Introduction

The 50mm focal length—long considered to be closest to how we see and commonly referred to as “normal”—has produced innumerable legendary lenses. From bokeh to sharpness to nocturnal capabilities, there’s a lot on offer. Fuji’s original set of XF primes included a 50mm equivalent, the XF 35mm F1.4. It didn’t ship with mind-bending specs, but instead, as a lens with exceptional image quality, and compact size.

To this day, it remains one of the best lenses in Fuji’s line up, despite it being short on special features, and a second lens at the exact same focal length being released. Here’s my review.

Handling

Size and Weight

One thing you can’t complain about is the size of the XF 35mm F1.4. It can easily come along with you in jacket pocket, especially without the hood.

Build Quality

Since this lens is part of the original 3, which were a bit all over the place when it comes to build quality and consistency, the tolerances are not up to par with more recent releases.

Aperture Ring

The aperture ring can be a bit on the loose side, nothing like the XF 14mm F2.8 (Review), but it can have a little play, and might turn when you don’t expect it to. You will want to get in the habit of giving it a quick glance as you bring it up to your eye, but at least it’s marked so you can actually see your aperture before peering through the viewfinder.

Auto Focus

With DC coreless focusing, it’s quite quick, but decidedly not smooth. Videographers looks elsewhere.

Manual Focus

Like all Fuji lenses, manual focus is “by wire.” The focusing ring is smooth and serviceable, but can have a small amount of “play” to it. How taught or smooth the rotation of this ring is also variable. On the samples I’ve handled, I can feel dramatic“jumps” in the smoothness of the rotation. This isn’t something that affects day to day use, but is worth noting that it does seem to be normal behaviour.

Also hardly worth noting, this is not an internally focusing lens. The front elements will extend and retract slightly while focusing. If you were to only ever use the lens with the hood on, you may never actually realize the front element moves.

Hood

I love the metal hoods that ship with the XF 35mm F1.4 and XF 18mm F2 (Review), and I’m a little disappointed these premium hoods that helped define Fuji’s place in the market are now being sold as add-ons.

It’s not uncommon to find the hood has slipped out of the locked position on the lens, however. Likewise, you can’t expect its cap to stay on. I can’t actually remember a time when I’ve taken the lens out of my bag with the cap still on it.

The hood does an excellent job of mitigating flare without obstructing the OVF like some of the large petal hoods do.

Lens Cap

Fuji’s old style cap comes with the XF 35mm F1.4 for those times the hood has been left off. I replaced mine with a 52mm Nikon cap,→ which is almost as good as the caps Fuji ships with their newer lenses.

Weather Sealing

None, and I really hate that. If this lens was weather sealed, I would use it all the time. Because it’s not, I turn to the XF 35mm F2 WR (Review) more often than not. That’s not to say the F2 is a bad lens in any way, but if I could have the extra stop and beautiful flare available to me more often, I would certainly take it.

Image Quality

The other thing you can’t complain about with the XF 35mm F1.4 is image quality. Whether you are after sharp, yet narrow depth of field wide open, or tight corners and edges with the lens stopped down, this lens has you covered.

Sharpness

Fuji’s seemingly little-known lens-tuning strategy of centre-sharpness at wide apertures, and edge to edge sharpness at smaller ones is especially apparent with this lens. The corners can be very soft wide open, while the centre of the frame stays crisp.

I’ve seen some criticism of this lens’s sharpness wide open, but I have yet to find much to complain about after using 50mm primes from other camera makers.

Distortion

Essentially non-existent. I don’t worry about distortion when shooting with this lens.

Bokeh

Superb. You can find a tiny bit of busyness if you look for it, but for a 50mm equivalent, it is excellent.

Vignetting

There’s a bit wide open, but nothing to write home about. Stopped down I haven’t had any issues mounting a filter on it either.

Flare

There can be gobs of it, but it’s beautiful. Use a hood or your hand to get rid of it, but I definitely encourage exploiting it for creative effect.

Aberrations

Negligible at worst.

Conclusion and Rating

If I wasn’t considering any other lenses Fuji makes, I would call the XF 35mm F1.4 a must buy. Up until the release of the XF 35mm F2 WR, I’d still have said that. After the release of a weather sealed 50mm option though? It gets tougher to suggest you run out and buy one if you don’t own it already.

I would definitely suggest giving my XF 35mm F1.4 vs. XF 35mm F2 WR piece a thorough read before choosing. I concluded that if I had to choose, I’d pick the F2, but it would be a struggle, and if a Mk II of the XF 35mm F1.4 is released with identical optics and weather sealing, it would be my third 50mm equivalent from Fuji, and become my new favourite. For now, I’m glad I have the luxury of owning both lenses. I really like the 50mm focal length though. If you’re the sort of person who doesn’t, perhaps having it included in the range of a zoom will suffice.

Strongly recommended.

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