Fujifilm Fujinon XC 15-45 mm f/3.5-5.6 OIS PZ review - Distortion

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Fujifilm Fujinon XC 15-45 mm f/3.5-5.6 OIS PZ

14 January 2019

Arkadiusz Olech

6. Distortion

The Fujifilm X system is not consequent when it comes to the approach to the problem of distortion. Sometimes it is corrected by optics, without any help from software. In some cases, especially concerning wide angle lenses, optics constructors strongly support the performance of the lens by the camera distortion correction.

When you consult JPEG files the distortion level is low. At 15 mm you deal with slight ‘barrel’ version of that aberration, amounting to −0.62%, which decreases to almost zero (−0.09%) in the middle of the focal length range and then returns to the initial level at 45 mm (−0.53%). All these results are sufficiently low to say that aberration won’t bother you in real life photos. They also strongly suggest distortion is corrected by software.

One glance at RAW files developed by dcraw shows that the distortion is indeed very high. At 15 mm we got a result of −6.70%. That’s not the end of bad news because the photo shows presence of slight moustache distortion. If you limit our measurements to the 1:1 markings area distortion will increase to a huge level of −7.38%.

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In the middle of the focal length range you already deal with pincushion distortion but its value is not high, amounting to just +1.01%. Still it increases as you move toward the longer end of the focal length range and at 45 mm it reaches a quite noticeable value of +2.89%.

As in the case of the Fujinon 8-16 mm, tested by us not so long ago, there is a huge discrepancy in distortion results on both ends of the focal lengthrange – in this case it amounts to almost 10%. It is a really horrible result.