There aren’t many Fujifilm “red-label” lenses around. They are the members of the exclusive club of high-end lenses. One of them is the Fujinon XF 8-16mm f/2.8 R LM WR. It’s the widest zoom lens available in X-mount. As you might expect, it’s far from being affordable at about $1800 USD.
Professional-grade lenses deserve a professional-grade build quality and the XF 8-16mm f/2.8 R LM WR does qualify here. The lens body is mostly made of metal alongside the broad rubberized zoom-ring. The rugged construction and huge glass elements come at a price – at 805g it is neither compact nor lightweight, though. Fujifilm incorporated 11 seals to prevent dust and moisture from entering the inner sanctum. It’s also freeze-proof down to -10°C. The lens maintains a constant physical length during zooming, although there is an inner lens tube that still moves within the limits of the built-in lens hood. You may notice the bulb-like front element in the product image below – thus, no front-filter support here. Third-party vendors can supply 150mm square filter holder adapters if needed.
As the “LM” in the name implies, the XF 8-16mm f/2.8 uses a linear motor for auto-focusing. The AF speed is almost instant and silent. Focus breathing is very well controlled.
| Specifications | |
|---|---|
| Optical construction | 20 elements 13 groups (4x aspherical, 3x ED, 3x super ED) Super EBC coating fluoride coating on the front element floating system (field-curvature correction group) |
| Number of aperture blades | 9 (rounded) |
| min. focus distance | 0.25m (max magnification 0.1x) |
| Dimensions | Ø 88 x 121.5mm |
| Weight | 805g |
| Filter size | – |
| Hood | built-in |
| Other features | dust- and moisture-resistant aperture ring |
Distortions
Given the immense size and large glass elements, it’s a bit disappointing that the Fujinon isn’t distortion-corrected. Raw images reveal a barrel-distortion of over 6% at 8mm. The distortion forces equalize around the 12mm mark before switching to pincushion distortion beyond. They reach 2% at 16mm.
Activated auto-correction reduces this to an almost negligible degree, although there’s a tiny bit of waviness at 8mm at least.
Vignetting
Ultra-wide lenses always come with a very high vignetting. However, the raw vignetting is still very high for an APS-C format lens. They peak, of course, at 8mm f/2.8 exceeding 3 EV (f-stops) here. Stopping down doesn’t help all that much. The light falloff is reduced at “longer” focal lengths but the results exceed our vignetting scale at all settings except at 16mm f/8.
So autocorrection has to work hard here to resolve the issue. The vignetting remains high at most settings, specifically at the wide end.
MTF (resolution) at 26 megapixels – Uncorrected
Note: Typically we measure the image resolution in RAW images to avoid interference from image interpolation. This is fine unless the image distortions are excessive. The XF 8-16mm f/2.8 has massive distortions at 8mm, though, so please also check the next chapter.
The Fujinon XF 8-16mm f/2.8 R LM WR produced a very respectable result here. The dead center is extremely sharp and the near center is easily very good throughout the zoom range and up to f/8. The quality in the outer image field is also impressive with good to very good results. However, there’s a caveat: at 8mm, the far corners, thus the last pixels that lie outside our measurement spot, soften quite a bit. In part, this is also due to increasing field curvature.
The centering quality of the tested sample was fine.
Please note that the MTF results are not directly comparable across the different systems!
Below is a simplified summary of the formal findings. The chart shows line widths per picture height (LW/PH) which can be taken as a measure of sharpness. If you would like to know more about the MTF50 figures, you may check out the corresponding Imatest Explanations.
MTF (resolution) at 26 megapixels – Autocorrected at 8mm
Normally, we hesitate to take MTF measurements from autocorrected images because the quality of the interpolation is dependent on the used software, may it be the camera itself or a RAW converter (and more so with Fujifilm’s X-Trans sensor used by Fujifilm). However, the XF 8-16mm f/2.8 R LM WR produces a very heavy barrel distortion of 6.1% at 8mm, so here’s some guidance on how autocorrection impacts the quality here.
The dead and near center are barely affected by this and the border quality is also well maintained. However, the image stretching and interpolation reduce the corner quality quite a bit. Keep in mind that we are talking about the stretching across hundreds of pixels here. At f/2.8, the corners are rather soft and stopping down to medium aperture settings “only” produces good results. The already mentioned softness in the far corner, that we can’t track, doesn’t go away. However, keep in mind that 8mm (=12mm full-format) is an extreme focal length so in this scope the quality is actually reasonable – and about on par with Fujifilm’s XF 8mm f/3.5 R WR prime lens.
Chromatic Aberrations (CAs)
Lateral CAs are well-controlled for such a lens. They are most pronounced at 8mm with a peak width of 1.5px at the image borders. They are a bit reduced at 12mm and fairly low at 16mm.
Auto-correction should be able to resolve this issue without negative sideeffects, though (some RAW converters are better than others …).
Competition
The Fujinon XF 8-16mm f/2.8 R LM WR has a couple of competitors. There’s the in-house XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS WR. It’s not as fancy in terms of paper-specs but it’s pretty good and not quite as expensive. While it is slower it features an optical image stabilizer which can compensate for the lack of speed. Then there’s the Sigma 10-18mm f/2.8 DC DN Contemporary. It’s tiny in comparison despite being in the same speed class and optically it’s no slouch either. The build quality is a bit simpler. The Tamron 11-20mm f/2.8 Di III-A RXD is another one. It’s not quite as exciting at the wide end, but still – it’s rather affordable and optically very decent. And finally, there’s the Tokina 11-18mm f/2.8 ATX-m. It’s a bit weaker at maximum aperture but still pretty good overall. All the mentioned alternatives allow front filters.
Just as a general comment: we’d almost always recommend a prime lens instead of a zoom lens in this focal length class. Fewer elements, less complexity, better flare resistance, more compact, more lightweight (or faster) …
Sample Images
Countryside Germany here rather than Sydney (taken quite a while ago).
The Fujinon XF 8-16mm f/2.8 R LM WR produced commendable results in the lab as well as in real life - when keeping in mind that such lenses are never truly perfect. The Fujinon delivers very good results across most of the focal length range, although it has to be mentioned that the far corners are a tad soft at 8mm - also due to field curvature and heavy interference from distortion correction. The lens is also fairly prone to flare which is typical for ultra-wide lenses with a bulbous front element. The build quality is great thanks to high-quality materials, impeccable assembly, and weather-sealing. However, it's also heavy and big. Front filters aren't directly supported due to the (vulnerable) front element.
The Fujinon XF 8-16mm f/2.8 R LM WR is certainly an interesting beast. However, you should ask yourself whether this one is really for you. Yes, having an 8mm setting is sort of "cool" but it's also extreme and it's not trivial to find scenes where this setting really makes sense compared to a slightly longer focal length. And you have to pay $$$ for the privilege.
The Good
- (mostly) sharp
- Reassuring build quality
- Extremely fast AF
The Bad
- Relies heavily on auto-correction
- It's a brick
- No front filters
- A bit soft in the far corners at 8mm
- Prone to flare
- Expensive
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Optical Quality7
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Build Quality9
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Price Performance5