Fujifilm Fujinon XF 23 mm f/2 R WR review - Build quality

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Fujifilm Fujinon XF 23 mm f/2 R WR

2 November 2016

Arkadiusz Olech

3. Build quality

There is a lot of 22-24 mm lenses designed for mirrorless systems with an APS-C sensor available on the market so we didn’t have any problem whatsoever with composing the following chart where we stack up the tested lens against its faster brother and direct rivals.

Although the Fujinon XF 23 mm f/2 R WR is shapely and handy Canon has shown that you can produce an even smaller device with such parameters. Both the Mitakon and the Sony are physically heavier and bigger than the Fuji but in their case you also get a slightly better aperture fastness.

In the photo below the Fujinon XF 23 mm f/2 R WR is positioned next to the Fujinon XF 18–55 mm f/2.8–4 OIS.

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Fujifilm Fujinon XF 23 mm f/2 R WR - Build quality

The tested lens starts with a metal mount; it surrounds the contacts and a plastic ring which goes round a rear element; that element is 21 mm in diameter and it doesn’t move.

The proper body of the lens starts with a metal, immobile ring on which you can find a focal length mark, a red rectangle making an alignment with a camera easier, the serial number and information that the instrument was produced in Japan.

Next is an aperture ring, 12 mm wide, mostly covered by metal ribbing. In many Fujinon lenses I’ve had an opportunity to test such rings had a distinct slack but here the performance is more or less perfect, allowing you to control the aperture every 1/3 EV step.

Further on there is another immobile ring with information that the lens is properly sealed („WEATHER RESISTANT”). Then you see a manual focus ring, 17 mm wide, completely covered by fine ribs, a focus-by-wire construction allowing you very precise settings (which, by the way, can be completely destroyed by idiotic software of the camera; during the preview it can change the focus settings on its own even if you’ve chosen the MF mode). The lens, unfortunately, doesn’t feature any depth of field scale.

The front element of the lens is 23 mm in diameter and surrounded by an inscription with the name and the parameters of the instrument, a non-rotating filter thread, 43 mm in diameter, and a mount for a small lens hood.

The optical construction of the Fujinon 2/23 consists of ten elements positioned in six groups, two of them aspherical. Inside there’s also an aperture with nine diaphragm blades which can be closed down to a value of f/16 at the maximum. Buyers get both caps, a miniature hood and a soft pouch in the box.