good lens on one of the full frame platforms that I test, which is, frankly, very unusual on APS-C. I was very pleased to get high contrast, detailed results even at F1.4:
That’s very big deal when you are talking about this level of resolution. A full frame camera would have to be roughly 91MP to have a similar level of pixel density, so the XF 23mm F1.4 is being held to a higher standard in these tests than on any other platforms, and the fact that a compact lens is succeeding so well under these demands is very impressive. Don’t expect anywhere near this level of performance from the Viltrox or Tokina 23mm F1.4 lenses. I don’t have either of them on hand to compare to, but when I looked back on my review of the Viltrox, it didn’t deliver as good of results on Sony even though I tested it on just an 18MP resolution point. The Sigma will likely be the strongest competitor based on my Sony E-mount test, and I’ll revisit this comparison when I do a review on X-mount.
Even a mild stop down to F1.8 produces improved contrast across the frame and brighter corners.
Stopping the lens down to F2 adds a bit more contrast in the mid-frame and corner, with the center mostly staying the same. Stopping on down to F2.8 improves contrast and clarity to fantastic levels across the frame.
Real world images in this range are crisp and detailed all across the frame (this shot at F2.8):
The importance of this cannot be overstated, particularly if you are looking for lenses that are a good match for a high resolution body. Diffraction comes early on high resolution cameras, so being able to get your best results at wider apertures is really important. High resolution bodies also tend to be noisier at high ISO values, so the ability to get crisp results at large apertures allows one to keep the ISO down in lower light situations and get clean results. The XF 23mm F1.4 is one of the best pairings for Fuji’s 40MP sensors that I’ve yet reviewed.
At landscape apertures there is plenty of detail across the frame. Couple that with Fuji’s excellent color rendition, and you have a lens very well suited for landscape work:
Diffraction sets in pretty early on my X-H2, so by F8 images are starting to soften slightly, and by F16 the effect is very pronounced. On the new higher resolution bodies with the 40MP sensor, I would try to stay at F8 or larger as much as possible.
The 23mm is clearly sharper than the 33mm, but I would give the edge to the 33mm for the quality of the bokeh. It’s not unusual for the lens with wider focal lengths to be less “creamy” in the bokeh region than longer focal lengths. This shot of the morning dew shows what I would consider the biggest “bokeh issue” for the lens – it has more outlining than what I would like to see.
When you arrived at strongly defocused backgrounds (look at the upper portion of the image below), the bokeh looks quite good. But in the early transition to defocus there are still some harder edges.
You can see it here in this shot of votive candles: the defocused region is only okay, certainly not exceptional.
One final image to illustrate the point – this shot of an ornate stair rail shows a lot of outlined circles in the defocused regions; you certainly couldn’t classify it as “soft”.
This is often the Achille’s heel for very sharp, high contrast lenses. It’s hard to turn that contrast off in the defocused area. It’s a rare lens that can combine both intense contrast and sharpness with very soft and creamy defocused areas, so often lens designers have to look for some compromise between the two. The XF 23mm F1.4 is biased towards the sharpness side of the equation.
This isn’t to say the bokeh is bad (it’s not), but it’s just a little busier than I personally would like. When at its best the XF 23mm F1.4 delivers images that have great detail on the subject and fairly nice rendering in the background.
This image is a good segway into a discussion of flare resistance. You can see from the upper right portion of the image above that there was bright sunlight coming into the frame, and yet contrast has held up. There’s a hint of an artistic veiling effect that shows up a little more strongly in this image here:
I’m actually very partial to this effect, as it can add an artistic effect to images. In fact, one of my favorite images from the wedding I (casually) shot with this lens was this “getaway” image of the bride and groom where I intentionally got low to get some flare effectives in the image. Contrast is strong in the image, but there is a very nice sunstar effect. There is a moderate ghosting artifact near the bottom of the frame, but nothing too heinous.
I was very pleased with the look of the sunbursts from the lens. They are nicely defined with blades that end in points.
Color rendition is typically a strength for Fuji glass, and I think that’s true here. Color are rich, nicely saturated, and images have a pleasing “pop” to them.
Here’s another shot of an interior space that shows nice color rendition.
Skin tones were also very nice. I would consider this a great option for wedding photographers for a lot of the reasons I’ve already mentioned.
Fuji’s transition to the very high resolution point on some of their recent cameras has prompted my own move to the X-H2 as my Fuji camera and test body. I’ve quickly discovered that a 40MP APS-C sensor really changes the calculus of what lenses are going to be acceptable to someone who looks critically at lenses for a living. I’ve been left disappointed by a number of lenses that just don’t seem to ever get quite sharp enough to resolve this sensor, so a lens like the Fujinon XF 23mm F1.4 R LM WR is a breath of fresh air. It makes my X-H2 essentially the equivalent of a full frame camera, with great detail and autofocus, but with a smaller, lighter form factor than what most full frame lenses can compare to. I love my Sony FE 35mm F1.4 G Master lens, and have marveled at how compact it is (for what it is), but there’s no arguing the fact that it is 50% bigger and heavier than this XF 23mm F1.4. That is the (potential) advantage of APS-C, and it is nice to see it realized here.
A lens like this is a great option in lower light or at night, as you can shoot with confidence at large apertures and still get crisp, detailed results.
Autofocus performance was also a clear cut above older Fuji lenses, and, while Fuji still has a ways to go to quite match what Sony and Canon are doing, the gap seems to be closing a bit. If you have purchased or are considering purchasing an X-H2 or X-T5 (or some future body with the 40MP sensor), then I can recommend the XF 23mm F1.4 to the short list of lenses that have high enough performance to thrive on that platform. At the same time, the price tag of $899 USD is not cheap, so a lens like the Sigma 23mm F1.4 DN might become the next best thing if you can’t afford the Fuji. I can also say, with confidence, that the Fujinon XF 23mm F1.4 R LM WR is the best lens you can get at this focal length in X-mount.
Pros:
Well made lens in a compact package
Good build and weather sealing
Linear motor is quiet and fast
Good stickiness on eyes during focus
Focus pulls are smoothly damped
Very low focus breathing
Good sharpness across the frame from F1.4 on
Low levels of chromatic aberrations
Beautiful color rendition
Cons:
No declick option or physical controls other than aperture ring
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Fuji’s move to the 40MP resolution point on some of their higher end cameras has been pretty punishing on many of their existing lenses, but it also really makes it clear which lenses are exceptional. I reviewed one such lens earlier this year in the form of the XF 33mm F1.4 R LM WR, and immediately people began to tell me that I needed to try out the Fujinon XF 23mm F1.4 R LM WR as well, as it was even better. Well, they were right; this lens is awesome! It’s a clear and easy choice for those looking for a premium prime lens covering the classic 35mm angle of view (23mm is 34.5mm in full frame equivalence due to Fuji’s 1.5x crop factor). The XF 23mm has been out for roughly a year and a half now, but it feels like it was made for these new high resolution bodies. This is an easy lens to produce lovely photos with.
Fuji has opened up their platform to third party lenses, and there are a number of lenses that look pretty much identical on paper, but aren’t in practice. This includes a Tokina ATX-M 23mm F1.4 ($299 USD), Viltrox 23mm F1.4 ($299 USD, and the Sigma 23mm F1.4 DN that is rumored to soon be coming in Fuji X-mount ($549 USD). The Sigma, in many ways, will prove the most competitive (based on my findings with the Sony E-mount version), but I think there are still a number of ways where the Fuji XF 23mm F1.4 is operating on its own level. It’s got solid features, great autofocus, and gorgeous optics.
But that does come at a cost. The Fujifilm XF 23mm F1.4 R LM WR retails for $899, which means that you are going to pay for that goodness. If we were all made of money, we would all choose the absolute best gear regardless of cost, but in the real world the reality of a lens costing hundreds of dollars more than the competition is going to be a factor. My review will remember that tension that you, as the consumer, have to deal with as a part of my assessment.
So should you add one to your kit? We’ll try to answer that question in this review. If you want more information, you can choose to watch my definitive video review or read the text review…or just enjoy the photos below.
Thanks to Fujifilm Canada for loaning me the 23mm F1.4. I’ll be doing this review on my X-H2, which I reviewed here. As always, this is a completely independent review and my conclusions are my own.
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
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