In this solo vlog, Dylan Andersen takes a day‑long field test of the Fujifilm XF 8mm f/3.5 R WR ultra‑wide prime lens, shooting with a Fujifilm X‑H2 (40 MP X‑Trans 5HR sensor) while documenting the process on a DJI Pocket 3. He begins at a park in Anaheim, California, capturing ducks and palm‑lined streets, then moves to the Palm Desert/Coachella Valley area. Throughout the video he discusses the lens’s key specifications (62 mm filter thread, close‑focus capability, 12 mm full‑frame equivalent field of view) and evaluates its performance. He highlights practical challenges of ultra‑wide photography: managing overwhelming foreground, finding compelling composition, dealing with diffraction when stopping down to f/5.6 on a high‑resolution sensor, and the need for “leg cropping” versus relying on the 40 MP resolution for post‑capture cropping. He notes the lens’s excellent sharpness—perhaps “too sharp”—and the creative muscle required to make the images interesting, especially in environments with limited subject depth (e.g., desert scenes). The vlog concludes with a recommendation to acquire the lens only if the viewer is prepared to invest effort into composition and cropping, while praising the DJI Pocket 3’s video quality as a complementary tool.
Chapters
What's going on? It has been a little while since I posted a video on here. Like most people got busy with work, life, family, all that good stuff. But I'm out at the park today. I'm gonna take some shots. I wanted to share some of those shots with you. I want to talk a little bit about a new lens that I recently got that I'm really enjoying. It is the Fujifilm XFR, I believe it's just WR. Yeah, really, really wide angle lens. It's F3.5. It's a prime lens. The really nice thing about this lens is that you can put filters on the front of it. You can see that there. It's got a 62 mill filter thread. So we're gonna go around, take some shots, and I'll come back and tell you a little bit about what I think about the lens. Some of the successes I've had with it, and then some of the challenges, not only from a technical and optical standpoint, but mainly from a standpoint of really trying to be creative with the lens and get shots that I'll enjoy. So let's take a look. So let me show you the scene here. So park here in Anaheim, California, and we've got like a little river here with a bunch of ducks. And, you know, with a super wide angle lens. This is an 8 millimeter, right? Bas, basically. What is this on full frame? Like a 12 millimeter equivalent. Super, super wide, Ultra, ultra wide. And the challenge here is, you know, we can see a kind of cool scene here. We've got a lot of ducks, a lot of geese. Actually, I'm not quite sure what those are. I think they're geese. And we've got a cool shot. But the idea is like, how do you make this creative and how do you make it interesting? We've got some intense shadows with some cool reflections. You can kind of see in the image here. And so the challenge here is to get a shot that makes sense. I'm using the XH2 today. Got the hood on there, so we'll see what we come up. One of the challenges I have with this lens is I'm shooting on the X H2 here. And on this lens, it only goes the widest and most bright and fastest would be at F 3.5. And I like to stop down a little bit, especially in daylight here. Like, we have this scene here. Plenty of room, plenty of light. But the idea here is that at 5.6 on the XH2, on these new X Trans 5HR sensors, diffraction starts to set in a little bit. And so you can kind of see some of that. It's not as, you know, crystal clear sharp as you'd want. And so the idea is, how do you kind of shoot wide open or F4 and make it make sense? Also one thing, I am filming this entire video on the DJI Pocket 3, which is really cool, super cool little camera. If you've used it before or you've heard about it, you can see the quality is pretty crazy. 1 inch sensor, CMOS sensor. It's got a pretty good depth of field, pretty good hdr. So I've been really happy with it, but got the X H2. And we're gonna take some more shots of these ducks. There they are, enjoying life. All right, so not super successful. We'll show one of the images from the amphitheater here. Not a ton of capture, not a really good angle. But you know, the one thing I'm noticing at this park, and I've never been in this park before, especially this part of Anaheim, but one thing I'm noticing is these trees, right? So we've got these really wild, at least Southern California trees. And so, you know, on a really wide lens like this, it might be a good idea to potentially, potentially get some shots shooting up. So let's do that and let's see what we get. Just walking up here, some cool palms. And behind that are kind of the typical Southern California Orange county streets that are lined with palm trees. You're seeing less and less than that these days, which is kind of sad because I'm a big palm tree fan. But got a little roundabout here and see what we can get with this. But again, this lens is so wide angle that you know, no matter what you shoot, you're gonna be picking up a lot. So I might have to go down there and stand on the street or kind of see what we can get. But this is the idea of the challenge behind a super, super ultra wide angle lens. Looks really easy when you're on YouTube, but ultimately it's pretty tough. So, you know, don't get dissuade, right. When you see these wide angle lenses and you buy one and you're not putting out those kind of quality of images that you see online because ultimately it's really hard to get a really good image. And again, your environment is gonna play such a big role in it. Like, I know folks that live out in the desert, they're getting terrible shots because there's nothing really to shoot that wide angle unless you get really up close. So let's see what we can do with this and we'll come. All right, starting to get a little warm, left the park. Still shooting on the 8 millimeter again. I'm going to try to stick with this the whole day today and we'll see how far we get. But one of the things I'm noticing, and obviously if you've shot ultra wide angle, you know this. But you really find yourself really trying to crop stuff out of the frame with your camera. So let me turn the camera around here and you'll see we've got sort of this alleyway and just typical Southern California street. Nothing really interesting. But if I'm wanting to take a photo of a particular part of the scene, I find myself on the back screen here, really shooting up right, trying to crop out with your camera as much of the, you know, boring street as possible. And so I think that's really important to point out right where, you know, you have to get things right in the camera. Nice thing is I'm shooting on the XH2. I've got 40 megapixels to work with. I can crop. But ultimately, when you're shooting ultra wide angle, do your best to get it right, you know, ultimately, yes, you can crop it. Kind of cropping with your legs they call it. And cropping with the cameras is probably the best idea. One thing I haven't spent a lot of time talking about or even thinking about on this lens is the close focus distance. Pretty insane. I'll put the number up here on the screen. But the nice thing is as you get really close to a subject, right, you can get some. Probably a little too close. Yeah, there's about probably minimum focus distance a little bit closer. And like that's pretty cool, right? I mean, I love these wide angle lenses. You know, naturally by nature of physics they're going to be pretty, you know, close focus distance capable. But I think that's really interesting. It kind of gives your photography a different sense. And again, I talked earlier about wanting to jump right into the close focus of these lenses and shooting stuff right up front. But it's also nice to get those really wide angle shots too. So kind of going to finish the walk here, you know, got some really old homes here in this part of Anaheim if you've ever been here, you know, it's pretty cool. But again, with the super wide angle lens, not going to make a ton of sense. But again, we've got these palms and definitely do a few more shots of these before we leave. Sam Sa. All right, we're out here in the Palm Desert area. We are taking some photos with 8 millimeter. This was an example I was using earlier in the video about the desert not having a ton of, you know, work to do with this lens. And one of the things I'm noticing is out here in the desert, you know, we've got some really cool windmills. You can see those behind me in this part of town is really nice. But again, you know, you're in the middle of the desert, and you really don't have the kind of, you know, shots that you're really looking to get. So what I'm finding is that I'll flip around the camera here, and, you know, we've got this kind of cool wash here that, you know, has a leading line and got a couple shots here already. Kind of show you what we're looking at on the camera, really just seeing me there. But, you know, we've got some leading lines, and we've got some composition that's kind of nice and fits this kind of 8 millimeter pretty wide. But this foreground is just so overbearing. I really want to get to the windmills, but unfortunately, this area, they're too far from the main road, so it would be quite a hike and probably not even supposed to really be out here, but kind of a cool area. If you ever come down to the Palm Desert, Coachella Valley area, that's what we're doing. So. And I will say right away, I've been super impressed with the sharpness of the lens. It seems to be like every Fuji camera and lens that comes out just is ultra sharp. And I know, like, Viltrox with the 75 and the 27 that they put out their pro lenses is incredibly sharp. So when we talk about sharpness, is too much sharpness becoming a bad thing? Probably. But ultimately, at the end of the day, we love some sharpness. So thanks for watching. Definitely recommend getting this lens if you can handle the kind of creative muscle behind it and sort of the work that you have to do to make it worth it. Again, thanks for watching. Take care.
