Design
At first glance the 55-200mm looks much like any other telezoom lens, with a broad zoom ring in the centre of the barrel and a manual focus ring towards the front, plus a couple of control switches on the side. However a closer look reveals that there's also an aperture ring towards the back of the barrel, close to the camera body. Like on the XF 18-55mm zoom, but unlike the Fujinon primes, this is unmarked and has no end-stops. Rotating it one click results in a 1/3 stop change in the aperture setting.
What the pictures alone can't convey is the high quality of construction. The exterior of the barrel is all metal, with a ribbed rubber coating on the zoom ring. The extending section is made from high-quality plastic, and there's impressively little play at full telephoto. The overall impression is of a distinctly premium product that feels totally at home on the X-Pro1.
On the camera
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The 55-200mm is, as you'd expect, the largest XF lens so far, and starts to look decidedly bulky on the X-Pro1 let alone the smaller X-E1. Despite this is still handles perfectly acceptably - when shooting you simply support the camera and lens with your left hand. However we suspect many users will prefer to use this lens with an accessory grip on the camera. A substantial shift in hand position is required between operating the aperture and focus rings, which may be irksome if you habitually use manual focus.
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One minor point is that the lens barrel substantially underhangs the camera body. This could conceivably cause problems with large quick release tripod plates, although a cut-out in the conical portion of the barrel gives about 30mm clearance in front of the centre-point of the tripod socket. (It also means that the camera doesn't sit flat when set down on a table). |
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As yet it's unclear exactly how the 55-200mm will work with the X-Pro1's optical viewfinder (both our X-Pro1 and X-E1 requested firmware updates when the lens was mounted). However, given the already relatively small framelines with the 60mm lens, we suspect it be will more practical to shoot using the electronic finder anyway. (It's also worth remembering that the X-Pro1 automatically switches to the EVF when the focal length is manually specified as longer than 60mm, when shooting with a lens adapter.)
Size and design compared to XF 18-55mm F2.8-4 R LM OIS
Here's the 55-200mm alongside the XF 18-55mm F2.8-4 R LM OIS standard zoom, which is the 'kit' lens for the X-E1. It offers essentially identical layout and operation, with all the same controls in all the same places, which should make swapping between the two a breeze. It is, of course, distinctly larger and heavier.
Autofocus
The XF 55-200mm uses linear stepper motors for autofocus, which means it's almost silent in operation. The lens we handled is very much pre-production, but our initial impressions are that its AF speed is pretty much what we'd expect from the X-system - not the fastest in class, but for most purposes not unusably slow either. It's never going to come close to a similar-priced SLR setup for focus tracking on moving subjects, but that's never really been a strength of this type of camera system anyway.
Lens body elements
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The lens uses Fujifilm's own X mount, meaning it will work on the company's X-series mirrorless cameras only. All communication between the camera and lens is electronic, and both focus and aperture are set electronically too. Neither can be adjusted with the lens removed from the camera. |
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The filter thread is 62mm, which unfortunately isn't shared with any existing XF lenses. Filters don't rotate on focusing. |
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The manual focus ring has a finely-ridged metal grip that's a relatively generous 15mm wide. It's beautifully-damped and rotates very smoothly, but without any end stops. As with the other X-system lenses, manual focusing is electronically- rather than mechanically-coupled, and works by driving the lens's built-in focus motors. |
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The zoom ring has a finely-ribbed 37mm wide grip, and rotates 60 degrees between the 55 and 200mm settings. The barrel extends 58mm (2.3") in the process, with impressively little play at full telephoto. |
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Two small switches control image stabilization and aperture setting.
With the latter in the 'A' position the camera sets the aperture automatically (i.e. either Program or Shutter Priority mode). The switches are slightly differently shaped to aid identification by touch. The aperture ring itself is unmarked, with click stops at 6° intervals which each give 1/3 stop changes in aperture value. |
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The lens comes with a 65mm (2.6") deep, bayonet-type cylindrical hood. It's moulded from thick black plastic, with internal ribbing to minimise the reflection of stray light into the lens. |
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The hood reverses over the lens for storage. This leaves about 9mm of the zoom ring's grip accessible - maybe just about enough to be able to operate it for a quick grab shot. |
Reported aperture vs focal length
The camera reports the following apertures at the focal lengths marked on the zoom ring:
| Focal length | 55mm |
70mm |
100mm |
135mm |
200mm |
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| Max aperture | F3.5 |
F3.5 |
F4 |
F4.5 |
F4.8 |
| Min aperture | F22 |
F22 |
F22 |
F22 |
F22 |
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