A compact, weather sealed, pancake lens with good auto focus! What more can you want? But does it have image quality to the Fujifilm standards? Find out what you can do with this lens in my video below:
My Impression And The Fun Factor
- it’s wide enough to get close like 35mm
- it can be a 50mm lens if you get close enough
- I like the flare it’s dreamy, I didn’t feel I had flare issue for the type of photography that I make
- it has the characteristic of a 35mm but you can’t get a tall building in frame if you don’t have enough space
- pancake and weather resistant a dream come true for a camera like X-PRO3 or other weather resistant camera
What I don’t like
- minimum focus distance it’s 34 cm – I need at least 30 cm!
- f/2.8 aperture not enough – better do it a little bigger and give me an f2 aperture
- I don’t feel a big difference comparing the 20mm pancake from Lumix that is f1.8 and you can get really close with it because it has a better MFD
Fujifilm XF 27mm f/2.8 Image Quality
- image quality could be better – it depends on the scene and light, it’s ok but it could be better
- it doesn’t have the contrast of 35mm f2
- images are washed out if you don’t have good light
- not a good portrait lens – you don’t have enough blur and micro-contrast
- not a good landscape lens (low resolution and details)
- look at the MTF charts (they confirm what I’m saying here)
- BUT even if image quality it’s not top notch, it’s not poor, if you know how to setup the jpeg files, or if you edit your raw files you’ll get good results for every kind of photography type that you want to do – so image quality it’s sufficient as I can show you in my pictures
Portraits With Fujifilm XF 27mm f/2.8
Fujifilm XF 27mm f2.8 MKII by Night
The f2.8 aperture it’s not an attractive selling point for night photography, so this why I don’t use it often when outside it’s night – for night photography I need at least f2 but f1.4 it’s the best! That is why I use this lens in combination with Fujifilm 35mm f1.4 lens and Fujifilm18mm f2 lens.
Fujinon XF 27mm f2.8 MKII Build Quality – 8.5 / 10
It’s well build with nice satisfying clicks, but not something that will blow your mind. It’s seems sturdy and lite. I like more the build quality of 18mm f2, 35mm f2 and so on.
Fuji XF 27mm f2.8 MKII Focusing
- very good in AFS
- good in AFC
- very fast and OK tracking
- you’ll here the noise in video
- the noise it’s not as loud as 18mm f2 / 35mm 1.4
Images Fuji XF 27mm f2.8 MKII Lens On X-PRO3 And X-E4
Fujifilm Fuji XF 27mm f2.8 MKII Lens Image Samples
Conclusions
I think it’s a perfect balance for portability, versatility, features and price. This lens will make any Fujifilm camera to be an every day camera. Set the color, sharpness and contrast via tone curve tool or clarity and use it with confidence! So get it! You’ll not regret it.