The Definitive Fujinon XF50-140mm F2.8 R LM OIS WR: Fujifilm’s 70-200 Equivalent is Showing its Age

Dustin Abbott posted his definitive review of the Fujinon XF 50-140mm F2.8 R LM OIS WR. Below is a summary of the above video:

• Full frame equivalent of about 76-213mm
• Weather-resistant
• Optical stabilization
• Linear motors
• Aperture Ring
• Not a small or inexpensive lens
• Beautifully built lens
• Wish the lens hood was engineered with more precision
• The polarizer adjustment door comes off and can be lost
• There is a little bit of play at the lens mount on the copy he’s using
• The tripod foot design has a little flex since it is removable
• Materials are all nice
• The lens is nicely built
• All the rings are good quality (Aperture, Focus, Zoom)
• An internally zooming lens so no change of length of front element rotation
• Focus ring takes a lot of rotation to get in focus so AF is more useful than MF
• Can be used with up to a 2x TC
• Tripod collar has no feeling to it to let you know portrait vs landscape
• 72mm front filter thread
• Tamron 70-180mm which is a full-frame lens is shorter and lighter than the Fujinon, but it has a lot of plastic
• The Fujinon is more robustly made than the Tamron, but the Tamron is cheaper and optically superior
• Max magnification is 0.12x and focuses down to a meter
• For a premium lens, he doesn’t feel it competes with Canon or Nikon 70-200, but the Sony GM isn’t even as good as the Tamron
• Fujifilm’s first triple linear motor design
• Best for weddings, events, and portraits
• If you only have one lens to shoot events with the 70-200mm is the goto
• Good sports lens with the X-T4, but the buffer depth might limit you
• Plenty of AF speed
• Fujifilm Eye AF still isn’t as sticky as Sony or Canon
• Any AF issues are likely more due to the cameras than the lens
• You need LM lenses if you want to do video because other lenses make noise
• Still, a little bit of hunting when doing focus pulls, but still think this is a good lens for filming
• Had to get a second copy because the first he received wasn’t very good
• Fujifilm embeds their correction profiles so you have to go out of your way to disable them and if you do there is some pincushion and vignetting
• Performance across the lens is goodish at f/2.8
• The contrast and detail doesn’t compare to Tamrons 70-180mm
• The lens improves at f/5.6 but still not exceptional
• Performance is pretty consistent across the zoom range with wide-open being goodish, but stoping down improves a little around f/4-5.6
• This lenses acuity doesn’t blow him away
• 140mm is the sharpest of the zoom range and it is very good, but cant fully show off the X-T4’s sensor
• Bokeh in front and behind the subject is good
• Some cat eye lemon shape at the edges
• No fringing
• f/4 gives you more consistently circular bokeh and by f/5.6 you only get deformation of the bokeh at the extreme edges
• This is a nice portrait lens, but the resolution isn’t exceptional
• Has very nice bokeh and color
• Not very flare resistant so you will get ghosting and haze
• Real-world LOCA is very well controlled
• A little underwhelmed by this lens because maybe the goal post has moved since this lens was released and it might be time to be updated
• You will get good results with this lens, but Fujifilm needs more options
• Good enough to do your work with isn’t good enough for this price point
• Fujifilm needs more competition to drive down the prices of lenses like these
• The Fujinon XF50-140mm F2.8 R LM OIS WR is a good lens with a good optical stabilizer that gives you 3.5-4 stops of OIS
• This lens could be a bit better at this price point

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