Introduction

I had the privilege of having early access to Fuji’s latest kit, the 56mm f/1.2, the 10-24mm f/4, and the just announced Fuji X-T1.

I had planned to do reviews of Fuji’s lenses, separate from my “Versus” articles so I thought I’d kick things off with the lenses people are clamouring for the most these days. I’ll start with initial impressions, and get into the nitty gritty from a handling perspective, but I won’t get into peeping at pixels as the lenses are still preproduction units. Let’s start.

Handling

When I decided to ditch the DSLR, the lens I knew I was going to miss the most was Nikon’s 14-24 ultra-wide zoom. When my FAS (Fuji Acquisition Syndrome) first began, the 10-24mm f/4 was already on the roadmap so I knew I’d eventually be ok. With an equivalent focal length of 15mm at the wide end, it’s the slightest bit less wide, but it also reaches out to just past 35mm equivalent so it’s more than a reasonable tradeoff. It’s also an f/4 fixed aperture, which of course, is a little slower the the f/2.8 of the 14-24. But then the 10-24mm f/4 has OIS (or VR or IS in Nikon’s and Canon’s parlance, respectively), which gets you extra handheld stability in low light.

In fact, it would be more accurate to describe the 10-24mm f/4 as a 16-35 VR that goes much, much wider. And it’s smaller. And lighter. And the build is better. I would chose this lens any day over any of the ultra wide zoom offerings from the full frame systems if it weren’t for one detail, the lack of weather sealing.

While the 10-24mm f/4 is considerably smaller than a DSLR equivalent, it’s still quite a bit larger than all of the primes covered by the focal range.

The rings on this lens are all very satisfying. Not quite as satisfying as the 56mm f/1.2, but really, nothing is. The inner-most ring which controls the aperture has the exact same feel as the FUJINON XF 18-55mm f/2.8-4. The zoom ring is a little stiffer than the 18-55mm. Whether or not this is better will come down to preference. I should note again that I’m working with a pre-production unit so things could be different with the shipping product.

The focus ring also feels just like the split focus ring on the kit lens. Nice and smooth.

Fuji has chosen a rubberized zoom ring for the 10-24mm f/4, and only the zoom ring. In room temperature, I prefer the metal zoom ring. I find my grip is more sure with the metal knurled rings and I just love the feel of them. They ooze quality. I was hoping the shift to the rubberized ring might be for Fuji’s weather-sealed zoom offerings and they might surprise us with the 10-24mm f/4 being weather-sealed as well. I’m told that’s not the case and it’s a real shame as it really the only niggle I have with the lens. It wants to out in the rain shooting landscapes. As it stands, it looks like the widest we’ll be able to go with weather sealing is 16mm or 24mm equivalent. Not bad, but not quite “ultra-wide” territory.

Again we’re left without depth of field markings. These can be tough to do on zooms, especially when they’re kept as relatively small as the 10-24mm f/4 is.

Image Quality

Hopefully the last time I have to type this for a while, I’m working with pre-production units here so I won’t be doing my usual Fuji vs. Fuji style comparison images even though I probably could. The image quality I’m seeing out of this lens is spectacular. Unfortunately I only had a couple hours with it and the 56mm f/1.2 so I’m not sure my sample images will live up to the quality of the lens, but here goes.

My overall impressions are that this lens produces excellent images with very little distortion, and what little distortion there is seems to be easily correctable. First though, here a couple of galleries to demonstrate the focal range you get out of this lens.

Click to enlarge.