I will provide written summary below for those of you guys, who are in a hurry and don’t have the time to watch the video right now.
Full Frame Equivalency
The dimensions of the XF50mmF1.0 are very similar to the ones of the Full Frame Sony GM 85mmF1.4
the advantage of the Fujifilm optic is that the max. aperture of f/1.0 will mean that an enormous light intensity is hitting your camera sensor, leaving you with much faster shutter speeds than all other lenses
f/1.0 is twice as bright as f/1.4 and 66% brighter than f/1.2, so it really gives you a substantial advantage.
The XF50mmF1.0 is a dream lens not only for bokeh, but also for shooting indoors and in darker situations. It could be an incredible lens for wedding photography or video work.
Build Quality and Autofocus
build quality more or less second to none. Fantastic and professional feeling
lens is big and heavy
metallic and solid feeling
well weather sealed
aperture ring a bit too easy to change away from f/1.0
metallic focus ring turns extremely smoothly, but the way it works with the focus motor is pretty jerky, so using it is not the smoothest experience
very little focus breathing
internal microphone picks up sound of the focus motor
autofocus on X-T3 with firmware 3.00 (old firmware): autofocus works OK but is a bit unsure of itself hunting around a bit
autofocus on X-T3 with firmware 3.00 (new firmware): huge change. Focus is reasonably quickly and confidently even at f/1.0
DC AF motor is noisy
Image Quality
Sharpness
usually such fast lenses almost never have great image quality wide open
f/1.0: high resolution but low contrast. A little bit of purple fringing in high contrast edges. But he is really impressed by the great amount of detail being captured at f/1.0. You can add extra contrast in post. Sharpness remains all across the frame, but the far corner see some softness. But ever other lens he has tested at f/1.0 was significantly softer than the XF50mmF1.0
f/1.4: a lot more contrast in the center and reduced fringing
f/2.0: perfect image quality in the middle a little more detail in the corner
f/2.8 and beyond we can see excellent image quality in the corners, although not quite as perfect as the middle of the image
f/11 and f/16 image quality will soften again due to diffraction
OVERALL: Easily the sharpest lens he has ever tested at apertures brighter than f/1.2. It captures a very impressive amount of detail at f/1.0. For more contast stop down at f/1.4. For very sharp corners stop down at f/4. But at f/1.0 the lens is already sharp, which is very exciting to see
Distortion + Close up image quality + Flare
at f/1.0 just a little bit of pincushion distortion and vignetting is surprisingly moderate. He was expecting much more vignetting
af f/1.4 corners brighten a bit
at f/2 corners brighten a lot more
at f/1.0 close up quality is a bit softer than at normal distances, but still pretty usable. Stop down to see gradual improvements
despite the extreme nature of the lens, Fujifilm did fairly well to control flare, with flaring reduced to just a little green point when a bright light hits directly the image
Bokeh + LoCA
he really likes the look of it. Smooth, clean and all around gorgeous
if you really want to nitpick, then you could say it has slight cat eye shaped balls in the corners with very slight green outline
background looks wonderful
Longitudinal Chromatic Aberration is a bit noticable from f/1.0 to f/2.0. More or less all gone at f/2.8
Conclusions
the experience of using this lens was “out of this world”
it’s so cool to shoot at f/1.0 with autofocus
not a perfect lens, but unique, very powerful, decently sharp at f/1.0 and renders images with beatiful bokeh
