Yosemite Valley, 10:22 AM, 16 May 2014. Fuji 10-24mm at 10mm, Fuji X-T1 at Auto ISO 400 and Auto DR 200, 10mm at f/22 at 1/60, Athentech Perfectly Clear. bigger. I love the super-wide use of the 10mm end of the range as it delivers gorgeous leading lines from structures and clouds – this is a 110-degree field of view after all. But, shooting at f4 at 10mm, the sharpness falls off towards the last quarter of the image and is particularly poor in the corners. F8 is much sharper, with only a bit of softness left on the corners. Shooting at 24mm is a similar story, with quite a bit of edge blur. A close corner crop of the image above. The focal point was placed on the dead Queen Anne’s Lace. Shot at 24mm, f/4.

The Fuji XF 10-24mm f/4 OIS ASPH is the best-made APS-C ultrawide lens of any brand, and arguably the best optical performer, too. It's also the only APS-C ultrawide with image stabilization. Manual focusing is entirely electronic; the manual focus ring isn't connected to anything other than a digital encoder. It feels great to have a real metal lens in my hands. The only other real metal lenses made today are almost exclusively from LEICA; Nikon and Canon have been churning out mostly plastic since the 1980s.

In this review, I will be taking a closer look at this lens, which I have owned and enjoyed shooting with since it was originally released. Fuji XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS Review: Introduction My X-S10 offers only ON or OFF for the Lens Modulation Optimizer, and I can't see any difference with it ON or OFF. The Fujifilm XF 10-24mm F4 R OIS WR has an iris diaphragm with 7 rounded blades, which has resulted in fairly appealing bokeh for what is after all an ultra-wide-angle lens. If this 1,200×900 pixel crop is about 6" (15cm) wide on your screen, then the complete image printed at this same extreme magnification would be about 21 × 31" (1.7 × 2.6 feet or 50 × 80 cm).

Whilst the “red badge” XF8-16 f2.8 is a stunning lens optically and weather resistant, it is much larger, heavier and cannot accommodate a standard filter system which makes it a no no for landscape and long exposure photography. So, for many, the XF10-24 is the super-wide solution. As you can see in the product pictures, it complements the latest Fujifilm X-T4 flagship camera very well. It doesn't feel at all front-heavy and more than matches the body in terms of its build quality. Note: It should be noted that the X-E1, our Fuji test camera, does feature in-camera correction of CA, vignetting and distortion, and it's important to note that our results here were taken from RAW files. However, when converted with Adobe Camera Raw, as it our usual procedure, ACR carries over these in-camera corrections. It was only by converting the same RAW images with DCRAW (which does not convert the images with these corrections) that we were able to confirm this. The Fujifilm XF 10-24mm F4 R OIS WR lens has an internal focusing (IF) system with a very quiet stepping motor. In practice, we found the auto-focus to be fast and accurate on the latest X-T4 camera. For those interested, here is the chart I originally used to illustrate the differences. The “failed to focus” on the X-E1 is my favourite part.Even under the most devious conditions I could devise, all I got was a dim blob or two as seen here —and this was through a 72mm Nikon L37 c filter!

This is because the focus ring is a little narrower than on the original version by 3mm, smooth in action without being too loose, and has a ridged, rubberised grip band. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, again the Zeiss Touit 12mm F/2.8 appears to be softer, although the difference is a fair bit less pronounced in the RAF files, particularly out towards the edges of the XF 10-24mm F4 OIS. Also of note is that the zoom exhibits some mild vignetting, even on these images which were all shot at f/11. Zeiss Touit 12mm F/2.8 vs. XF 14mm F2.8 You can see the change in framing when zooming in to 24mm (36mm equivalent). Unfortunately, it's also possible to see more corner softening, especially noticeable in the trees, top left. (Image credit: Rod Lawton/Digital Camera World) Light falloff is completely invisible even wide open at f/4, as shot on the X-T1 which is probably correcting it automatically. Instinctively I’d want to avoid this lens when shooting horizons or architecture, but I’ve managed some decent results in street shooting with the XF 18mm F2 (scroll towards the end). If you need your lines as straight as possible, looks elsewhere, but I think my failure to get square with this structure is far more objectionable than the lens distortion.

Fujinon XF 10-24mm F4 R OIS WR: Image Quality

For the manual focus ring to work, you have to change the setting on your camera. Otherwise the ring is ignored in autofocus. Even in manual focus, the ring is never connected to the lens; it's connected to a computer which in turn moves a motor in the lens to focus. People worry waaaaay too much about sharpness. It's not 1968 anymore when lenses often weren't that sharp and there could be significant differences among them; today they are all pretty much equally fantastic.

The 23mm f/1.4 R, however, has the ability to shoot in lower light with a more shallow depth of field as it is 3 stops faster than the XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS WR. I started with the 18-55mm along with the Zeiss 12mm. Despite liking the 18-55 size, I was forever wanting it to go a bit wider for landscapes, it isn't great shooting into the sun (nearly always requiring photoshop work to minimise internal reflections) and the aperture ring/switch arrangement is small and fiddly. Above left: Fuji XF 16mm f1.4 at f11, above right: Fuji XF 10-24mm at 16mm f11. 100% crops from corner of JPEGs Comparing the Zeiss Touit 12mm F/2.8 to the XF 14mm F2.8 again, and the difference in angle of view is very pronounced. I have to admit that this is quite a bit more significant than I had anticipated, but it hasn’t changed what my preference is overall between the two. JPEGs from the XF 14mm F2.8 are far sharper than those from the Zeiss, but moving to the RAF files, the difference is drastically reduced; so drastically in fact, it makes me wonder if Zeiss need to release a firmware update for this lens. One would think a dealer sample provided by Zeiss would be fully up to date. XF 10-24mm F4 OIS vs. XF 14mm F2.8 The lens is otherwise characterized by these rings. The aperture ring is closest to the mount. Then there’s a zoom ring. And in the front is the focus ring. The zoom ring has a textured rubber area to it.While it’s not going to win any awards as the world’s fastest lens, I found the focusing system on this Fuji to be quite fast and reliable.