Dylan Andersen reviews the Fujifilm XF 56mm f/1.2 R WR Mark II, which sharpens edges and reduces chromatic aberration while keeping the original's dreamy look. The Mark II costs around $1,000; the original version runs $300-$400 but uses a slower DC motor instead of a linear motor for autofocus.
Alright. The Fujifilm 56 millimeter F1.2WR. It is a second generation, the Mark 2 version of the Beloved. I loved it so much. I thought it was such a cool lens. The original 56 millimeter, the Fujifilm X mount. I think Fujifilm has changed a lot with this lens, but I also think they haven't changed a lot. And I'm going to talk about that today. And instead of doing a review, I want to be very clear. I don't love doing reviews of equipment or lenses or gear. I think sharing my experience with the equipment and in this case the lens, I think is a lot more profound. And I think you can get a lot more out of it it that way. I'm going to spend the second half of this video just looking at photos talking about, you know, technique and talking about some of the results I got with this lens. But I think before I do that, I do want to jump into three main points about this lens that I think need to be covered. Number one, Fujifilm has done a really good job upgrading the optical quality of this lens. Some people refer to that as image quality. We're just going to talk about it in terms of this video as optical quality. Number two, I think Fujifilm has done incredible work getting the character of the original lens into this newer lens. With the newer optical optics, the newer glass, the newer elements. I think they've done an incredible job keeping that character. And I'm going to argue, as you'll see in some of these photos, that they've actually improved that character. Thirdly, I think one miss for them is that they did not improve the autofocus. You can see some folks out there that have had better results with the autofocus on this lens versus the first one in my experience, even on an XH2S which I'm filming on right now, or an X H2 which I have the 56 millimeter right here. I think on both of these cameras the lens performs pretty great. I don't think it's bad bad autofocus by any stretch of the imagination. But when you put it side by side with the 23, the 33 and even the 18 that I'm filming on right now, the linear motors just destroy this old DC motor. So having said that, I think those are the three things that you need to take away if you're thinking about getting this lens. But I would say right now, unless you can get the original lens for 300, 400 bucks, I've seen it go for get that. Absolutely. But if you have the budget and if you're doing some paid work, I think it really is a worthwhile investment to get this new lens. And I think the reason is because this new lens has incredible optical quality. And what I say by that is I feel like on the first lens, and I know this is very anecdotal, but I feel like on the first lens I would take photos where loca and chromatic aberration would show up. And of course it's really hard to remove in post if it's pretty severe, especially loca. I really haven't found a way to subdue that effect or get rid of it entirely. I think more importantly than just optical quality is the image quality that comes out of the lens. And so if you have good optics, you're gonna typically have good image quality. So loca and chromatic aberration aside, is the lens sharp? Is it clinically sharp? Is it too sharp? Is it sharp enough? Is it sharp edge to edge? We're not going to talk about that today. I just want to mention that the optical quality of this lens is fantastic. It is definitely improved over the original version. I think for the character of the lens. I think a lot of people that shoot Fuji, if you're like me and you own multiple cameras, the character is really important, right? You want photos to look nice. You want photos to look, you know, I see this word used a lot and hear it, it's dreamy, right? You know, to many extents you can put a shimmer filter or black promise filter on your camera and get that effect. But I think having a photo out of the camera, a lens, no filters, no bs, that looks really nice and just has that kind of modern look without looking not clinical at all. It's kind of strange. But we'll show you in some photos what I mean, I think that's really cool. So this, this lens I think does that. I think it has that really great quote unquote dreamy look. But I also think it has a very clinical sharp, you know, it checks all those boxes for you. So it does really, really well in that department. And the first lens had a ton of character. It was known for its character, but Fujifilm was able to update the lens with weather resistance. Clearly they've work on the elements in here, right? Clearly they've upgraded some glass and done other stuff. I don't have that information in front of me, but that's what my heart is telling me. And then thirdly, I think the one point that they really missed on this camera is putting a linear motor in it. I think for my purposes I don't really care, right? If you're shooting fast action things like that, you're probably not using the 56 1.2 anyways. But say you're in that situation, yes, having a linear motor would help tremendously. Unfortunately, it still has the old DC motor in it. As far as I know, it's not that much faster than the first generation. I feel like it is a little bit faster, but still certainly at the end of the day it's not as fast as I wish it would be. Alright, I'm gonna interrupt real quick if you guys are finding this video useful, entertaining, fun, if you're getting good vibes from it, please hit the subscribe button. Leave a Comment let's have a conversation. I'd love to talk to you guys about photography. Even if you don't use Fujifilm or any of this stuff I'm talking about would really appreciate it helps obviously grow the channel. I would like to continue doing this as a hobby and having conversations with people. It's my favorite thing to do. So let's talk in the comments. I'd love to see your work and I'd love to do that. But yeah, please subscribe back to the video. So having said those three things, I think number one, skip everything in this video. Go buy the lens if you have the budget for it. But if you are getting the original lens for 300, $400, get it. I don't think the original version of the lens is worth six US$700. I think if you're in that price range, just get this one. You're going to be a lot happier. But if you have the budget, get this thing brand new at $1,000 it's still an incredible, incredible piece of glass. So let's take a look at some photos and we'll come back and give you our thoughts. Spots. Foreign. So those are the photos that I've taken with this lens. These are the thoughts on the lens that I have. You know, I want to put it to you guys. I want to challenge you. You know, would you get this lens at $1,000? Is it something that you find in your kit? Is this something you already have? Am I crazy? Are these feelings about the lens just me being too romantic or are these legitimate things that you're experiencing too? Would love to hear from you. Leave a comment below Please don't forget to subscribe and I'll see you guys when we do another one of these, hopefully later this month. Or next month. Thanks. Take care.
