For a while the Fujinon XF 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 R LM WR OIS was the only pro-grade long telephoto zoom on the XF platform along with being the lens that had the longest reach on the platform. That changed with the debut of the Fuji 150-600mm, which I reviewed here. Other options include the standard 70-300mm (my review here) and the premium XF 200mm F2 lens (my review here). I loved the latter lens, but at a price tag of $6000 USD, it obviously isn’t for everyone. Fuji now has two pro-grade telephoto zooms that are only priced about $100 apart, with the 100-400mm coming in at roughly $1900 USD and the 150-600mm coming in at $2000 USD. While it might seem (on paper) that the newer 150-600mm is the logical choice (more reach, newer design, flashier finish), the decision is actually a little more nuanced than that. The 100-400mm is an externally zooming design while the 150-600mm is an internally zooming design, and while you can debate which approach is better, there’s no question that the 100-400mm provides a MUCH more compact package for storage and transport.
The XF 100-400mm offers some serious reach with its 152-609mm full frame equivalent zoom range which can be stretched even further by the use of either the Fujinon XF 1.4x (213mm-853mm full frame equivalent) or 2X TCs (305mm-1,219mm). Maximum aperture at the telephoto end will be either F8 (1.4x TC) or F11 (2.0x TC) with the teleconverter attached. Even in the native range, however, this is a nicely flexible focal range, going from this at 100mm:
to this at 400mm:
One area where the 100-400mm has a definitive advantage over the 150-600mm is when it comes to maximum aperture. The 100-400mm is faster/brighter at every point throughout the zoom range. At 100mm, the maximum aperture is f/4.5, at 200mm, it’s f/5, at 300mm, it’s f/5.2, and at 400mm, it’s f/5.6. Interestingly, the lens only reaches that smallest maximum aperture at about 350mm, so that’s a solid amount of brightness for this type of lens. By contrast, the 150-600mm has a smaller maximum aperture than F5.6 from 183mm on, and at 400mm it is F7.1. On average the 100-400mm is about 2/3rds stop brighter across the shared zoom range, which could be a real factor if your photography involves less than idea lighting conditions.
That, along with the more compact size, may be enough to keep bringing some potential buyers back to the older lens (it was released in February 2016). Fuji definitely plans to keep selling it, so they clearly believe that people will keep buying it. We’ll try to highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of the lens in this review to help you make an informed decision. If you would prefer to watch your reviews, you can choose watch my definitive video review below…or just keep reading.
Follow Me @ YouTube | Patreon | Instagram | Facebook | DA Merchandise | Flickr | 500pxThanks to Fujifilm Canada for loaning me the X-T5 and lenses for this review. As always, this is a completely independent review and my conclusions are my own.
Fuji XF 100-400mm 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, WR, and OIS, which is a pretty much all of them!
R = Ring, or specifically an aperture ring.
LM = Linear Motor, Fuji’s premium focus system (we have 2 LMs here)
WR = Weather Resistance (13 seal points)
OIS = Optical Image Stabilization, or in lens stabilization (rated at 5 stops)
This a premium lens despite being finished in the traditional black rather than the new “silver matte” that Fuji has used on its more recent premium telephotos. I personally like the new silver matte finish, myself, but I know that plenty of people prefer the more discreet black finish.
This is a reasonably compact lens for the focal range. It is fairly narrow at 94.8mm (3.73″) with a common filter thread of 77mm, and the length is 210.5mm (8.29″). That’s a good 4″ shorter than the 150-600mm, though the XF 100-400mm will extend an additional 57.mm when fully zoomed out to 400mm.
My loaner copy has seen a fair bit of use, and I did note that the lens was really susceptible to zoom creep, which is was almost immediate if I carried the lens on a strap or harness. I couldn’t even demonstrate it standing upright with the lens extended because it would immediately retract back to 100mm. There is a locking mechanism, but it can only be engaged at 100mm. You’ll want to use it if you don’t want to see that zoom creep, which is one potential advantage for the internally zooming 150-600mm.
The weight of the XF 100-400mm is fairly standard for a lens this size as it tips the scales at 1375g (3.03 lb). That’s more than 500g (about 1.1 lb) lighter than the Sony. There’s a mix of metals and engineered plastics in the design, and the lens is obviously tough and durable (my older review copy still looks good and functions well). Here’s a look at how the overall specifications of the XF 100-400mm compares to the Fuji alternatives.
The most surprising addition here (at least to me) is the inclusion of an aperture ring. Most other brands do not include an aperture ring on zoom lenses, but we’ve got a narrow aperture ring here in between the bank of switches and the zoom ring. The aperture ring moves nicely with defined detents but doesn’t have any markings due to the fact that this is a variable aperture lens. You’ll have to track aperture changes from within the camera, and if you want to move into A (automatic) mode and control aperture from within the camera you’ll do so via the second switch down in the bank of switches. It switches between the aperture ring and automatic (in camera) control.
There are two other switches here. The first is a two-position focus limiter (Full and limited from 5M to ∞), while the bottom switch is an On/Off for the OIS. There are no further controls for OIS modes, though Fuji says the lens will automatically sense when a panning motion is taking place and shut off one axis of stabilization. The optical stabilizer here is rated up to 5 stops and does a good job of holding the viewfinder steady even at 600mm. I was using the lens on the Fujifilm X-T5, which has very good in body image stabilization (IBIS), so it is hard to know where one stabilization ends and the other begins, but I was able to consistently get good results at 400mm and 1/8th second, which (considering the effective focal length of over 600mm) is a good 6 stops of assistance. The results were consistently good enough to let me know that I could push even further if need be.
As noted, this is an externally zooming lens. The zoom ring moves smoothly and the zoom action was fairly light. The manual focus ring moves nicely, though not quite as smooth as the new 150-600mm.
The XF 100-400mm has a thorough weather sealing with a total of 13 seal points, including the rear gasket, internal seals, and a fluorine coating on the front element.
The included lens hood has a lock on it plus a sliding window for rotating a circular polarizing filter if you have one mounted.
The tripod collar can be loosened via a knob and easily rotated. There are markings at the four points of the compass but no detents. The tripod foot is quite small and is too close to the lens barrel to be particularly useful for carrying the lens. The foot is NOT Arca-swiss compatible (unlike the one on the new 150-600mm), which means it is not designed to be able to go right onto a tripod without a quick release plate. I strongly prefer having an Arca-swiss compatible foot.
The tripod collar itself is fully removable via two tension knobs near the tripod foot.
You can focus as closely as 1.75 meters (not particularly close) and get a 0.19x magnification, which falls short of the 0.24x you can get on the 150-600mm. Here’s what the magnification at MFD looks like:
Up close performance is fairly good, with decent detail and contrast along with a nicely flat plane of focus.
The build and design here is nice, but the lens does feel a little dated when compared with the more modern 150-600mm.
Fujinon XF 100-400mm Autofocus Performance
The Fujinon XF 100-400mm comes equipped with a dual linear focus motors to provide fast and quiet autofocus. I did some tracking tests side by side with the new 150-600mm and found that there really wasn’t any noticeable difference in focus speed or tracking accuracy between the two lenses. I saw good focus accuracy even if my subject turned away from the camera and the eye had to be tracked in profile.
Here’s another sequence of images from my runner.
I also had good accuracy when walking around with the lens, even if I was shooting a strongly backlit, this subject like this:
…or in shooting a narrow depth of field shot from a distance like this:
I also had zero issues with eye detect on my animal subjects.
I also shot some pick-up basketball in a field house with only moderately decent lighting. This required jacking the ISO up to 3200 range, but I was able to get accurately focused results of the action.
This isn’t a “fast” lens in terms of maximum aperture, but it’s much faster than what the 150-600mm is, so might be a better choice for gym sports if your budget doesn’t go to the very expensive 200mm F2 and you need more reach than the 50-140mm F2.8 will provide. I would have had to be shooting at ISO 6400 to get similar exposure results with the 150-600mm.
Autofocus performance seemed just fine to me. There’s enough speed and torque to get near instant focus changes with a minimum of noise and fuss.
Fuji XF 100-400mm Image Quality Breakdown
The Fuji XF 150-600mm has a fairly complex optical formula of 21 elements in 14 groups, which includes 5 ED and 1 super ED elements. A look at the MTF charts shows a pretty consistent performance between the wide and telephoto ends, with a near perfect center performance and a relatively mild dip towards the edges of the frame, though at 400mm the edges of the frame are actually a little better than the mid-frame.
I tested the lens on the punishing 40MP sensor of the X-T5, and that kind of resolution/pixel density is pretty unforgiving. It’s always interesting to test older lenses on new cameras with much high resolution levels than those that existed at the time the lens was released.
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. First at 100mm, then200mm, and then 400mm:
There’s more distortion and vignette than what I saw on the 150-600mm, but neither is there anything heinous being hidden by that profile. There’s some pincushion distortion throughout the zoom range, with more on the wide and medium range than at the telephoto end, though there’s a bit more vignette on the telephoto end. You can see that the correction profiles do a great job of cleaning everything up. There’s nothing I’m too concerned about here.
I also say little in the way of chromatic aberrations. These frost covered branches with a lot of sun pouring through them could certainly sport some longitudinal CA, but I don’t see any fringing here.
I also don’t really see any lateral CA in the branches along the edges of the frame here:
Good news thus far. Let’s move onto resolution and contrast. Here’s a look at my test chart that the crops will come from (40MP images from the X-T5):
If we take a look at the crops (about 175% magnification) at 100mm, F4.5, from the center, mid-frame, and corner:
What we find is a nicely consistent performance. The image quality looks quite good across the frame.
Unlike the 150-600mm, we have a little bit of room to stop the lens down before diffraction hits. In theory, diffraction starts on a camera like the X-T5 somewhere around F6.3. The effects of diffraction can start to cause some softening of the image and a reduction of contrast that increases as the aperture becomes smaller (for more on this, see this article). Most lenses achieve their maximum sharpness when stopped down a bit (on average I find that peak sharpness across the frame arrives about two stops down from maximum aperture. A lens with a maximum aperture of F2.8, for example, will often peak in sharpness around F5.6. There’s always some variation from lens to lens, obviously, but this will work as a rule of thumb. If you are shooting with one of the lower resolution bodies (24 or 26MP), you’ll have more flexibility on this (diffraction starts at F8 or slightly smaller for these bodies). Since this lens is a little brighter than the 150-600mm we can stop it down a bit and see some improvement. You can see some increased sharpness and contrast at F5.6:
A similar gain can be seen across the frame.
F8 arrives after diffraction starts to limit contrast, so F5.6-F6.3 represents the peak performance on the 40MP bodies. Minimum aperture is F22, but image quality has been very impacted by diffraction by that point.
At 200mm the maximum aperture is F5 and results are just a little softer than what we saw at 100mm across the frame. There’s a very mild improvement at F5.6, but I felt like the peak performance here was at F8. You can see from the opposite corner at F8 that the image is clearly improved over the wide open result.
When composed in the sweet spot, though, the lens can deliver impressive real world results wide open. Here’s a shot of Nala at 211mm, F5 that looks very crisp despite my having to shoot at ISO 6400 to get the shutter speed I needed.
At 300mm the results are fairly similar to what I saw at 200mm, though the maximum aperture is F5.2 rather than F5. That gives us a little less room to stop down before diffraction hits, but I still thought that F8 was pretty much the peak performance here.
At 400mm the maximum aperture is F5.6. I was curious to see if I saw the dip in midframe and improvement to the corners that the MTF suggested. I didn’t really see it, actually, but I wasn’t particularly blown away by my test results at 400mm in general.
I felt like some of my real world results at 400mm were stronger, like this shot:
…or this one:
The quality of the bokeh on the XF 100-400mm is going to vary from scenario to scenario. At 400mm and at closer to medium distances it is possible to completely compress and blur the background, as here:
With a bit shorter focal range (170mm here) and a similar distance, you’ll see more of the background and it won’t look as creamy.
I didn’t see anything “magical” about the overall bokeh rendering, but neither did I see anything objectionable, either. We’ll call it average.
I often find that Fuji glass has very nice color performance, and that is the case here. Colors were rich and yet natural and I generally liked the “global” look of images.
There’s not necessarily any area where I felt the XF 100-400mm is outstanding, optically, but neither did I feel it had any glaring fault. Check out the image gallery to see more of those images for yourself and to draw your own conclusions from them.
Conclusion
The Fujinon XF 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 R LM WR OIS is no longer a new lens, but neither is it completely outclassed by the new 150-600mm OIS. There’s definitely some give and take between the two, and while I prefer the handling and new features of the 150-600mm, the XF 100-400mm offers the faster maximum aperture and smaller form factor that some photographers will prefer. The dual linear focus motors benefit from the improved autofocus capabilities of Fuji’s most recent cameras, and the lens has never focused better.
While the handling of the lens feels a little dated at this point, there’s no question that it is nicely made and is clearly durable. That’s important for the kind of person who needs a lens like this.
This is a very useful focal range, and while the image quality probably looked better on a lower resolution body, I think there is still enough optical chops to look pretty good on the new high resolution 40MP bodies. This is still a valid telephoto option for a lot of reasons, though some photographers might be tempted by the Tamron 150-500mm that costs less, has more reach, and is about the same size (though a bit heavier). Decisions, decisions…
Pros:
Compatible with teleconverters for even more reach
Fairly compact package
Autofocus from dual linear motors is snappy and accurate
Robust weather sealing
Colors are very rich
Low levels of chromatic aberrations
Fairly nice bokeh
Faster maximum aperture than 150-600mm lens
Cons:
Tripod collar foot is not Arca-compatible
Susceptible to zoom creep
Sharpness levels aren’t amazing on newer high resolution bodies
Receive a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!
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.
For a while the Fujinon XF 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 R LM WR OIS was the only pro-grade long telephoto zoom on the XF platform along with being the lens that had the longest reach on the platform. That changed with the debut of the Fuji 150-600mm, which I reviewed here. Other options include the standard 70-300mm (my review here) and the premium XF 200mm F2 lens (my review here). I loved the latter lens, but at a price tag of $6000 USD, it obviously isn’t for everyone. Fuji now has two pro-grade telephoto zooms that are only priced about $100 apart, with the 100-400mm coming in at roughly $1900 USD and the 150-600mm coming in at $2000 USD. While it might seem (on paper) that the newer 150-600mm is the logical choice (more reach, newer design, flashier finish), the decision is actually a little more nuanced than that. The 100-400mm is an externally zooming design while the 150-600mm is an internally zooming design, and while you can debate which approach is better, there’s no question that the 100-400mm provides a MUCH more compact package for storage and transport.
The XF 100-400mm offers some serious reach with its 152-609mm full frame equivalent zoom range which can be stretched even further by the use of either the Fujinon XF 1.4x (213mm-853mm full frame equivalent) or 2X TCs (305mm-1,219mm). Maximum aperture at the telephoto end will be either F8 (1.4x TC) or F11 (2.0x TC) with the teleconverter attached. Even in the native range, however, this is a nicely flexible focal range, going from this at 100mm:
to this at 400mm:
One area where the 100-400mm has a definitive advantage over the 150-600mm is when it comes to maximum aperture. The 100-400mm is faster/brighter at every point throughout the zoom range. At 100mm, the maximum aperture is f/4.5, at 200mm, it’s f/5, at 300mm, it’s f/5.2, and at 400mm, it’s f/5.6. Interestingly, the lens only reaches that smallest maximum aperture at about 350mm, so that’s a solid amount of brightness for this type of lens. By contrast, the 150-600mm has a smaller maximum aperture than F5.6 from 183mm on, and at 400mm it is F7.1. On average the 100-400mm is about 2/3rds stop brighter across the shared zoom range, which could be a real factor if your photography involves less than idea lighting conditions.
That, along with the more compact size, may be enough to keep bringing some potential buyers back to the older lens (it was released in February 2016). Fuji definitely plans to keep selling it, so they clearly believe that people will keep buying it. We’ll try to highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of the lens in this review to help you make an informed decision. If you want to know more, you can watch my definitive video review or read my text review…or just enjoy the photos here.
Follow Me @ YouTube | Patreon | Instagram | Facebook | DA Merchandise | Flickr | 500pxThanks to Fujifilm Canada for loaning me the X-T5 and lenses for this review. As always, this is a completely independent review and my conclusions are my own.
Receive a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!
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.
The number of serious telephoto options on Fuji’s X-mount have been fairly limited in the past, with the standard 70-300mm (my review here), 100-400mm (review coming soon), and then the premium XF 200mm F2 lens (my review here). I loved the latter lens, but at a price tag of $6000 USD, it obviously isn’t for everyone. The 70-300mm is more of a consumer grade lens, so that left the 100-400mm as the sole professional telephoto zoom on the platform. Enter Fuji’s second lens to carry the silver finish of the XF 200mm F2 – the Fujinon XF 150-600mm F5.6-8 R LM OIS WR. This is easily the longest focal length on the X-mount platform, giving one the full frame equivalent focal range of 229-914mm, which can be stretched even further by the use of either the Fujinon XF 1.4x or 2X TCs (though with some serious limitations that we’ll note in a moment). For now, however, let’s look at the upside: the 1.4x allows you to reach to 900mm (1350mm equivalent) and the 2x allows you to reach to 1200mm (1828mm equivalent). That’s some serious reach!
There are a number of things about the XF 150-600mm that remind me of one of my favorite telephoto zooms – the Sony 200-600mm G – most notably the fact that it is a rare internally zooming long telephoto lens. That means that the XF 150-600mm is significantly longer than the XF 100-400mm for transport, though the difference in the two is much less with the 100-400mm zoomed out.
There’s a lot of positives about this lens, though there is also one significant hurdle to overcome in its design. The price tag of $2000 USD is only $100 more than the 100-400mm despite the additional reach and more premium look, so potential buyers are almost certainly going to directly compare between the two. We’ll try to highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of the lens in this review to help you make an informed decision. If you would prefer to watch your reviews, you can choose watch my definitive video review below…or just keep reading.
Follow Me @ YouTube | Patreon | Instagram | Facebook | DA Merchandise | Flickr | 500pxThanks to Fujifilm Canada for loaning me the X-T5 and lenses for this review. As always, this is a completely independent review and my conclusions are my own.
Fuji XF 150-600mm 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, WR, and OIS, which is a pretty much all of them!
R = Ring, or specifically an aperture ring.
LM = Linear Motor, Fuji’s premium focus system
WR = Weather Resistance
OIS = Optical Image Stabilization, or in lens stabilization
This a premium lens, and, as noted, it is only the second lens to come with Fuji’s “silver matte” finish. The stated reason for the finish is to help keep the temperature of the lens down even when used in bright or hot conditions, though I have to confess I’ve never had an issue with a black lens even in the hot sun. The lens looks premium, however, and I find this particular finish very attractive. It mentally connects you to the high end 200mm F2 OIS, which is probably the point.
This is not a small lens. It is fairly narrow at 99mm (3.9″) and the filter thread at the front of the lens is only 82mm, but the lens is quite long at 314.5mm (12.4″). That’s less than 3mm shorter than the Sony 200-600G – a full frame lens. This is the longest lens that I’m aware of on the Fuji X-mount platform. Here it is alongside the Sony 200-600G and the new Sigma 60-600mm DN Sport.
It is fairly lightweight for such a large lens, however, weighing in at just 1605g (3.5lb). That’s more than 500g (about 1.1 lb) lighter than the Sony. Fuji manages that in part by putting an engineered plastic shell over a magnesium alloy frame. The lens should prove tough, but isn’t unnecessarily heavy, making it much easier to take into the field. The other way they have kept the weight down is by giving the lens a relatively small maximum aperture, but more on that in a moment. Here’s a look at how the overall specifications of the XF 150-600mm compare to these other lenses.
The most surprising addition here (at least to me) is the inclusion of an aperture ring. Most other brands do not include an aperture ring on zoom lenses, but we’ve got a narrow aperture ring here in between the bank of switches and the zoom ring. The aperture ring moves nicely with defined detents but doesn’t have any markings due to the fact that this is a variable aperture lens. You’ll have to track aperture changes from within the camera, and if you want to move into A (automatic) mode and control aperture from within the camera you’ll do so via the second switch down in the bank of switches. It switches between the aperture ring and automatic (in camera) control.
There are two other switches here. The first is a two-position focus limiter (Full and limited from 5M to ∞), while the bottom switch determines the function of the four function buttons on the cardinal positions towards the front of the lens. These buttons all have the same function, but they are redundantly placed to ensure that one will be ergonomically accessible however the lens is rotated. The three options for the function button are AF-L (focus lock), Preset, and AF drive (essentially like a back-button focus/AF-ON button). The Preset option allows you to set a focus position (via the SET button bellow the switch) and the lens will instantly return to that focus position when you press one of the function buttons. This could be really beneficial if you have a place where you regularly need to return focus to (a sporting event, for example), and it takes the guesswork out of focus.
What is not here, surprisingly, is an ON/OFF for the optical stabilizer or the ability to choose different modes for it (for panning, for example). I had the 100-400mm at the same time, and it does have an OIS switch. The optical stabilizer here is rated up to 5 stops and does a good job of holding the viewfinder steady even at 600mm. I was using the lens on the Fujifilm X-T5, which has very good in body image stabilization (IBIS), so it is hard to know where one stabilization ends and the other begins, but I was able to consistently get good results at 600mm and 1/15th second, which (considering the effective focal length of over 900mm) is a good 6 stops of assistance. The results were consistently good enough to let me know that I could push even further if need be.
As noted, this is an internally zooming lens. The typical tradeoff in this design is that it is less portable (you don’t get to retract anything) but that it is nicer to use in the field as the length of the lens remains the same and you can make quick zoom changes. It probably also helps with the weather sealing, as there is no “pump” action that could theoretically pull in some dust. I love the Sony 200-600G in the field, as you can make very quick zoom changes with a wonderfully light zoom action. Things aren’t as rosy here, unfortunately, as the zoom ring weight is heavier than it should be for an internally zooming lens. It takes at least as much force to zoom the 150-600mm as it does the copy of the externally zooming 100-400mm that I have on hand. On a positive note, you can go from 150 to 600mm in about a 90 degree rotation.
The manual focus ring moves nicer, with a nice damping and overall feel.
The XF 150-600mm has a thorough weather sealing with a total of 19 seal points, including the rear gasket, internal seals, and a fluorine coating on the front element.
The included lens hood feels a little discordant. It is black and feels very plasticky. There is a lock on it plus a sliding window for rotating a circular polarizing filter if you have one mounted, but there isn’t a rubberized transition point at the front to help with bumps and setting the lens down. I liked the matching lens hood with the killer green accent on the 200mm F2 better.
The tripod collar can be loosened via a knob and easily rotated. There are markings at the four points of the compass but no detents. The tripod foot is fairly large and is far enough out from the body to make for a good carrying handle. The foot is Arca-swiss compatible, which means it is grooved and designed to be able to go right onto a tripod without a quick release plate. I vastly prefer this design to the one on the 100-400mm.
The tripod collar itself cannot be removed, but the foot itself can be easily removed via a second tension knob and a switch you depress to release it.
You can focus as closely as 2.4 meters (not particularly close), but the amount of magnification available is a pretty decent at 0.24x.
Up close performance is fairly good, with decent detail and contrast along with a nicely flat plane of focus.
Overall this is a nicely built lens that looks and handles like a much more modern lens than the similarly priced XF 100-400mm.
Fujinon XF 150-600mm Autofocus Performance
The Fujinon XF 150-600mm comes equipped with a linear focus motor, and that motor does the job of moving focus quickly and smoothly. Fuji claims that focus acquisition takes place in as little as 0.15 seconds, and in ideal conditions autofocus is nice and snappy.
The world isn’t always ideal, however. I had more than a few situations even with the high powered FUJIFilm X-T5 where I had a difficult time getting the lens to focus where I wanted. My review period began at the end of December and through the first several weeks of January, so I shot in snowy conditions fairly often. I found that in those conditions the lens sometimes had a difficult time nailing focus. I was carrying a Sony full frame combination (with the new Sigma 60-600mm DN Sport), and that combination focused with greater confidence in those situations. That was with an inanimate object, however, like trying to focus the marker at the beginning of the trailhead.
I shot a series with some horses in the falling snow and got better focus consistency when the AI of the camera had a trackable subject.
Likewise I had a difficult angle on a squirrel high in the trees above me, but the camera/lens combo did an effective job of focusing on the subject and ignoring the branch in the way.
One of the significant challenges for a lens with this small of a maximum aperture at the longer end is that dim lighting conditions are going to create a challenge. Lenses with a larger maximum aperture might be stopped down to F8, for example, but the lens can open up the aperture to a larger setting to gain additional light for focus and then stop back down. But when the physical aperture is F8, that’s the maximum amount of light that can be let in. A lens like the 150-600mm is going to work better with decent lighting. I found that focus slowed WAY down in dim lighting, with it not being unusual to have several seconds before focus showed lock…though I’ll also note that I did end up with correctly focused results in the end.
Focus accuracy was generally good. I was able to shoot a variety of subjects and get consistently well focused results.
I did some action sequences where I shot at maximum burst speed while tracking a runner moving towards the camera. In the hundreds of images that I captured I saw generally very consistent tracking of the eye and good focus. I saw about 2 images per burst that had a very minor back focus swing, but in general I was very pleased with the performance while tracking action. Here’s one sequence from those tests:
In general I think that photographers will be happy with the quality of focus, though if you are trying to stop action, prepare to be at very high ISO settings with this lens. I consistently found myself at higher ISO settings than I prefer to get my shutter speed where I wanted, and that comes with a price tag. There’s more grain, less dynamic range, and thus less latitude for processing images.
150-182mm = F5.6
183-310mm = F6.4
311-520mm = F7.1
521-600mm = F8
At no point is this lens “fast”, and for most of the focal range F6.4 is as fast as it gets, with nearly half of it at F7.1 or smaller. If you add the teleconverters, you have to decrease the available maximum aperture by one (1.4x) or two (2x) stops, meaning that maximum aperture with the 2x TC is F16 at 600/1200mm. That will slow autofocus way down.
It’s not like there are any real options at this kind of range, though, and you can buy three of these lenses for the price of the 200mm F2, and even with its 1.4x TC you are only getting 300mm of reach. That’s not really the same thing.
Fuji XF 150-600mm Image Quality Breakdown
The Fuji XF 150-600mm has a fairly complex optical formula, though that is unsurprising in such a lens. We have 24 elements in 17 groups, and includes 3 ED and 4 super ED elements. A look at the MTF charts shows a pretty consistent performance between the wide and telephoto ends, with a near perfect center performance and a relatively mild dip towards the edges of the frame.
I tested the lens on the punishing 40MP sensor of the X-T5, and that kind of resolution/pixel density is unforgiving. Fortunately the XF 150-600mm is good enough to mostly weather the storm.
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. First at 150mm, then at 600mm:
I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. There is really very little being corrected there at all.
I also little in the way of chromatic aberrations. I took a number of photos of brightly backlit objects like this where longitudinal CA (LoCA) could turn up, but everything looks nicely neutral to me here.
There’s also very little off lateral CA (LaCA) to be seen in the transitions from black to white on my test chart.
Good news thus far. Let’s move onto resolution and contrast. Here’s a look at my test chart that the crops will come from (40MP images from the X-T5):
If we take a look at the crops (about 175% magnification) at 150mm, F5.6, from the center, mid-frame, and corner:
What we find is a nicely consistent performance. I’m not quite as wowed by the center of the frame sharpness and contrast as the MTF chart suggests I should be, but that is very likely due in part to the higher resolution of the X-T5. I’m more impressed by the consistency in the midframe and corner performance, which looks quite good.
It’s here that we encounter the big challenge to a lens with a small maximum aperture mounted on a large resolution body. In theory, diffraction starts on a camera like the X-T5 somewhere around F6.3. The effects of diffraction can start to cause some softening of the image and a reduction of contrast that increases as the aperture becomes smaller (for more on this, see this article). Most lenses achieve their maximum sharpness when stopped down a bit (on average I find that peak sharpness across the frame arrives about two stops down from maximum aperture. A lens with a maximum aperture of F2.8, for example, will often peak in sharpness around F5.6. There’s always some variation from lens to lens, obviously, but this will work as a rule of thumb. When you start at F5.6, however, the potential peak performance would arrive at F11, and, when starting at F8 (as this lens does later on), that peak would be at F16. But because diffraction is already kicking in shortly after F5.6, you are caught in somewhat of a catch-22. Stopping down typically increases sharpness, but because of the DLO limit of a high resolution body, diffraction starts to limit sharpness fairly early.
What does all of this mean? It means that I don’t really see much advantage to stopping down with the XF 150-600mm. Here at 150mm I don’t find that the lens gets any sharper when stopped down to F8:
Performance at F11 has even less contrast, and by the time you reach the minimum aperture of F22, the image has become quite low contrast:
If you are shooting with one of the lower resolution bodies (24 or 26MP), you’ll have more flexibility on this (diffraction starts at F8 or slightly smaller for these bodies), but if you are shooting on one of the newer 40MP bodies you probably won’t get additional sharpness or contrast by stopping down.
At 200mm our maximum aperture is not F6.4, and I found the image quality results slightly softer across the frame than at 150mm. That’s probably a combination of the natural optical performance of the lens along with a bit of diffraction. Despite the diffraction challenge, however, I found that my results were better at F8 than wide open, though diffraction softened things up some by F11. You can see from this midframe comparison that the results look better at F8 than F11.
At 300mm (still F6.4) I found a similar pattern, with my peak performance coming at F8:
By 400mm(ish) I found a fairly similar result. Maximum aperture is now F7.1, which means that even wide open we are losing a bit of lens sharpness to diffraction.
By 600mm our maximum aperture is F8, so unfortunately I can’t even see maximum results without some diffraction softening, but the lens also seems a little sharper to me at 600mm than the middle focal lengths. I will also note that the effective focal length of over 900mm is too long for my testing space, so I’m framing my test chart a little tighter can can’t fit the whole chart in. Here are the crops from across the frame.
Stopping down to F11 neither made the image quality better or worse (the lens was a little sharper but diffraction was a little more pronounced). In most situations I would suggest staying at F8 as it will be easier to get a fast enough shutter speed to stop the action.
I would suggest that the best current pairing for the XF 150-600mm is the X-H2S. It delivers the autofocus, burst rate, and deep buffer that takes advantage of a sports/wildlife lens like this, but it also has the more moderate resolution of 26MP that won’t get hammered as much by diffraction. If you want to shoot a high resolution body, the 100-400mm might be a better choice for the simple reason that it reaches a maximum aperture of F5.6 on the telephoto end, and might give you a little more versatility on stopping it down.
I actually felt like the 150-600mm performed a little better in real world results than what my chart testing suggested. This shot of the moon at 600mm looks quite crisp:
Likewise this shot of leaves (also wide open at 600mm) looks quite good.
This shot of Nala at 435mm shows beautiful detail and contrast.
My capture of this red squirrel also looks good at 600mm:
The good contrast and color of the lens made me feel like images looked better than sometimes what the detail at a pixel level suggested, and when you consider that few people will actually see your images at a pixel level, I suspect that the image quality come across pretty well.
Long telephotos are more likely to be affected by things like thermal variations, heat waves, and smoke, so know that sometimes images will have an almost painterly effect that has everything to do with thermal variations (shooting over water, here) and nothing to do with lens performance.
That being said, I tested the new Sigma 60-600mm DN Sport for Sony E-mount cameras at the same time as the XF 150-600mm, and I was generally more impressed with image sharpness on the similarly priced Sigma lens than with the 150-600mm. Tamron is now selling their 150-500mm VC VXD lens in a Fuji X-mount, and it is also a very sharp lens.
The quality of the bokeh on the XF 150-600mm is going to vary from scenario to scenario. At 600mm and at closer to medium distances it is possible to completely compress and blur the background, as here:
There is a bit more outlining on some of the specular highlights than what I would like, but the general quality of the blur is nice.
With a bit shorter focal range (300mm here) and a similar distance, you’ll see more of the background.
Again, there is a little more outlining than what I would like, but I still like the image.
At a longer distance the lens can still provide some decent separation from the subject, though it won’t compare to a faster lens on a larger sensor.
I often find that Fuji glass has very nice color performance, and that is the case here. Colors were rich and yet natural and I generally liked the “global” look of images.
Optically the XF 150-600mm is caught in a bit of a trap, as it arrives just about the time that Fuji is really pushing the envelope in terms of resolution with its most recent bodies. Physics is playing a bit of a mean trick here, but I also generally liked the images that I got with the lens and appreciate the versatility of that incredible zoom range. Check out the image gallery to see more of those images for yourself and to draw your own conclusions from them.
Conclusion
My first look at the Fujinon XF 150-600mm F5.6-8 R LM WR OIS immediately jogged my mind back to the XF 200mm F2, a genuinely incredible lens. The lens has a premium look and the general concept reminds me of one of my favorite lenses of this type: the Sony FE 200-600mm G. Both lenses are internally zooming, large, and white(ish), but the Fuji didn’t leave me as wowed at the end of the day. I generally liked the lens in terms of the handling and autofocus, but I also felt like the slow maximum aperture was a less than ideal pairing for the high resolution body that I tested it on. I ended up at a higher ISO setting than what I would like on a regular basis, and high resolution bodies tend to a be a little less forgiving at higher ISO values.
In good light, however, I felt positive about the autofocus and tracking capabilities of the lens. The AI learning on my X-T5 had no problem grabbing and tracking the eye of my runner, and I saw consistently good autofocus throughout my bursts.
The build quality here is very nice, and some photographers will the ability to preset a focus distance and immediately return to that at the press of a function button very useful. I prefer an internally zooming lens out in the field, and wildlife photographers will really enjoy the ability to quickly change zoom positions.
As noted earlier, I feel like the best pairing for the XF 150-600mm is going to be a camera like the X-H2S with its high burst rate, deep buffers, and 26MP resolution. It will take advantage of the sport/wildlife capabilities of the lens without being as penalized for the slower maximum aperture. So long as you working with decent light, the XF 150-600mm OIS is going to deliver nice results for you. If you need to shoot in dimmer light conditions, however, you had better start saving for that other white/silver Fuji lens, as the 200mm F2 (or 280mm F2.8 with the TC) is still the only “fast” telephoto option on the platform.
Pros:
Extreme reach
Finish looks sleek and upscale
Weight is manageable for such a big/long lens
Internally zooming design is better to use in the field
Robust weather sealing
Fast autofocus from Linear motor
Has a lot of physical controls
Colors are very rich
Low levels of chromatic aberrations
Fairly nice bokeh
Sharpness is reasonably consistent across the zoom range
Cons:
Slow maximum aperture is limiting on multiple levels
No OIS switch on lens
Internally zooming action is longer and heavier than optimal
Diffraction on high resolution bodies means you can’t stop down for increased sharpness
Receive a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!
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.
Fujinon XF 150-600mm F5.6-8 R LM WR OIS Image Gallery
Dustin Abbott
January 25th, 2023
The number of serious telephoto options on Fuji’s X-mount have been fairly limited in the past, with the standard 70-300mm (my review here), 100-400mm (review coming soon), and then the premium XF 200mm F2 lens (my review here). I loved the latter lens, but at a price tag of $6000 USD, it obviously isn’t for everyone. The 70-300mm is more of a consumer grade lens, so that left the 100-400mm as the sole professional telephoto zoom on the platform. Enter Fuji’s second lens to carry the silver finish of the XF 200mm F2 – the Fujinon XF 150-600mm F5.6-8 R LM OIS WR. This is easily the longest focal length on the X-mount platform, giving one the full frame equivalent focal range of 229-914mm, which can be stretched even further by the use of either the Fujinon XF 1.4x or 2X TCs (though with some serious limitations that we’ll note in a moment). For now, however, let’s look at the upside: the 1.4x allows you to reach to 900mm (1350mm equivalent) and the 2x allows you to reach to 1200mm (1828mm equivalent). That’s some serious reach!
There are a number of things about the XF 150-600 OIS that remind me of one of my favorite telephoto zooms – the Sony 200-600mm G – most notably the fact that it is a rare internally zooming long telephoto lens. That means that the XF 150-600mm is significantly longer than the XF 100-400mm for transport, though the difference in the two is much less with the 100-400mm zoomed out.
There’s a lot of positives about this lens, though there is also one significant hurdle to overcome in its design. The price tag of $2000 USD is only $100 more than the 100-400mm despite the additional reach and more premium look, so potential buyers are almost certainly going to directly compare between the two. We’ll try to highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of the lens in this review to help you make an informed decision. If you want more information, you can watch my video review or read my text review of the XF 150-600 OIS…or just enjoy the photos below.
Follow Me @ YouTube | Patreon | Instagram | Facebook | DA Merchandise | Flickr | 500pxThanks to Fujifilm Canada for loaning me the X-T5 and lenses for this review. As always, this is a completely independent review and my conclusions are my own.
Receive a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!
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 took an important step in this past year by opening up their platform to third party development, and we’ve seen a wide variety of third party lenses from Tamron, Sigma, Samyang, Viltrox, and more announced and released for the X-mount. But Fuji also wisely recognized that some of their existing lineup needs revamping (which they are tackling through new MK II lenses) and also some existing holes need filling. One of those holes was in the form of a wider macro lens (the previous widest macro focal length was 60mm), a hole now plugged with the new Fujinon XF 30mm R LM WR Macro lens (hereafter referred to as the Fuji 30M for brevity).
This is a compact macro lens that weighs under 200g and yet manages to offer up a 1:1 magnification level from its 46mm full frame equivalent focal length.
There’s always some debate over the best focal length for macro work, as there are both pros and cons to different approaches. Longer focal lengths will give you a greater working distance and can more easily blur out backgrounds. They are also less flexible in terms of the subjects you can tackle because of being telephoto lenses. Shorter focal lengths are more flexible and require less room to operate in, but (like here), you have to get VERY close to your subject to achieve that 1:1 magnification (minimum focus distance here is 10 cm, which is actually INSIDE the lens hood if you kept it mounted. You can forget shooting insects or something similar with this lens if they’re still alive! I personally prefer shorter focal lengths for shooting food or product shots and longer focal lengths for shooting subjects like insects and other subjects where a longer working distance is beneficial.
Obviously there are going to be both some strengths and weaknesses here, but by and large this is a very nice little lens with some real strengths. It brings some premium features, good autofocus, and a very compact size for its price tag of $599 USD. 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.
Follow Me @ YouTube | Patreon | Instagram | Facebook | DA Merchandise | Flickr | 500pxThanks to Fujifilm Canada for loaning me the X-T5 and lenses for this review. As always, this is a completely independent review and my conclusions are my own.
Fuji 30M 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. The Fuji 30M has a profile that reminds me of the 50mm F2 where the lens mount is the widest portion of the lens. That wider first tier has the lens mount and then the aperture ring. The second tier of the lens is narrower and has the manual focus ring on it. The maximum diameter of the lens is 60mm (2.4″) and the filter thread at the front of the lens is only 43mm, which shows you there is a significant amount of tapering down towards the front of the lens. The overall length is right under 70mm (2.7″). It’s not my favorite lens profile aesthetically, but it works fine here.
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 (F2.8, F4, 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, which is important on a macro lens. I could focus with fairly good precision and didn’t notice visible stepping despite being a focus by wire system.
The Fuji 30M is a very nicely made lens despite its light weight. It’s only 195g (6.9oz) but doesn’t feel cheap or plasticky. 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, internal seals, and a fluorine coating on the front element.
The included lens hood is is made of plastic and is nothing particularly special.
There are no switches on the barrel, as AF/MF is handled via a lever on Fuji camera bodies and there is no lens based optical stabilization. I used the X-T5 for this review, which has good in-camera-image-stabilization, so I didn’t actually miss it. What could have been included and wasn’t, however, is a focus limiter. That can be very useful on a macro lens that has a lot of additional close focus possibilities.
As noted, the minimum focus distance is one of the closest that I’ve ever seen, and this is perhaps the first time I’ve even seen an MFD that would fall actually inside the lens hood if it were mounted. I measure the distance from the sensor to the front of the bare lens as roughly 9 cm, and the MFD is 10cm. The lens hood is an additional 2.5cm (11.5cm total), meaning that you actually couldn’t achieve full 1:1 macro with the lens hood mounted.
Up close performance is good, but lighting is going to be an issue even with the lens hood off because you need to get so close to your subject to achieve 1:1 magnification. It will be very easy to shade your subject with the lens/camera if you aren’t careful. That’s probably the biggest downside to the design here. On a positive note, this is a fully internally focusing lens, so the overall length doesn’t change during macro work.
Overall, the build and features of the lens are solid – in line with my expectations.
Fujinon XF 30mm Macro Autofocus Performance
The Fujinon XF 30mm F2.8 Macro is one of the better lenses from Fuji I’ve used when it comes to autofocus. As noted earlier, it does come equipped with a linear focus motor, and that motor does the job of moving focus quickly and smoothly.
Focus accuracy was generally good as well, delivering well focused results in a variety of lighting conditions. This shot at a party, for example, was shot at ISO 6400 and without a lot of ambient lighting to work with (look how bright the window decorations look by comparison).
I was also able to get accurate focus at macro distances:
I will note that at very close focus distances I actually prefer to manually focus, but that’s just a preference and not a necessity.
The biggest place I noted improvements here was in doing focus pulls during video. There was no visible stepping, good speed, and excellent precision. Focus moved from one subject to another without steps, hesitation, or pulsing – and with zero sound being picked up by the on-board microphone. I also saw very good confidence in locking back onto my eye after I blocked focus with my hand. This is the first time that I’ve felt a Fuji combination was competitive in this test with something from Sony, for example.
Switching to animal tracking mode produced good locking on to the eyes of Nala and delivered well focused results.
I was satisfied with the focus performance here in general, which hasn’t often been my conclusion on Fuji lenses/cameras in the past.
Fuji 30M Image Quality Breakdown
The Fuji 30M has a fairly complex optical formula for such a compact lens, sporting 11 elements in 9 groups, which includes 3 aspherical and 2 ED elements. The MTF charts show an extremely strong center performance but also one that quickly deteriorates as you move away from the center.
This obviously won’t be helped by the movement towards higher resolution in the most recent bodies like the X-T5 I’m doing the review on, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
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 are fairly significant amounts of both distortion (pincushion style) and vignette. The heavier distortion is somewhat of a surprise on a macro lens, as they tend to be well corrected. I used a -8 to correct the pincushion distortion. The vignette was also surprisingly heavy, requiring me to max out the sliders (+100 and midpoint to zero) to give a fully corrected result. As noted, the correction profile takes care of things in the real world, but that level of correction will have somewhat of an impact on corner performance particularly at higher ISO values where noise is more obvious.
Case in point: I shot this image at the retirement party of a friend, and the nice restaurant where the event was held had fairly dim lighting. I had to capture the image at ISO 6400. You can see below that the profile does brighten up things (see the plates on the right side), but if we zoom into the left corner (second image) you can see that a lot of additional noise and hot pixels have been introduced by the correction profile on the left side.
That’s at least one consequence of having to heavily correct vignette via a profile.
Fortunately other areas show greater strength. This image shows that even at F2.8 longitudinal chromatic aberrations are really well controlled. This image has plenty of potential for fringing, either around the lights or now, but we can see that real world LoCA is very low:
There’s a bit of lateral CA (LaCA) that can be seen on the transitions from black to white on my test chart, but it’s so mild that it won’t be a real world issue, particularly with corrections turned on.
Here’s a look at my test chart that the crops came from (40MP images from the X-T5):
If we take a look at the crops (about 175% magnification) from the center, mid-frame, and corner:
You can see that the resolution does indeed drop off significantly from the center to the mid-frame results, with a less severe decline from there to the corners. Fortunately real world images at wide apertures are mostly composed in the area where resolution is higher on a lens like this, and when you hit the sweet spot, you can get nice, high contrast results.
Stopping the lens down to F4 produces better contrast and more detail across the frame, with the most obvious improvement taking place in the corners, which now look pretty good.
In many ways the weakest zone is the mid-frame, where results are never all that good. The Viltrox Pro AF 75mm F1.2 is clearly sharper at F1.2 than the Fuji 30M is even stopped down to F5.6 (where sharpness peaks):
Truth be told, I felt that resolution results were good but never exceptional. The extremely high resolution of the new 40MP sensor in Fuji’s most recent cameras is going to punish lenses that aren’t exceptionally crisp. Real world results were a little better, and I’m satisfied with the sharpness I saw at F5.6 in this landscape image.
Likewise the macro detail in this shot (also at F5.6) looks quite good.
Resolution and contrast peak at F5.6, with a fractional regression at F8 and a much more noticeable one at F22 due to diffraction, which will arrive even earlier with the move to higher resolution bodies.
One of the areas where wide angle macro lenses will lag behind longer focal lengths is in their ability to create bokeh. It’s exceptionally rare for a 1:1 macro lens to have a maximum aperture any larger than F2.8, and the depth of field at 30mm and F2.8 is going to be much larger than either 60mm (the XF 60mm F2.4 Macro) or 80mm (the XF 80mm F2.8 Macro). The byproduct is that strongly blurring out backgrounds is going to be more difficult with the Fuji 30M. This handheld macro image, for example, is nice and sharp, but you can see that the background is only somewhat blurred.
Shoot from a little bit further away and you’ll find that there isn’t much blurring of the background at all:
I’m also less than impressed with the aperture iris’ ability to retain a circular shape when stopped down. Even by F4 the shape of the blades is pretty obvious (shown here is F2.8, F4, and F5.6):
I’ll also note that the aperture blades aren’t perfectly symmetrical in my review lens.
Specular bokeh highlights to have fairly strong inner lines and a generally busy quality, which speaks to bokeh that isn’t going to be as soft and creamy as what we might like.
I can see that busyness even at a global level in real world shots, and there’s also a pretty strong cat-eye effect to the geometry if the specular highlights are near the edge of the frame at all.
The strength of this lens is going to be found more in getting a lot in focus rather than getting a lot of out of focus, I would say.
On a more positive note, I found that color rendition was really great on the Fuji 30M, delivering rich, nicely saturated colors.
Here’s one shot in Classic Chrome that I like:
My review period fell during a season of winter storms and lot of grey days, so I didn’t have a lot of opportunity to torture test flare resistance, but I did shoot a number of images into the rising sun one morning (sometimes you can get sun at dawn even if the day will be cloudy). I didn’t see any flare issues in the image I took, however.
While I wasn’t really wowed by any area of performance on the Fujifilm 30mm F2.8 Macro, I also generally liked the images that I got with it and appreciate the versatility of the focal length and close focus abilities in such a compact package. Check out the image gallery to see more of those images for yourself and to draw your own conclusions from them.
Conclusion
I love the 45mm focal length (technically 46mm equivalent here), and when you pair that with 1:1 macro capabilities, you have a lens that is useful for a wide variety of photography subjects. I particularly love the focal length for family or friends event, where it provides a natural and relatable point of view.
In an ironic twist (at least to me), the aspect of Fuji lens design that I often critique the most (the autofocus system) is perhaps the greatest strength here. The Linear Motor focus system is fast, quiet, and effective for both stills and video work, which is a very welcome change of pace.
I’m less wowed by the general optical performance, as while there is a sweet spot of sharpness in the center of the frame, the drop-off to the midframe is pretty dramatic. I also didn’t find the bokeh exceptionally nice from the lens. I’ve seen a few people praising the amazing minimum focus distance of just 10cm (Fuji has one such brag on their website listing for the lens), but I have to wonder if such people really understand the implications of a 10cm (3.9″) MFD when the end of the lens is 9cm from the sensor…and the end of the lens hood is 11.5cm!
What cannot be disputed is that this is going to be a very easy lens to bring along due to the compact size and light weight, and having the versality of a macro lens in this package is going to be very intriguing for those who like to travel light. Good correction profiles help to make up for some of the optical weaknesses, and I suspect that most people will be satisfied in general with the image quality…particularly if using one of Fuji’s bodies with lower resolution than the new 40MP bodies. This is a welcome addition to the Fujinon lineup despite its flaws, and will be a lens that I suspect many people would enjoy having in their kit.
Pros:
Extremely versatile focal length
Full 1:1 magnification in such a tiny package
Compact size and light weight add to versality
Includes weather sealing
Internal focus design helps keep lens sealed
Linear focus motor delivers one of the best AF experiences I’ve seen on Fuji
Good lens for video AF work
Colors are very rich
Low levels of chromatic aberrations
Good flare resistance
Cons:
Tiny working distance makes getting 1:1 images difficult
Receive a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!
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 took an important step in this past year by opening up their platform to third party development, and we’ve seen a wide variety of third party lenses from Tamron, Sigma, Samyang, Viltrox, and more announced and released for the X-mount. But Fuji also wisely recognized that some of their existing lineup needs revamping (which they are tackling through new MK II lenses) and also some existing holes need filling. One of those holes was in the form of a wider macro lens (the previous widest macro focal length was 60mm), a hole now plugged with the new Fujinon XF 30mm R LM WR Macro lens.
This is a compact macro lens that weighs under 200g and yet manages to offer up a 1:1 magnification level from its 46mm full frame equivalent focal length.
There’s always some debate over the best focal length for macro work, as there are both pros and cons to different approaches. Longer focal lengths will give you a greater working distance and can more easily blur out backgrounds. They are also less flexible in terms of the subjects you can tackle because of being telephoto lenses. Shorter focal lengths are more flexible and require less room to operate in, but (like here), you have to get VERY close to your subject to achieve that 1:1 magnification (minimum focus distance here is 10 cm, which is actually INSIDE the lens hood if you kept it mounted. You can forget shooting insects or something similar with this lens if they’re still alive! I personally prefer shorter focal lengths for shooting food or product shots and longer focal lengths for shooting subjects like insects and other subjects where a longer working distance is beneficial.
Obviously there are going to be both some strengths and weaknesses here, but by and large this is a very nice little lens with some real strengths. It brings some premium features, good autofocus, and a very compact size for its price tag of $599 USD. So should you add one to your kit? Check out my video review or text review for more information…or just enjoy the photos below.
Follow Me @ YouTube | Patreon | Instagram | Facebook | DA Merchandise | Flickr | 500pxThanks to Fujifilm Canada for loaning me the X-T5 and lenses for this review. As always, this is a completely independent review and my conclusions are my own.
Receive a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!
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.
I was late to the Fuji party. I did my first Fuji review in 2018 (starting with the Fujifilm X-T3) and was impressed by the maturity of the system in many ways when compared to other APS-C mirrorless camera systems. In the last four years, however, there has been a lot of changes in the industry. Canon and Nikon have jumped into the space with new APS-C bodies, and companies like Sony have seen a lot of new lenses development (particularly from third parties). But Fuji has also made what I consider to be an incredibly important move in opening up their platform to third party development, and we have already seen a number of new lenses from Tamron, Sigma, and Samyang (along with others) come in Fuji X-mount. One of the more impressive lenses of 2022 was announced right at the end of the year in the form of the Viltrox Pro AF 75mm F1.2 for Fuji X-mount. I pretty much raved over it in my review, which I did on this X-T5. The Fujifilm X-T4 (my review here) was an important step forward for Fuji as it introduced some very important new features to the series, including In Body Image Stabilization (IBIS), an articulating LCD screen, a new and improved battery, and a faster mechanical shutter. What didn’t change, however, was the 26MP X-Trans sensor which we had seen in a number of Fujifilm cameras. That all changes with the Fujifilm X-T5, however, which joins the X-H2 in utilizing an ultra-high resolution new 40.2MP sensor that delivers wonderfully detailed 7728 x 5152 pixel images. The new sensor is definitely the headline new feature here, though there are a number of other improvements that we’ll explore as a part of our review.
As with the release of the X-T4 and the existing X-T3, it appears that the X-T4 will continue to be sold for the present alongside the X-T5 as a cheaper alternative. The X-T4 can currently be had for roughly $1550 USD, while the X-T5 costs an additional $150 and shares the old price point of the X-T4 at $1699 USD. Slightly more upmarket of that is the impressive Fujfilm X-H2 at a price point of about $2000 USD. That additional $300 nets you a more professional grade body, much deeper buffers, improved viewfinder, and more robust video features and is well worth considering if you have deeper pockets.
There is a certain amount of market parity these days, and there are some things that Sony, Canon, and Nikon do better, though Fuji has had a long investment in the APS-C mirrorless space, and it shows in the maturity of the system. These other brands are more focused in the full frame market, but Fuji has focused on APS-C and never entered the full frame space. That has led to more lens development (including a revamping of same aging designs with new MK II version) along with a fully fleshed out accessory market. And, as noted, the opening up of the platform to third party development has lead to some excellent third party options at more affordable price points which helps close the gap with a company like Sony that has long been more third party friendly. I’ve spent time with a couple of new Fuji lenses as a part of this review, including the new XF 30mm F2.8 Macro lens which was a fun lens to play with over the holidays.
There are still some areas where Fuji lags a bit, and my primary complaints are focused on an autofocus system that is largely unchanged here and that lags in some areas behind the other brands along with my continued frustration with navigating Fuji’s Q-menu. I’ve not seen any real progress on their touchscreen capabilities in four years. But while I might prefer the focus and ergonomics of, say, the Canon R7 (my review here), the complete lack of appealing lenses means that Fuji is still offering the more appealing system in general. There are a lot of great things about the X-T5 and Fuji’s approach to APS-C, so let’s take a closer look if the Fuji X-T5 meets your needs for photography and/or video. 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 X-T5 and lenses for this review. As always, this is a completely independent review and my conclusions are my own.
What’s New on the X-T5?
When I reviewed the X-T4, I noted these are the primary improvements:
In Body Image Stabilization
New battery with improved battery life
Fully articulating LCD screen
New mechanical shutter mechanism rated up to 15fps (from 11fps on the X-T3) and with a life of 300,000 actuations.
These were important improvements, as each of them addressed shortcomings in the X-T3. What largely stayed the same was the sensor performance, autofocus, and basic ergonomics of the camera. In this generation the highlights of the X-T5 are largely around a whole new sensor along with some evolutionary improvements to some other areas. Here are the highlights of the new features:
40MP APS-C X-Trans CMOS 5 HR BSI Sensor
4K 60p, 6.2K 30p 4:2:2 10-Bit Video
7-Stop In-Body Image Stabilization
Lower base ISO of 125 vs 160
New Tracking/Eye Detect modes
3″ 1.84m-Dot Tilting Touchscreen LCD
20 fps E. Shutter, 15 fps Mech. Shutter
E Shutter speed up to 1/180,000th second
160MP Pixel Shift Multi-Shot
Bluetooth and Wi-Fi Connectivity
ProRes & Blackmagic RAW via HDMI
As before, there are some wholly new specs/features here (sensor, improved IBIS, lower base ISO, 6.2K video) while also some repackaging of existing features. That’s the nature of releasing a new camera in a series roughly every two years. There are the main improvements that are heavily marketed and then other areas that are either retained outright or slightly refined from the previous generation. I’ve seen this with other brands as well. What’s interesting here is that Fuji prioritized miniaturizing everything a bit, as the X-T5 is smaller than the last several generations of the X-T series and most notably the X-T4. The X-T4 was 135 x 93 x 64mm (W x H x D) and weighed 607g, making it pretty substantial for an APS-C body, while the X-T5 is 130 x 91 x 64mm (5.1 x 3.6 x 2.5″) and weighs 557g (16.8oz), meaning that essentially only the grip depth (arguably the most important part to keep “big”) matches the previous generation.
That along with some spec similarities to the higher end Fujifilm X-H2 has some calling the X-T5 a “mini-X-H2”. I personally feel like both cameras have a distinct role to play, however, and there are things that the X-H2 can do well (like sustained bursts of images) that the X-T5 cannot, while others will prefer the more compact body and lower price point of the X-T5.
There is one primary area where the X-T5 has taken a step back compared to the X-T4, in my opinion, in that we have reverted to the tilting type LCD screen of the X-T3 rather than the fully articulated LCD of the X-T4. That may not matter to you, but I personally strongly prefer the flexibility of the fully articulated screen. For one, it allows you to front monitor the camera for video, and as someone who sets up shots and then sits in front of the camera, I can tell you that this can be a big deal for being able to monitor the framing of the shot (is my head half out of the frame?) but also catching some recording issues (full memory card, depleted battery, etc…) Articulating screens are also more flexible for the angles that they can be used at compared to a tilting screen, though at least Fuji’s tilt screen allow them to be tilted on a couple of different axis.
When I reviewed the X-T3, I highlighted a few concerns with the feature set and handling of the camera. One of those was the lack of In-Body-Image-Stablization (IBIS), which was solved with the X-T4 and improved here on the X-T5. I’ve been impressed with Fuji’s stabilization in general, whether in-camera or in-lens, and the IBIS in the new X-T5 is rated at up to 7 stops (over 6.5 stop rating of the X-T4), making it the most robust IBIS system I’ve tested to date by the numbers. I put the X-T5 in the hands of a friend who is an industry professional (he does the ads/branding for a significant company) and he was wowed by the stability of the system for fluid handheld video shots.
At this stage I would say that the IBIS performance in real world use does improve on what I’ve seen with Sony and even Canon, though, as always, I find that getting perfectly sharp images at extremely low shutters speeds is an unreliable process. The practicality of “seven stops” in many applications is not going to happen. For example, I should be able to handhold the XF 35mm F1.4 R for nearly 4 second shutter speeds. That just isn’t realistic. I’m personally more concerned more concerned with eliminating motion blur in normal shots where the shutter speeds fall outside the margins and getting stable handheld video, and by these metrics the IBIS is a success.
Effective IBIS is wonderful because it applies to all lenses, making a longer portrait lens like the XF 90mm F2 (my review here) much more useful and easier to use. It even works with third party lenses, allowing me to successfully handhold this 1/10th of a second shot with the new Viltrox Pro AF 75mm F1.2:
I did note that I saw more reliable IBIS performance with first party lenses (particularly for video) when compared to the Viltrox, though that lens had not even been publicly announced when I was testing it.
Like the X-T4, the X-T5 utilized the newer NP-W235 battery, a 2350 mAh pack which is rated by CIPA to give 580 shots per charge (740 in Economy mode). The battery life is competitive across the board (for mirrorless), and I think it worthy of note that the X-T5’s battery can be charged via the USB-C port in camera by most any power source…including a portable power bank. There is also an included USB-C charging cord and AC power adapter included in the box. I found that my real world battery performance was better than what I’m seeing from the four other cameras that I currently own.
The X-T4 sported an improved mechanical shutter that is largely carried over here. It was more refined and nicely damped than the previous shutter, and also allowed for a faster mechanical shutter speed. My one complaint is that I find that half-depressing the shutter button is a little more difficult than on some other cameras (it’s very easy to slip past half-depressed to taking the shot). I tend to use the AF ON button on the back a little more for that reason. The headline improvement here is in the electronic shutter, which increases the maximum shutter speed from 1/32,000th of a second to a massive 1/180,000th of a second, allowing you to really freeze action (if you can achieve the ideal conditions that allow for such a fast shutter speed). This is probably not really a practical improvement for most people in most situations.
Fujifilm cameras tend to have more physical controls than most other modern cameras. There are dials, switches, and buttons all over the camera body, and many of the cameras functions can be accessed without ever looking at a menu. It’s a decidedly analog approach to a very digital camera, and I personally love it, though other users may find it confusing. It’s a classic SLR design that reminds me a lot of my old Pentax Spotmatic film camera. Initially it took me a few days back with with the X-T3 originally to discover how to do everything I wanted to do (mostly because every camera manufacturer seems to have their own names and descriptions for certain functions. Case in point: Canon calls continuous autofocus “AF Servo”, Sony calls it “AF-C (Autofocus Continuous)”, while Fuji has Continuous AF, broken down into drive modes as CH (Continuous High) and CL (Continuous Low). Know that you may need to spend a little time in the manual to learn all the functions if you aren’t familiar with Fuji’s control scheme.
Another strength of Fuji’s cameras (though one that takes some familiarity to execute) is that most of the buttons and dials can be customized and have different values assigned to them. The basic physical controls are essentially identical to the X-T4 despite the more compact body of the X-T5, with the lone exception that the “Display/Back” button on the bottom now also has a Bluetooth logo on it (Bluetooth functionality is not new, but this shortcut is). I mostly like the configuration of the buttons with two exceptions. The first is the location of the Q-menu button, which moved from right over the mini-joystick (on the X-T3) to the upper right side of the camera where the AF-L button used to be, It’s an unusual place for a Q menu button, and I haven’t really gotten used to it. I also don’t love the location of the buttons and sequence for reviewing and deleting images. Typically the delete button on other cameras is in the location of the Display/Back button. If this is your sole or primary camera, obviously, you will soon get used to the functions.
There are three dials on top of the camera as before, with two of them being “two layer” dials. The one to the left of the viewfinder remains unchanged, having a top mode dial for ISO with a secondary dial underneath operated by a front facing lever. Underneath the ISO dial is the drive mode dial, allowing your to quickly choose basic things like Single AF, CH, and CL, but also to switch into bracketing exposures, panoramas, and more. The second “two layer” control is underneath the TV (shutter speed) dial. I still don’t find a dial for controlling shutter speed to be a very efficient way to control shutter speed, so I find this dial a little unnecessary, but your mileage may vary. It can only select full stops (you go straight from 125th to 250th second, for example) and bottoms out at 1 second of exposure, which means that the shutter speed that you actually need may not even be accessible via the dial. The byproduct is that I personally only the dial for three settings: A (controlling shutter speed via one of the two wheels as per usual), B (Bulb Mode, ditto on selecting the value), and T (shutter speed priority, ditto on selecting the value).
The bottom half of that dial has two options: Still and Video. This allows you to easily change the camera between stills and video setup with the upside being that you can actually customize everything in each mode (including buttons and wheels) and switch between a fully customized video mode along with your typical stills setup.
The third main control dial is for Exposure Compensation, and it’s a dial that I’m always happy to have. It’s the quickest and most logical way to bias exposure in one direction or another if you are shooting in a mode like AV mode, which I often choose if I’m in lighting conditions where visually confirming exposure is more difficult (very bright conditions, for example). The On/Off dial is located around/under the shutter button, and I personally like this location.
The shutter button itself also has a very classic style, as it is threaded on the inside to allow for customization (soft touch accessories, for example).
There are two other control wheels, one located beneath the shutter button and the other located at the back near the thumb rest. These are typically going to be used for shutter speed and aperture value. What’s unique about these control wheels is that they also can be clicked and serve a dual function as a button as well. The rear wheel, for example, I currently have assigned to magnify the image when I’m manually focusing.
There is one final small switch located on the front of the camera, and it is a quick access AF Mode switch, which allows you to switch between M (Manual), C (Continuous), or S (Single Shot). Perhaps the best thing about this switch is that it gives you an easy, dedicated way to access Manual Focus and replaces an AF/MF switch on the lenses themselves. It works well once your muscle memory extends to remembering that it is there. What’s also useful is that on the front of the camera near the grip and on top of the camera between the dials are two Custom Function buttons. The front one (by default) is a quick access to drive mode settings based on your current drive mode. For example, if I’m in CL (Continuous Low), it opens up the menu setting where I can choose a speed for CL (from 3-8 FPS). If I were in CH, it would give me both the mechanical and electronic shutter burst mode options. The second button by default gives you control options for Eye detection. Some of those options include selecting a priority for which eye (right or left) that you want focused on. It’s an interesting mechanic that does give some diversity from Sony’s approach.
Other physical controls take the form of seven buttons on the back of the camera along with a four-position directional pad (each direction can also be programmed for a different function). One of these is a dedicated Q (quick menu) button. This is similar to Canon’s approach, though I prefer Canon’s method of navigation in that menu. There are a number of options there (16, typically) in the Q Menu, which is good, but when you select one of those options with the tiny joystick also located on the back, the logical (at least for me) choice is to select the option you want to change by hitting either the OK button on clicking the little joystick (clicking it in works similarly to the OK button). Instead of opening up the options for that choice, however, it okays the choice already made and closes the Q menu.
Frustrating. Just like it was on the nine other Fuji cameras I’ve tested.
What the camera actually wants you to do is to move over to the desired setting you want to change and then rotate the rear wheel to change the settings (without another dialogue box ever being opened). I don’t find this a very intuitive process even after reviewing 10 Fuji cameras over the past several years and, more often than not, I’ll click either the joystick or the OK button and have to start the process over again. What’s interesting about this is that while you cannot use the touchscreen to select in the regular menus, you can tap on the icons for the various options in the Q menu and it will open up a dialogue box and allow to select the option you want (by a tap on it) in the way that you would expect the menu to work all the time.
The X-T5’s 3.0 inch tilting touchscreen is upgraded in resolution (up to 1.84 million dots) but not functionality. As noted, we’ve lost the fully articulating screen from the X-T4. The touch functionality also hasn’t progressed and isn’t as responsive or useful as Canon’s mirrorless cameras (where all menu options can be accessed via touch and the screen is nicely responsive) or even as useful as the newer Sony cameras. The X-T5 does allow for things like dragging the focus point around with a thumb when you are looking through the viewfinder, and will also allow one to tap an autofocus point and even take a photo through that means. I didn’t find it as responsive as either Canon or Sony’s touchscreens for touching to focus during video mode. There’s some definite input lag before autofocus responds. You can navigate the Q menu (to some degree) by touch, but the main menu has no touch navigation.
Fuji has a wide range of menu options, and nearly all controls can be customized to the user’s preference. Every camera maker has a different way of organizing such menus, and so expect to have to learn where everything is if you aren’t a long-time Fuji shooter, but I found the menus fairly logical once I began to learn how Fuji labels things. Everything is organized under seven main groups: (Image Quality, AF/MF, Shooting Settings, Flash Settings, Movie Settings, Setup, and Network). There is an eighth tab called “My” (My Menu) that will be populated once you select custom functions to be there. I like to task commonly used settings that I haven’t assigned to a physical control to that area. If you aren’t confident navigating menus, however, you may find these menus a little overwhelming. There is a LOT of room for customization, and little instruction for what different settings do.
An experienced user will probably enjoy the controls of the X-T5 (I do, for the most part), but, as noted, not everyone will love the sheer number of controls. It will be intimidating to some. I view the X-Tx series as being designed for those with a fairly strong grasp of camera operation, and probably not designed for beginners. You need to make a realistic evaluation of where you fall on that spectrum in evaluating if the X-T5 is the camera for you or not. The also-new X-H2 has a more contemporary control scheme.
Ergonomically I prefer the X-T5 to Sony’s APS-C cameras but like the recent Canon R-series APS-C cameras better. The X-T5 feels pretty good in my hands, though I would still prefer a grip extender to have more room for my medium-large hands. There is a grip extender (the MHG-XT5) available though a new battery grip has not yet been announced (and it doesn’t look like there will be one, either).
Let’s complete the physical overview. There is a little port on the front of the camera that is the flash sync port. It unscrews and pops off, but is also very small, so be careful not to lose it! On the left side of the camera is a cover that, when popped open, reveals the main connectivity ports, including a micro-HDMI, USB-C, Remote Shutter release, and Microphone port. Charging can be done via the USB-C port, and I was happy to find that even small power-banks would help to quickly charge the camera. You can attach headphones via a USB-C adapter on the main camera, but that means you have to have a dongle along.
The right side of the camera houses the card slots. The X-T5 has two UHS-II compatible SD card slots. The X-H2 has changed one of those to the faster CF Express Type B standard, but the X-Tx series has stuck with SD thus far.
On the bottom of the camera there is a battery door as one previous models, but what isn’t there is the covered port for connecting the battery grip, which makes me wonder if Fuji plans to offer one. Perhaps the grip for the X-T4 didn’t sell particularly well.
The X-T4 sports a OLED electronic viewfinder design with 3.69m-dot resolution and a slightly higher 0.80x magnification (0.75x on the X-T4). That’s better than some older competitors but doesn’t really break any new ground. It has a good refresh rate (100fps) and I saw no blackout under any kind of shooting conditions.
The camera body is made of a magnesium alloy and sports quality weather sealing. Fuji touts 56 different weather sealing points in the body.
If you liked the X-T4, then you’ll probably like the X-T5, for there are little physical changes here other than the slightly reduced size and weight. I do miss the articulating LCD screen from the X-T4 and question this step backwards when it seems that the articulating screen is the standard that most cameras are moving to. I do appreciate the improved IBIS and the overall feeling of quality in the build.
Fuji X-T5 Autofocus Performance
Improved autofocus was one of the core areas of improvement with the X-T3, but the X-T4 and X-T5 have largely maintained status quo. Improvements are more along the lines of improved focus algorithms and potentially better processing of the focus data via the X-Processor 5. Fuji’s marketing says, “X-T5’s higher pixel count increases the number of phase detection pixels, which improves AF-S focusing accuracy on subjects including landscapes and portraits. The camera also incorporates an improved AF prediction algorithm, newly developed for the X-H2S, enabling stable focusing even when using AF-C.” Note that phase detection “pixels” is not the same as phase detection points, as we have the same number of selectable AF points (425) as we’ve had over the past two generations. Fuji’s focus marketing is directed more along Deep Learning AI technology that improves Eye detection and the number of subjects that can be identified and tracked. In addition to human subjects this now includes animals, birds, cars, motorcycles, bicycles, airplanes, and trains.
As before we have 425 selectable AF points spread over most of the frame.
Phase Detect sensitivity is rated down to -7 EV (with the 50mm F1.0 lens), but that will vary depending on the maximum aperture of the lens you have mounted. I had good focus results (though some reduced focus speed, as per usual) in very low light conditions. It always helps to have an edge on your subject (a contrast point) to aid AF, but I was able to lock accurate focus in varied lighting conditions with good success. This shot is at 1/12th second, F2.8, ISO 12,800 (very dim conditions!).
An area where Fuji’s focus system is actually very good is in the tracking of high speed action. I’ve tested tracking with some of their best sports lenses in the past (including the amazing 200mm F2 lens), and at it’s best, Fuji’s tracking can be very good (though one of the older lenses with a weaker focus motor will hold things back). Tracking is improved on the X-T5 the ability to do the Deep Learning AI tracking of subjects. The burst rate with the mechanical shutter is 15 FPS (with full continuous autofocus). This is obviously exceptionally fast, and easily exceeds the 11FPS offered by the Sony a6600 and matches the 15FPS of the Canon EOS R7. The mechanical shutter allows you up to 1/8000th second shutter speeds. You can go faster, however, by selecting the electronic shutter which enables up to 20FPS and is rated at shutter speeds up to 1/180,000th of a second. You can also switch to a Sports Crop Mode (1.2px) that gives you a bit of additional reach and allows the burst rate to climb to 20 FPS, though surprisingly the 30FPS option of the X-T3 and X-T4 is gone. The Canon R7 gives you 30 FPS, and the X-H2S will give you 40FPS, so the X-Tx series is no longer the king in this category. It makes me wonder if this is not an intentional move by Fuji to create more market separation between the X-Tx series and the X-Hx series.
But there was already a huge market separation when it comes to buffer depth. The X-H2 can record up to 1000+ JPEGs and over 400 RAW files at 20FPS, but the buffer fills MUCH faster on the X-T5. It has the higher resolution sensor (relative to previous X-T bodies) but doesn’t have a stacked sensor (X-H2S) or the newer memory technology of the X-H2, so the buffer fills REALLY fast. At 20FPS (that is with the 1.29x crop) Fuji claims up to 168 JPEGs, up to 72 compressed RAW files, up to 41 lossless compressed RAWs, and only 23 uncompressed RAW files. If you want to shoot with the mechanical shutter (and without the “sports crop”), the buffer will fill faster still. You can get 119 JPEGs, 39 Compressed RAWs, 22 Lossless Compressed RAWs, and only 19 uncompressed RAWs. I found that the buffer filled very quickly in my tests, as you’ve got less than 1.5 seconds with RAW files to capture your action sequence before the frame rate drops.
On a positive note, the camera does quite a good job of quickly clearing the buffer after a burst.
I tested the X-T5 during the dead of winter (and during a major series of winter storms), so I didn’t have a lot of opportunities to test tracking, so I’m relying in part on experiences from the past. This is largely the same focus system though with the addition of the AI learning, so it should be better than ever. My “torture test” in the past with the X-T3 and X-T4 was tracking our dog (about a 23 pound King Charles Cavalier Spaniel) playing high speed fetch. I had fairly good success there, though the focus system of the lens was obviously a huge factor (my best tracking success with a Fuji camera has been on the X-T3 because I had the 200mm F2 to use with it!) One area of real strength is that I find the focus system continues to effectively track even when the subject gets close. Here’s a few shots from one 60 shot series in the past.
I did have the XF 100-400mm OIS during my X-T5 review, but using a slower lens (in terms of aperture) in an indoor setting is somewhat limiting because you have to increase the ISO so high. I was able to get some decent shots even under those conditions.
Bottom line is that the AF system is excellent for tracking action, and I’ve considered this to be one of the strengths for the system.
Fuji has been gradually improving their Eye AF tracking via firmware and updated algorithms, and the X-T5 benefits from having the newest iteration of that. I found Eye detection better than on previous Fuji bodies, but still not quite as effortless on what I’m seeing on recent Sony and Canon bodies. I was typically able to get good focus accuracy, though it takes a little more work than on those other brands. You can see from this shot that focus on my eye even at F1.2 is very good:
I also took this shot of Ferrari at F1.2 with the Viltrox, and you can see excellent focus on the eye.
I largely had good overall focus accuracy during my time with the X-T5, though I don’t enjoy Fuji’s approach to whole sensor tracking. It’s fine for the most part once a subject has been selected, but even when you expand the focus area to whole sensor tracking a smaller green box remains. You can move that box around by touch or the joystick, but you essentially have to get that green box on the subject before whole sensor tracking begins. As a byproduct, I feel like I’m going back to my Canon EOS 6D days when I mostly did focus and recompose. You put the box on the subject and then recompose, though in this case the green box will now “stick” on the subject and deliver better end results.
I continue to see gradual focus improvements, but I don’t feel that Fuji is quite at the level of the other major brands in terms of focus performance. The Canon EOS R7 is my current favorite APS-C model for tracking, though the number of native APS-C RF lenses severely limits that potential at the moment. The X-T5 is limited by its buffer depth, so if you are looking specifically for a sports-oriented Fujifilm camera, consider the more robust X-H2 instead.
Fuji X-T5 Sensor Performance
The headline improvement of the X-T5 is the new 40.2MP X-Trans CMOS 5 HR sensor that is shared with the X-H2 (and future models, I’m sure). Fuji says this of the new sensor, “The high-resolution 40.2MP X-Trans CMOS 5 HR sensor has an enhanced image-processing algorithm that boosts resolution without compromising the signal-to-noise ratio, delivering astonishing image quality.” I’m liking this new sensor, which in many ways seems to deliver more resolution than the 32MP sensor found in Canon’s EOS R7 without adding any new compromises.
If you want even more resolution (and have the right kind of subject), you can use the new Pixel Shift Multi-Shot which utilizes the sensor shifting ability to combine 16 shots into a single 160MP shot…though you’ll have to download the free Pixel Shift Combiner software from Fuji to combine the images (it can’t be done in camera, unfortunately). That’s more of a commitment than I had time to make to this review, so you’ll have to explore this feature for yourself.
We’ve improved the resolution here but have retained the very rich Fujifilm color science that delivers very pleasing images.
Many people love Fuji colors, and they include a number of their film emulations that can give a unique “feel” to images and/or video footage. Feel free to skip over the technical information if it doesn’t interest you; any modern camera can give you fantastic images.
Fuji X-T5 ISO Performance
Fuji tends to be a little more conservative with their native ISO range than other companies and resort to less marketing hype, though I frankly find the ISO performance to be ever bit as good as the best from Canon and Sony (the other brands I test). In this case the native range is expanded slightly, but on the bottom end, as the base ISO is now 125 rather than 160. The native limit is still 12,800, though expanded options at 25,600 and 51,200 are available. I didn’t really feel like there was much of a step back relative to the X-T4 despite the increased resolution, with images at ISO 6400 looking usable in real world situations.
At ISO 800 there is a mild addition of noise only detectable in the shadows. There isn’t a lot of difference from base ISO, however, and moving on to ISO 1600 shows little difference. At ISO 3200 there is slightly less contrast and slightly more noise, and that pattern continues at ISO 6400 and 12,800, where the noise becomes rougher and more visible in shadow areas. The first stop in the expanded range (25,600) looks about the same as what you would find on a Sony or Canon camera (where it is included in the native ISO range), with more visible noise and black levels that aren’t as deep due to “hot” pixels. ISO 51,200 should be be avoided, as image quality is several stops worse even though that is only one stop more. There’s a fair difference between ISO 3200 and 12,800:
Fuji says that the X-Trans sensor produces a more film-grain-like noise pattern, but it mostly looks like the pattern noise I see with most cameras.
What is a strength, however, is color fidelity. I never really see a shift to greens or magenta as the ISO raises, nor do I see obvious banding in the shadow areas. Overall I’m impressed with the performance. This real world image at ISO 12,800 looks perfectly useful to me.
Switch it to a monochrome where a bit of grain is desirable (Acros +R here) and you’ve got a great looking shot.
This is all very impressive considering how much the resolution has increased. The X-T4 had a pixel pitch of 3.74 µm; the X-T5 has a pixel pitch of 3.04 µm. That’s a lot of pixel packed close together, and it is very impressive how Fuji has managed to pair high resolution with fairly clean ISO performance.
Fuji X-T5 Dynamic Range Performance
I value dynamic range within a camera in two specific areas: the ability to cleanly lift shadows without introducing noise or color banding and the ability to recover highlights without introducing “hot spots” where information has been permanently lost.
Having good dynamic range (particularly if you shoot RAW), allows you a lot more creative vision over how the final image will turn out, though it is always worth mentioning that just because you can raise shadows or reduce highlights it doesn’t always mean you should. Sometimes a photo with crushed shadows or blown out highlights is the better one.
Fuji has an extra trick up its sleeve to help you maximize dynamic range performance in such scenes, which we’ll get to in just a moment.
In my tests, I found that the X-T5 did an excellent job of recovering shadows very cleanly. Here we have an image that I purposefully underexposed by four stops. As you can see in the original RAW image, there is very little information left there. In post I added those four stops back into the recovered image. What we find is an image that has been recovered with very little penalty, whether viewed globally:
…or at a pixel level:
I could even recover shadows fairly cleanly at five stops, though you can see some additional noise has been introduced in the checkerboard pattern of the tabletop.
As is often the case, however, highlight recovery lags behind shadow recovery. Even at 3 stops of recovered highlights there is damage done to the image with both “hotspots” (information that cannot be recovered) and the loss of some colors in our swatches.
Sony is about a half-stop better in this regard, but Fuji has one other trick that I previously mentioned. If you move beyond the base ISO to either ISO 250 or 500 (and beyond), two new options open up in the menu. These are DR200 (available at ISO 250) and DR400 (available at ISO 400). What these do is essentially split the sensor readout so that the shadow information is gathered from the current ISO setting while the highlight information comes from base ISO. At ISO 250 that gives you one additional stop in the highlights (DR200), while at ISO 500 you gain two (DR400). This allows you to overexpose the image slightly so that you have plenty of information in the shadows, but since there is one or two stops less exposure in the highlights, you have plenty of ability to recover blown out areas in post. I also find that you retain better contrast even if you underexpose and recover using this method (here’s the DR400 recovered result at three stops of overexposure compared to the base ISO three-stop recovery):
Note how much more detailed and bright the right (DR400) recovery result looks. The shadow information looks the same on the two images (ISO 500 isn’t high enough to really introduce any additional noise), but the highlights are brighter and have much great fidelity. You’ll also note how much richer the colors are in the swatches by comparison. The better retention of highlights has vastly improved the overall contrast. I would pick the image on the right every time. It looks like a natural photograph despite the fairly radical recovery of highlights.
The original looked like a complete mistake (misfiring flash, wrong settings, etc..), while the recovered image looks like a perfectly exposed shot. This is a technique well worth utilizing where needed, though I found that for the most part I did have enough dynamic range to edit as desired even at the base ISO. This shot, for example, of a snow covered dead tree against the sky shows that I’ve been able to recover the shadow information on the branches, keep the snow from being blown out, and even retained the sky information.
That’s a very useful amount of dynamic range, and if you need more, just use the DR200 or DR400 modes. It’s worth noting that due to the increased sensitivity in the ISO (base ISO of 125 vs 160) both of those are available earlier than they were previously, meaning that you can keep the noise down even more than on previous Fuji bodies.
On the video front we find that the X-T5 has Fuji’s F-LOG2 which boasts over 13 stops of dynamic range, meaning that you have more video dynamic range available than on previous models that only had the original F-LOG profile.
X-T5 Resolution and Detail
The new 40.2MP sensor is a whopping 53% higher in pixel count than the 26.16MP sensor on the last few X-T bodies. That additional resolution has a lot of potential value, particularly when, as we’ve seen above, it doesn’t come with a lot of extra baggage in terms of reduced ISO performance. For portrait photographers, that high resolution means that you can take one portrait and get multiple different crops out of just one image.
For landscape photographers, you get the same kind of versatility. I can tighten the crop to show more detail from the scene…and I’m still at the resolution level of the X-T4:
Macro photographers can increase their level of magnification while also retaining plenty of resolution for printing or sharing. I can crop in this much while retaining 100% of the resolution of the X-T4:
I could obviously crop much deeper and still have plenty of resolution for most applications.
Wildlife photographers will also enjoy the flexibility of deeply cropping. In this original shot (not with a long telephoto, obviously), you can barely tell that there is a wild turkey up this tree.
A deep crop reveals the turkey up the tree, however, while retaining enough detail to make it interesting.
I’m having a hard time finding a downside to the resolution here, particularly when there is a Lossless Compressed RAW file option that keeps the file size down to a reasonable 40MB(ish) size, JPEGs are around 18MB, and if you want even smaller file sizes, you now can choose the HEIF image format which delivers 10-bit image quality in files up to 30% smaller than standard JPEGs.
X-T5 Color
Fujifilm has a solid reputation when it comes to color science. Their long experience with film (it’s right there in the name!!) has translated into a retro-oriented view at film emulation in their digital cameras. You can choose from 19 simulated Fujifilm film stocks in camera from color film simulations to a variety of monochrome stocks as well. These include: (PROVIA/Standard, Velvia/Vivid, ASTIA/Soft, Classic Chrome, PRO Neg.Hi, PRO Neg.Std, Classic Neg., Nostalgic Neg., ETERNA/Cinema, ETERNA BLEACH BYPASS, ACROS, ACROS + Ye Filter, ACROS + R Filter, ACROS + G Filter, Black & White, Black & White + Ye Filter, Black & White + R Filter, Black & White + G Filter, Sepia). One of my personal favorites is Classic Chrome. Here’s a JPEG shot in Classic Chrome that shows off the slightly blue shadows and general look that I enjoy about the simulation.
You can also control grain (if that’s your thing) in camera as well. Most of these tweaks in-camera will only matter if you are shooting JPEGs. If you are shooting RAWs you can do all of this in post. Here’s the same scene from the RAW image rendered in Astia/Soft, Velvia/Vivid, and then Provia/Standard:
Many that have chosen Fuji have done so for their ability to shoot JPEGs and get what they like right out of camera. If that sounds like you, then the Fuji X-T5 might be a great choice. It’s certainly got a lot of customization available for influencing the output. The RAW colors are nice to process as well. Here’s one that I’ve processed using the Velvia profile (and the 30mm F2.8 Macro):
I would recommend that you take a long look at the Image Galleries page to see if you like what is there – most of which has received minimal processing so you can make a fair determination.
Fuji X-T5 Video
A new sensor means new video possibilities as well, and in this case while the X-T4 maxed out at UHD 4K60p video recording at 4:2:0 10-bit, the larger resolution on the X-T5 opens up room for even higher resolution – up to 6.2K at 30P. Video options include:
[6.2K(16:9)] 6240 x 3510 29.97p/25p/24p/23.98p 360Mbps/200Mbps/100Mbps/50Mbps
[DCI4K HQ(17:9)] 4096 x 2160 29.97p/25p/24p/23.98p 360Mbps/200Mbps/100Mbps/50Mbps
[4K HQ(16:9)] 3840 x 2160 29.97p/25p/24p/23.98p 360Mbps/200Mbps/100Mbps/50Mbps
[DCI4K(17:9)] 4096 x 2160 59.94p/50p/29.97p/25p/24p/23.98p 360Mbps/200Mbps/100Mbps/50Mbps
[4K(16:9)] 3840 x 2160 59.94p/50p/29.97p/25p/24p/23.98p 360Mbps/200Mbps/100Mbps/50Mbps
[Full HD(17:9)] 2048 x 1080 59.94p/50p/29.97p/25p/24p/23.98p 360Mbps/200Mbps/100Mbps/50Mbps
[Full HD(16:9)] 1920 x 1080 59.94p/50p/29.97p/25p/24p/23.98p 360Mbps/200Mbps/100Mbps/50Mbps
[Full HD(17:9) High speed rec.] 2048 x 1080 240p/200p/120p/100p 360Mbps(recording)/200Mbps(recording)
[Full HD(16:9) High speed rec.] 1920 x 1080 240p/200p/120p/100p 360Mbps(recording)/200Mbps(recording)
4K frame rate still tops out at 60FPS, so you’ll have to drop to Full HD for the best slow motion performance, but this is obviously a pretty robust suite of video options and bitrates. The inclusion of the aforementioned F-LOG2 also helps give you more editing headroom, and footage looks really nice off the X-T5.
The improved IBIS is obviously a huge benefit to the X-T5’s video capture, and the ability to quickly choose between a Stills and Movie setup also helps. The newer Fuji lenses tend to perform better with focus pulls than older lenses (which often showed a lot of visible stepping). When I tested the new Fuji 30mm F2.8 Macro (with Linear Motor focus) during this review, I found that focus pulls were as fast and smooth as what I’m seeing on any other platform.
The X-T5 doesn’t quite match the video performance of the X-H2 (8K, better cooling), but it is still a very robust little platform for capturing video.
Conclusion
The FUJIFILM X-T5 is a great evolution of the X-T4, and the new 40MP sensor is definitely a standout. I definitely prefer it to the older 26MP sensor and am impressed with what Fuji has managed to do with it. It compares favorably to Canon’s 32MP sensor on the EOS R7 while offering superior resolution. Image quality is definitely lovely from this camera.
Some may be a bit daunted by the massive amounts of physical controls, though I personally enjoy that aspect of the camera, and one always has the option to utilize the Quick or Regular menus to make changes instead. The great film simulations and beautiful JPEGs are a delight to many Fuji fans, and that retro aesthetic to the design and the film simulations appeal to the “purists” who only grudgingly accept the digital era.
Autofocus continues to improve, though this is probably the area that I would still like to see the biggest refining in. I would prefer some tweaking to the way that whole sensor tracking and continuous autofocus is handled, as I feel that both Sony and especially Canon have some advantages here. The very shallow buffer also limits the X-T5 as an action camera, though I think it will handle most other photography scenarios with some aplomb.
The X-T5’s greatest competition may just be in the form of Fujifilm’s own X-H2, which adds a number of features including: much deeper buffers, superior memory card technology, 8K video, fully articulating LCD screen, higher resolution viewfinder, has a full size HDMI port along with a native headphone jack, and can be gotten with a vertical grip and cooling fan. The difference in price is only $300, and if your work includes either video or sports photography, it is probably well worth that additional $300. The X-T5 is more compact and has the retro look and control scheme that some love, however. It would seem that the X-T5 is the generation where Fuji has worked to create more market separation between the two lines…which will either simplify or complicate your buying decision. In general, however, it feels to me that Fuji is moving in the right direction, though as always, the price point is just high enough to make you question whether or not moving to full frame on another brand might be the wiser choice. Decisions, decisions…
Pros:
The new 40MP sensor is excellent
Beautiful build with a classic sensibility
Improved IBIS works better than ever
Excellent focus system with Deep Learning AI for tracking action
Competitive burst rates
Compact body
Shutter rated up to 300,000 actuations
Even better battery performance
Good detail, ISO performance, and dynamic range
Improved video specs, including 6K30P options
Huge amounts of customization available for images and controls
Solid ergonomics
Great lens selection
Cons:
The screen has reverted to tilt rather than articulating
Eye AF performance still lags behind Sony and Canon
Whole screen tracking not as smoothly implemented as competitors
Receive a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!
Keywords: Fujifilm, X-T5, Fuji X-T5, X-T5 Review, Fuji X-T5 Review, Fujinon, Dustin Abbott, Review, Sensor, Tracking, IBIS, Stabilization, Eye AF, 100-400mm, 150-600mm, F2.8, 30mm F2.8 Macro, XF, Review, Hands On, Video Test, Sharpness, High ISO, Autofocus, Dynamic Range, 40MP, 40 MP, Lens, Comparison, Test, Dustinabbott.net, APS-C, X-Trans, 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.
I was late to the Fuji party. I did my first Fuji review in 2018 (starting with the Fujifilm X-T3) and was impressed by the maturity of the system in many ways when compared to other APS-C mirrorless camera systems. In the last four years, however, there has been a lot of changes in the industry. Canon and Nikon have jumped into the space with new APS-C bodies, and companies like Sony have seen a lot of new lenses development (particularly from third parties). But Fuji has also made what I consider to be an incredibly important move in opening up their platform to third party development, and we have already seen a number of new lenses from Tamron, Sigma, and Samyang (along with others) come in Fuji X-mount. One of the more impressive lenses of 2022 was announced right at the end of the year in the form of the Viltrox Pro AF 75mm F1.2 for Fuji X-mount. I pretty much raved over it in my review, which I did on this X-T5. The Fujifilm X-T4 (my review here) was an important step forward for Fuji as it introduced some very important new features to the series, including In Body Image Stabilization (IBIS), an articulating LCD screen, a new and improved battery, and a faster mechanical shutter. What didn’t change, however, was the 26MP X-Trans sensor which we had seen in a number of Fujifilm cameras. That all changes with the Fujifilm X-T5, however, which joins the X-H2 in utilizing an ultra-high resolution new 40.2MP sensor that delivers wonderfully detailed 7728 x 5152 pixel images. The new sensor is definitely the headline new feature here, though there are a number of other improvements that we’ll explore as a part of our review.
As with the release of the X-T4 and the existing X-T3, it appears that the X-T4 will continue to be sold for the present alongside the X-T5 as a cheaper alternative. The X-T4 can currently be had for roughly $1550 USD, while the X-T5 costs an additional $150 and shares the old price point of the X-T4 at $1699 USD. Slightly more upmarket of that is the impressive Fujfilm X-H2 at a price point of about $2000 USD. That additional $300 nets you a more professional grade body, much deeper buffers, improved viewfinder, and more robust video features and is well worth considering if you have deeper pockets.
There is a certain amount of market parity these days, and there are some things that Sony, Canon, and Nikon do better, though Fuji has had a long investment in the APS-C mirrorless space, and it shows in the maturity of the system. These other brands are more focused in the full frame market, but Fuji has focused on APS-C and never entered the full frame space. That has led to more lens development (including a revamping of same aging designs with new MK II version) along with a fully fleshed out accessory market. And, as noted, the opening up of the platform to third party development has lead to some excellent third party options at more affordable price points which helps close the gap with a company like Sony that has long been more third party friendly. I’ve spent time with a couple of new Fuji lenses as a part of this review, including the new XF 30mm F2.8 Macro lens which was a fun lens to play with over the holidays.
There are still some areas where Fuji lags a bit, and my primary complaints are focused on an autofocus system that is only marginally improved and that lags in some areas behind the other brands in some areas along with my continued frustration with navigating Fuji’s Q-menu. I’ve not seen any real progress on their touchscreen capabilities in four years. But while I might prefer the focus and ergonomics of, say, the Canon R7 (my review here), the complete lack of appealing lenses means that Fuji is still offering the more appealing system in general. There are a lot of great things about the X-T5 and Fuji’s approach to APS-C, so let’s take a closer look if the Fuji X-T5 meets your needs for photography and/or video. You can read my findings in my text review or watch them in my definitive video review…or just enjoy the photos in the gallery.
Follow Me @ YouTube | Patreon | Instagram | Facebook | DA Merchandise | Flickr | 500pxThanks to Fujifilm Canada for loaning me the X-T5 and lenses for this review. As always, this is a completely independent review and my conclusions are my own.
Receive a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!
Keywords: Fujifilm, X-T5, Fuji X-T5, X-T5 Review, Fuji X-T5 Review, Fujinon, Dustin Abbott, Review, Sensor, Tracking, IBIS, Stabilization, Eye AF, 100-400mm, 150-600mm, F2.8, 30mm F2.8 Macro, XF, Review, Hands On, Video Test, Sharpness, High ISO, Autofocus, Dynamic Range, 40MP, 40 MP, Lens, Comparison, Test, Dustinabbott.net, APS-C, X-Trans, 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.
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
7Artisans AF 35mm F1.4 X-Mount Review 
Sony FE 50-150mm F2 GM Gallery 
Sony FE 50-150mm F2 G Master Review 
Viltrox AF 35mm F1.2 LAB FE Gallery 
