Fujifilm Fujinon XF 100-400 mm f/4.5-5.6 R LM OIS review - Vignetting

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Fujifilm Fujinon XF 100-400 mm f/4.5-5.6 R LM OIS

24 May 2016

Arkadiusz Olech

8. Vignetting

In the case of JPEG files there is really nothing to show in this category. Images, distortion corrected and cropped, are additionally lightened in the corners so the loss of light is reduced to imperceptible values of 11-13% (0.33-0.40 EV).

Only RAW files developed by an independent program like dcraw are able to show the truth about the vignetting performance of this lens’s optics. Let’s glance at thumbnails below.

100 mm, f/4.5	100 mm, f/5.6

200 mm, f/5.0	200 mm, f/5.6

300 mm, f/5.2	300 mm, f/8.0

400 mm, f/5.6	400 mm, f/8.0

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At the 100 mm focal length and by f/4.5 the brightness loss in the frame corners amounts to 33% (-1.15 EV). By employing f/5.6 you can reduce it to 19% (−0.60 EV). By f/8.0 the vignetting becomes imperceptible reaching just 10% (−0.32 EV).

At 200 mm the situation is very similar. By f/5.0 the aberration reaches 31% (−1.07 EV) and it decreases to 23% (−0.74 EV) on stopping down the aperture to f/5.6. By f/8.0 the vignetting is already difficult to spot because it gets to just 12% (−0.36 EV).

The increase of the focal length to 300 mm means another slight increase of the vignetting level. By f/5.2 it amounts to 36% (−1.30 EV), by f/5.6 it reaches 27% (−0.90 EV), and by f/8.0 you must take into account a loss of 15% (−0.46 EV) of light. The vignetting becomes imperceptible only by f/11 where you see a value of 9% (−0.26 EV).

In the case of the 400 mm focal length and the maximum relative aperture the vignetting gets to 37% (−1.35 EV). After stopping down the lens to f/8.0 you can reduce it to a slight level of 16% (−0.51 EV). By f/11 the problem disappears almost completely as we got a result of 8% (-0.25 EV).

We have to say we don’t like such a performance at all. The Fujinon’s 100-400 mm dimensions are similar to those of its full frame rivals so we expected that its performance would be excellent. Meanwhile our test showed that on the smaller sensor the tested lens still had a higher vignetting level than that of e.g. the Nikkor AF-S 80–400 mm f/4.5–5.6G ED VR on full frame…