When it comes to fast 55-56 mm lenses, designed for mirrorless cameras with APS-C sensors, third-party producers ensure you a really rich choice. Due to that fact we didn't have any problems with compiling the following chart.
The new Fujinon is here the biggest and the heaviest. It's quite understandable up to a point – after all it is also optically the most complex device around and it is weather-sealed as the only one in this group. Apart from that, it is faster than lenses produced by 7Artisans, Sigma, and Tokina. If you compare it to the 2014 model you see that its minimum focusing distance is a bit shorter and it also features more aperture blades along with a new linear autofocus motor.
In the photo below the Fujinon XF 56 mm f/1.2 R WR is positioned next to its predecessor and the Sigma C 30 mm f/1.4 DC DN which, not so long ago, was also released as the Fuji X mount version.
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The tested lens starts with a metal mount that surrounds contacts and a rear element, about 22 mm in diameter. The element doesn't move and is positioned in an additional, blackened sleeve on the same level as the mount. All area round the mount and the rear element is properly blackened and matted, without any slits; from this side everything looks very well and the lens seems to be completely weather-sealed.
The proper body of the lens is made of metal. It starts with a smooth, immobile ring that increases its diameter. On the ring you find a red rectangle, making an alignment with a camera easier, a focal length marking, the serial number of the instrument and information that the lens is weather-sealed and produced in Thailand.
An aperture ring, 14 mm wide, most of its surface covered by metal ribs, is the next part of the lens. Its performance is appropriate, allowing you aperture changes every 1/3 EV step. Apart from the aperture values you also get an A position that allows the camera to choose the aperture automatically. When you set the A value the ring is locked; in order to release it you have to press a button on the side of it.
Then you see a black, metal part of the casing which doesn't move and is just 3 mm wide; behind it there is a manual focus ring, 20 mm wide, completely covered by fine ribbing. It is a focus-by-wire construction, allowing you quite precise settings (which, by the way, can be completely demolished by idiotic camera software that during the preview of a photo can change the sharpness even if you work in the MF mode). There is no depth of field scale on the lens and its focus throw amounts to an angle of about 120 degrees. It's a bit too narrow, especially that, even if the ring is declicked, the mechanism still tend to move in slight increments on its own.
Behind the focus ring you see another immobile, metal part of the casing that turns smoothly into a hood mount.
The front element of the lens doesn't move, is slightly convex, 46 mm in diameter. It is surrounded by an inscription with the name and parameters of the instrument, along with a non-rotating filter thread, 67 mm in diameter.
When it comes to optical construction you deal here with 13 elements positioned in 8 groups (but, to be honest, I can spot only 7 groups in the diagram provided by the producers). One element is made of low dispersion ED glass, two others are aspherical in shape. Inside, you can also find a round aperture with as many as eleven blades that can be closed down to a value of f/16 at the maximum.
Buyers get both caps, a hood, and a soft pouch in the box with the lens.
