An almost perfect lens

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to write up my experience with this little gem of a lens. I've owned it for 5 months now, I only wish I had gotten it sooner.

Before owning this lens, I only had the 18-55 zoom which I've used the last 6 years. I was holding off really "buying into' the Fuji system for two reasons: 1. all my funds went into my FF Nikon kit which I use for my part-time photography business and 2. I didn't know if I wanted to go FF ML or stay with Fuji. The 18-55 was nice, but never amazed me.

Eventually, the small size / portability of the Fuji system made me getting the 35/1.4. Wish I did that sooner. I know from my own experience there's no such thing as a perfect lens. But this one comes very close and I have to say that I can confirm all the positive reviews it has gotten so far.

Use case

I use my Fuji gear for personal photography. Family, travel, holidays, nature, during hikes and around the house photography. I recently got the X-T3 to replace my X-T1.

Build quality

Very good. Metal with a nice aperture ring and metal lens hood. Comes with two lens caps. One is the plastic cap that goes on the lens and one rubber hood with is rectangular that goes over the lens hood. A nice touch. It is not WR, but I don't really need that.

It's very light, a big plus.

Image quality

Excellent. Usable from f/1.4 and up, becomes very sharp when stopped down. Although when photographing people, I usually stop down to f2.0 - f/2.2 to get sufficient DOF, depending on the distance. Colors, contrast, sharpness and bokeh are all excellent. I do believe in the somewhat abstract term "rendering". It's lovely. Only negative here is that is suffers from CA wide open.

I was more than pleasantly surprised comparing it to the 18-55, which is not a bad lens, but this lens is something else, it made me stay with Fuji and see the potential the system has. I can understand why one would use Fuji for pro gigs.

Auto focus

As I don't photograph action, I find it fast enough for most use cases. Only on some occasions when my kids (3 and 6) are running around, I'll get some missed shots, but my D850 plus a 2.8 zoom have a hard time getting those too.

Versatility

It shows a lovely quality of the shallow depth of field transitions wide open and it's very sharp when stopped down, a very good allrounder.

I've always found the 50mm equiv. focal length very versatile, it has to suit you. I use it for portraits, family stuff, travel, landscapes.

As I've become more experienced over the years, I've grown to love prime lenses and tend to know what kind of focal length I'd like to use to tell a certain story. So, not to let the focal length dictate you, but the other way around. I've never understood people stating they need all focal lengths covered.

Value

I can very much recommend this lens. It has the cheaper 35/2.0 as a rival, but I think for a 1.4 it is very moderately priced. I have no experience with the 35/2.0, but that would probably be a good choice if you need WR.

No lens is perfect, but once you get to know your lenses, you can take advantage from the strengths of a lens and work around the "weaknesses". (Stop down when shooting backlit tree branches).

Highly recommended