Product Listing

Fujifilm X-Pro1 - A Passionate Love-Hate Affair

By Alvin Soon - 27 Mar 2012

Design & Handling - Lenses

Design & Handling - Lenses

The lenses which launch with the X-Pro1, an 18mm f/2, a 35mm f/1.4 and a 60mm f/2.4 are fast primes which should appeal to any enthusiast. With the X-Pro1's APS-C 1.5x crop, the lenses become the 35mm equivalents of 27mm (for the 18mm F2), 53mm (for the 35mm F1.4) and 91mm (for the 60mm F2.4). They look great and have a solid heft.

Unlike the X100 though, the aperture rings give more readily, and thus are more easily changed by accident – we've done that a few times just by handling the camera, and the X-Pro1 user must take care where he or she grabs the lens while shooting. The lenses come with beautifully designed hoods, and all except the 60mm requires a hood cover as the hoods obstruct the standard lens cover (it's worth mentioning that the 60mm's lens hood is especially long).

While the metal lens hoods look great, the rubber covers didn't fit well, and they kept coming off. This was quite the disappointment as it felt like a cheap finish to an otherwise premium experience. It was a struggle to fit the hood on the 60mm, and our 35mm hood kept slipping, but these observations could have been confined to just our particular sets. One odd behavior we've noticed is that the lenses would occasionally stutter when not shooting - the aperture blades kept opening and closing, producing a noticeable sound in quiet environments.

Photographers might want to consider holding off on getting the 18mm f/2, which is an odd 27mm in 35mm equivalent. Fujifilm plans to introduce a more standard 35mm (23mm x 1.5) f/2 lens in 2013. Other lenses on the roadmap include a wide 14mm (21mm in 35mm), 18-72mm (27-108mm in 35mm) f/4 in 2012, and a pancake 28mm (42mm in 35mm) f/2.8, a 70-200mm (105-300mm in 35mm) f/4 and a 12-24mm (18-36mm in 35mm) f/4 in 2013.

While the metal lens hoods are handsome, the rubber covers feel cheap and slip off easily.

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8.0
  • Performance 10
  • Design 8
  • Features 9
  • User-Friendliness 7
  • Value 7
The Good
Finely detailed images with low noise
Bright optical viewfinder
Faster buffer than X100
The Bad
Sluggish auto-focus
High price
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