Review by Klaus Schroiff, published February 2016

Introduction

Fujinon lenses were never really small by mirrorless standards and given the comparatively large max aperture, it's no surprise that the Fujinon XF 50-140mm f/2.8 R LM OIS WR is quite a brick. It isn't any smaller than the Canon 70-200mm f/4 USM L IS or Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm f/4 ED VR but unlike the Fujinon these are full format DSLR lenses ...! Some may argue that you should take f/2.8 full format lenses as a benchmark. However, such a comparison is not valid in our opinion because f/2.8 lenses can achieve a shallower depth-of-field on full format cameras - a fact that is conveniently ignored by all mirrorless manufacturers.

The Fujinon features all the goodness that Fujifilm was able to get their hands on though. All lens elements have a HT-EBC (High Transmittance Electron Beam Coating) as well as Fujifilm's new Nano-GI (Gradient-Index) coating for superior flare control and we can confirm that they have a point there. The weather sealing does not only shield against dust and humidity, the lens is also specified to operate down to -10C. The build quality is pretty much excellent although it is worth to mention that the XF 50-140mm f/2.8 R LM OIS WR also suffers from rattling when shaking the lens - probably from the rather loose auto-focus group. This is gone once you power on the camera though. The broad rubberized controls operate very smoothly. The physical length of the lens remains constant throughout the zoom and focus range. A petal-shaped lens hood is also part of the package. Unlike the mentioned DSLR lenses, the Fujinon features a detachable tripod mount.

The internal AF system uses a "Triple Linear Motor" which provides fast and silent AF operations. As usual manual focusing works by wire thus by driving the AF motor. Fujifilm's image stabilizer is claimed to be good enough for a gain of up to 5 f-stops. We wouldn't really sign this as such. In real world situations, it feels more like 3-4 f-stops. Everything beyond that resides in the realm of luck. Needless to say but all manufacturers are overstating their capabilities here.