Fujifilm Fujinon XF 50 mm f/1.0 R WR review - Summary

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Fujifilm Fujinon XF 50 mm f/1.0 R WR

22 December 2020

Maciej Latałło

11. Summary

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Pros:

solid, weather-sealed casing,
excellent image quality in the frame centre,
good correction of lateral chromatic aberration,
slight distortion,
moderate astigmatism,
very nice out-of-focus areas,
silent and accurate autofocus.

Cons:

weak image quality on the edge of the frame near the maximum relative aperture,
too high longitudinal chromatic aberration,
noticeable spherical aberration,
significant coma,
distinct vignetting,
performance against bright light could have been better,
poor price/performance and price/quality ratio.

Instead of a summary I would like to ask some questions:

who in the Fujifilm decided to launch a 1.0/50 lens when there are already two versions of the 1.2/56 instrument available in a system which lacks an 85 mm f/1.2-1.4 device?
why the expensive Fujinon XF 50 mm f/1.0 is not able to get better maximum results than the much cheaper and slower Fujinon 2/50?
why resolution records in the Fujifilm X system belong to the cheap Viltrox and not to the Fujinon XF 50 mm f/1.0, a lens faster and significantly more expensive?
does the Fujifilm X system really needs big, heavy fixed focal length lenses with price tags as high as $1500?

After looking at the results of our test and the lists of pros and cons, these are rhetorical questions. In a nutshell, the new Fujinon is really sharp in the frame centre but, looking at its price and parameters, our expectations were much higher than that. Such a lens can succeed on the market only if it proves to be a truly outstanding instrument and, we regret to say, the Fujinon XF 50 mm f/1.0 R WR is not outstanding at all. If it was supposed to be a show of strength, it failed completely.