The Fujifilm 23 - the 2.0 or the 1.4?

Threaded wrote:

It’s great you’ve never had this problem with the 23R 1.4. Well done. It’s still a commonly reported issue, however.

Might be some source bias. I just did a really quick search on "Fujifilm 23mm f/1.4 back focus" and there were a couple of mentions of this as an issue in the first set of returns... all in DPReview threads.

Not much else comes up.

I decided to take a close look at a few of my images made with the lens to see if perhaps I hadn't been noticing this problem. Here's one that should be a bit of torture test — shot handheld at night, pushing the ISO/aperture/shutter triangle in order to make it work. (I do night street photography — this is from Vienna, obviously.)

Full image, downsized for the web. XPro2 w/23mm f/1.4. f/2, 1/100, ISO 1600.

Here's a screenshot of a 100% crop...

Screenshot of 100% magnification crop of image in Photoshop at 100%.

Seems pretty well in focus.

I'll have to go back and look at more of them.

One thing to keep in mind on the web: With the literally billions of people using and posting on the web, someone, somewhere, sometime is going to post about a problem with virtually anything. So the existence of some complaints — and there are some — doesn't prove a lot in and of itself. It is true that the reports might reflect a real problem that occasionally crops up, but they also might be due to a bad copy, technique problems, incorrect settings, unrealistic expectations, and so on.

And, of course, once people start reporting their problem, carefully searching out those other few inevitable reports, extrapolating to "widespread problem," and posting about it...

... we're off and running.

Anyway, while my experience with this lens is that it is a great performer and that I haven't seen a back focus problem with it, despite using in for years in situations where that should reveal itself... it isn't going to be the ideal lens for everyone.

Take care,

Dan