Choosing a 50mm Prime Lens for the Fujifilm XT200 — West Sussex Portrait Photographer

It’s long been said that everybody should possess a fast prime lens with an approximate 50 mm field of view. Why is that the case? I think the answer lies in its versatility, since its main uses are likely to be:

indoor and outdoor social photography for weddings, family portraits, baby photography and pet portraits
street photography
low light situations where a very fast maximum aperture is needed

As far as my needs are concerned, I want a 50 mm equivalent prime (or similar) to cover the first and last bullet point. As most of you will realise, given my Fuji camera has an APS-C sized sensor with a x1.5 ‘crop factor’ I’ll need to search for a 35 mm lens in order to gain the 50 mm field of view I’m looking for.

I’m not a fan of 50 mm on the street (preferring something a little wider), so I’ll mostly use this kind of lens for other purposes. I’m a portrait photographer (I also cover a lot of pet photo shoots) where at least part of the session might be indoors or under cover. A 50 mm field if view is perfect for average sized rooms and group shots. A fast aperture creates the often desirable subject separation and also enables me to work using natural light (even when there’s comparatively little light). I intend to use my Fuji XT200 as both my ‘run and grab’ camera on professional shoots, and also as my personal use camera.

Every photographer is different and in fact our needs can differ wildly. Because I’m often capturing candid moments, a key requirement ‘for me’ would be fast and quiet autofocus. In fact that’s more important to my day to day work than exacting sharpness or build quality.

This conversation assumes that camera and lens have the most recent firmware. Your opinion on any new camera and lens combo is also likely to be governed by the other equipment you normally use, and how responsive it is. I know from long experience that no Fuji system I have ever owned or used will match the performance of my Sony, Panasonic, or even Canon setups.

When testing lenses we need to consider build quality, sharpness (particularly at the widest aperture values), autofocus speed and accuracy, eye and face autofocus, noises when focusing, colour, bokeh quality, chromatic aberration, distortion, and the presence of any anomalies. I’m not an experienced videographer so I’ll leave film tests for somebody else.

Like anyone, I did plenty of research on each of the options in this article. However research won’t always give you the whole picture and sometimes the only way to understand a piece of equipment is to try it. I have no desire to be contentious (I am after all a Fuji camera user and I have been for many years, though not as my main working system). But more than any other brand I have seen, I do think some Fuji photographers can be quite attached to their equipment and are reluctant to acknowledge any shortcomings. Suffice it to say that despite autofocus improvements across the board in the Fujifilm camera lineup (and firmware updates) autofocus speeds in general do lag behind their competitors.

We have to be realistic with very fast aperture lenses. We should expect some softness at the widest aperture values, across much of the frame, to a degree (the degree tends to vary with the price of the lens). We should also expect some chromatic aberration around high contrast areas (particularly at the corners and edges of the frame). All of my fast prime lenses exhibit these phenomena, as well as varying amounts of vignetting wide open. Therefore it’s the extent of these anomalies that we should assess, rather than if they’re merely present. It should also be said that the closer we are to our subject when using a fast aperture, the softer and hazier the resulting image is likely to be. Again, that isn’t abnormal. By and large, it’s the lower priced primes which are generally more prone to these issues.

How often are we likely to be shooting at the maximum aperture? In bright sunlight this may mean exceeding our camera’s maximum shutter speed (unless our camera has a fast electronic shutter, or unless we use neutral density filters of some sort). We’re most likely to be shooting wide open only in situations where we absolutely have to, or where maximum subject isolation is a creative decision. And to be honest, for most of us that isn’t going to happen very often - but it’s still nice to have the option. If we can determine this isn’t crucial, then our lens choices become more open.

Another thing to beware of is that the minimum focusing distance can vary from lens to lens. On a standard zoom lens (such as many kit lenses) the close focusing ability is often quite impressive (albeit at the wide end of the zoom scale). My Fuji 15-45 kit lens is good in that regard (around 13cm). The Fuji XF 35 mm F1.4 has a minimum focusing distance of approximately 28 cm. The XF/XC 35 mm F2 has a close focusing distance of around 35 cm. The Viltrox 33 mm F1.4 has a less useful 40 cm minimum focusing distance.

Having worked my way through three possibilities, my views on each of the lenses I tried are set out below. I’m only including photographs from the lens I decided to keep. They all offer very good image quality, but I was more interested in other aspects of their performance.

Fujifilm XF 35 mm F1.4 Lens

I’m not going to say too much about this one, and it should be said it’s a fairly old design. In many ways this lens proved to be an unmitigated disaster, in terms of the kind of work I would want to use it for. Whilst the autofocus is fast enough in ideal light, it was agonisingly slow (unusably so) in the kind of indoor light I often find myself in. The autofocus is also extremely noisy indoors (you’re less likely to be troubled by the noise outdoors where there are ambient background sounds).

There’s no doubt the lens offers nice rendering, very good build quality, and gorgeous looks - but it’s let down by frankly dire autofocus performance.

Viltrox 33 mm F1.4 Fuji X Mount

At this point I’m still thinking about an F1 .4 lens. My reasoning being that it can be useful at times to have the extra stop of light offered by an F1.4 lens vs an F2 (albeit with some caveats). In their advertising Viltrox describe this lens as having “fast and silent autofocus”.

The reviews I saw of the Viltrox optics were resoundingly positive, from build quality to focusing speed as well as sharpness. However there is nothing quite like getting a piece of equipment into your hands. This is notable when there are so few purchaser reviews, and rather a lot of photographers who have been sent the lens by the manufacturer (which can introduce a degree of bias). Now that I’ve had a chance to test it - does this lens live up to the hype?

The Viltrox 33 F1.4 lens is a little bigger and heavier than the Fuji XT 35 mm F1.4. It has an aperture ring on the lens body, but it’s clickless. I don’t like aperture rings at the best of times and I’m even less enamoured by the stepless nature of this one, but it’s nice and firm and I had no problems with it getting accidentally knocked out of position. We don’t have to control aperture via the lens ring of course, we can set the lens to A mode and control the aperture via the camera. If there’s a problem keeping the aperture ring in whichever position we’ve set it at I’d employ a piece of electrical tape (sorry if that’s sacrilege to many Fuji users).

My first impressions of the Viltrox 33 f1.4 were good. Build quality is excellent (but bear in mind it isn’t weather-sealed). It’s a good-looking lens too (more so if you like the blingy gold lettering).

I found there was slightly less chromatic aberration than with the Fuji 35mm F1.4, and I prefer the bokeh on the Viltrox. Edge softness wide open is broadly similar between the two lenses but the Viltrox appears sharper across the centre at all apertures. By F2.8 the Viltrox is stunningly sharp across the centre and pretty good in the corners. In terms of colour and contrast they are on par, but I’d say the Viltrox runs very slightly little warmer. In terms of autofocus speed there is no contest - in all situations the Viltrox outperforms the Fuji 35 F1.4 (interestingly I found the Fuji 35 mm F1.4 faster to focus in ideal light). But does that mean the Viltrox is ‘fast enough’ for its intended usage?

Unfortunately my answer to that is no (I couldn’t reliably use this for snappy candid portraiture, pet photography, street photography - at least not in the way I like to work). When acquiring focus it momentarily stutters back and forth (there is noise, but nothing on par with the Fuji 35mm F1.4) and this is the same irrespective of how good the light is. This happened with virtually every shot I took. I was surprised, given that this lens is marketed as having ‘fast and silent’ autofocus. I don’t mind a little bit of noise, but there’s no doubt that for the situations where I would use this lens, I would lose an awful lot of decisive moments. That rules it out for me, but it may not be a problem for others. This also seems to be at odds with some of the reviews I watched on YouTube where the autofocus appeared to be better than I had experienced - perhaps I had a faulty unit.

I was saddened at having to send this lens back, because it’s great in so many ways.

So here’s the bottom line. If you’re used to a very fast focusing system then this lens on a Fuji camera is not going to amaze you. But if you absolutely need F1.4, then I think you’ll enjoy the Viltrox. It’s a quality piece of kit, with gorgeous IQ. Depending on what you shoot you may find the autofocus acceptably fast, and it’s a better performer all round than the Fuji 35 F1.4. But if you want something smaller and lighter, affordable and sharp, hopefully faster to focus, then would the Fuji XC 35 F2 be a better choice? Let’s see ……

Fuji XC 35 mm F2.0

If you don’t need weather sealing then the XC version of this lens is for you (the XT variant is weather sealed and I believe both lenses are optically identical).

With a lightweight plastic construction the new Fuji XC 35 mm F2.0 is one of those lenses which represents fantastic value for money. It doesn’t come with a lens hood, but there are some very good third-party options (albeit still fairly expensive).

If you’ve read this far you’ll know that my priority is competent autofocus. This lens clearly beats the Fuji XT 35 mm F1.4 and its Viltrox cousin. It isn’t perfect though. In ideal light the autofocus is very fast but at times you do still see the forward then back pulse which will probably rule this out for video work. In dim light this is more pronounced however the lens doesn’t stutter like the others in this article, and it’s significantly quieter. The close focusing distance isn’t anything special so be aware of that if you’re failing to lock focus on a nearby target. Eye and face autofocus work well (providing your subject isn’t wearing glasses).

Autofocus aside, where the XC 35 mm F2.0 lens shines is the image quality. It’s sharp wide open, across the vast majority of the frame. Contrast and colour are excellent (unless you’re shooting at the widest aperture value and at the closest focusing distance, in which case you’ll see something of a soft focus effect - common to many fast primes under those circumstances). The quality of the bokeh is lovely and smooth. Whilst you may feel that you would prefer an F1.4 lens, in my experience shooting at F1.4 is a rarity - images are rarely tack sharp (particularly when close to our subject). That in itself is likely to limit use of an F1.4 lens a little more than you had hoped, and likewise any other aperture value to at least F2.8. Given the Fuji XC 35 lens is sharp even at F2, it’s clear this lens has some advantages.

Chromatic aberration is evident at wider aperture values, similar to the XF 35 F1.4 lens, although it’s marginally better.

Given the options available to me, the XC 35 is the lens I decided to keep purely on autofocus alone. I will say at this point that the autofocus is not on par with the 15-45 Fuji kit lens which came with my camera. If you need a lightweight standard prime for your Fuji camera which won’t break the bank, this one is a great choice in my opinion. I paid £169.00 for mine in November 2020 – a bargain.

Fuji XC 35 Image Samples

The images have not been processed, save for minor exposure adjustment on the photos of the writing. An unprocessed RAW file tends to look a little dull (for comparison I’ve included one picture which has been processed as I normally would in Adobe Lightroom). There have been no other corrections, so you can see what the out of camera RAW files look like, particularly with respect to depth of field and chromatic aberration. The latter is evident at the wider aperture values, particularly longitudinal CA. This creates colour shifts through the transitional out of focus areas, which gradually disappear as the lens is stopped down. Longitudinal CA won’t plague all of your wide aperture images, it’s high contrast borders which will be affected - hence the choice to use text to test the extent of it. Vignetting is all but absent in my test images.

Because the photographs of the writing were taken at fairly close range (close to the minimum focusing distance) the F2.0 image shows the slight haziness I mentioned earlier. The focus point is on the wording ’settings are consistent’. If I pulled back a bit then the softening at F2.0 wouldn’t be an issue, as demonstrated in the photograph of the crayons. The photos of the sheet of paper were taken at an angle to show the differences in depth of field at the various aperture values.

I’ve also included a couple of pictures taken with the little kit lens, the Fujifilm XC 15-45 mm F3.5-5.6 OIS PZ. I’m really impressed with this lens, it’s super sharp across the centre of the frame at all settings. As you might notice, this lens has lovely colour and contrast too – in fact in these images it beats the prime. The XC 35 shows a slightly cooler rendering. The 15-45 is also faster and more accurate with respect to autofocus. The kit lens also has image stabilisation, which makes a big difference in low light (these photographs weren’t subject to camera shake because I had stabilised the camera adequately when taking them).

If you notice some noise in the images, that’s because I was using natural light on a very dark winter day in southern England. My XT200 is fantastic in low light and the noise doesn’t impact detail either (another reason for my dislike of Fuji’s X-Trans sensors, where higher ISO images seem to have a measure of noise reduction applied in camera to the RAW files – let’s not go there).

The kit lens is used at an aperture of F5, because that’s the fastest aperture you’ll get at approximately a 50mm field of view. Using the XC 35 at F2.0 shows just how much background separation you can get - the crayons were approximately 4 feet from the background. Had I been using an F1.4 lens, the fireplace would have virtually disappeared. That isn’t a look I particularly like, I want at least some context in a scene. With shots like this, I feel the F2.8 aperture gives the nicest result.

Sigma 30mm f1.4 DC DN

Since we’re talking about wide aperture standard prime lenses, I thought I’d say a few words about one of the best primes I’ve ever owned. I purchased the Sigma 30mm f1.4 DC DN in the Sony e-mount fit. It’s an APS-C lens, which can also be used on my Sony full frame cameras (in crop mode). This is probably the sharpest lens I have. However by its nature it’s still subject to some of the characteristics I touched on earlier.

Autofocus on all of my Sony cameras is extremely fast with this lens. Very occasionally when photographing low contrast subjects in poor light it can hunt briefly or miss focus (but much less than the Fuji lenses I’ve already discussed). Other than that, focusing is near silent. Vignetting is extremely well controlled and edge-to-edge sharpness can be seen at all aperture values with only a small amount of edge softening wide open.

As you can see from the photograph of the text, when used at or close to the minimum focusing distance there is a slight haziness at F1.4. As I’ve mentioned, this is pretty normal at ultra wide apertures. But the photograph at F1.4 of the crayons demonstrates just how sharp this lens can be at its widest aperture, given a little breathing space between the subject. At F2 the lens is sharper still and sharp as a knife at F2.8.

You can also see on the text photographs that this lens exhibits virtually no longitudinal chromatic aberration. Instead, you’ll see the much more familiar transverse chromatic aberration (shown as purple fringing around high contrast areas). Transverse CA is extremely easy to correct for, but longitudinal CA can be a pain to get rid of.

Lastly, if you don’t have a fast lens yet for your XT200 and if you’re worried about high ISO noise - don’t. This little camera has absolutely stunning image quality. Amazing as this sounds, it’s not far behind the Sony A7Riii. Here’s a comparison between the Fuji XT200 and the Sony A7Riii.