Fuji X Series

Has anyone here had experience with the 27mm pancake lens?

My lens collection is all f1.2-1.4 heavy stuff now and I’m really liking the idea of a portable setup I can throw in a bag for work trips when travelling light. My concern is I’ll be disappointed because I can’t see how the optics in such a flat lens can match the larger ones. A bit like how the photos from my iPhone in Pro Raw still look atrociously bad next to anything that comes out my X-T30 II.

Anyway thought I’d ask as would be interested to hear about any experiences with it.
 
Barks said:
Has anyone here had experience with the 27mm pancake lens?

My lens collection is all f1.2-1.4 heavy stuff now and I’m really liking the idea of a portable setup I can throw in a bag for work trips when travelling light. My concern is I’ll be disappointed because I can’t see how the optics in such a flat lens can match the larger ones. A bit like how the photos from my iPhone in Pro Raw still look atrociously bad next to anything that comes out my X-T30 II.

Anyway thought I’d ask as would be interested to hear about any experiences with it.
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I have both the Fuji and the TtArtisan 27mm. It really depends what you want. Optically they are both more than adequate, very sharp at mid apertures and acceptably sharp wide open. The TtArtisan has noticeable vignetting at f/2.8. AF on both is okay but not as good as the bigger primes. The Fuji is better than the TtArtisan in pretty much every category, except for price.

But.

When going out and about, I find myself leaving the TtArtisan on the camera most of the time, even over the 23mm f/1.4. Max aperture isn’t an issue this time of year with brighter days, and the smaller package means I’m much more likely to have the camera with me and to pull it out instead of my phone. The flaws give it a distinct look which I find pleasing most of the time, but I’m not a pixel peeper clinical shooter type.

On your X-T30 II the optical performance will be more than adequate to service your sensor. On an X-T5 it might be a different story, but probably not if you aren’t selling pictures to demanding clients.
 
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Barks said:
Has anyone here had experience with the 27mm pancake lens?

My lens collection is all f1.2-1.4 heavy stuff now and I’m really liking the idea of a portable setup I can throw in a bag for work trips when travelling light. My concern is I’ll be disappointed because I can’t see how the optics in such a flat lens can match the larger ones. A bit like how the photos from my iPhone in Pro Raw still look atrociously bad next to anything that comes out my X-T30 II.

Anyway thought I’d ask as would be interested to hear about any experiences with it.
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I have the Fuji 27mm and love it. I originally purchased it purely for its size but it quickly became one of my favourite lenses - so much so that I added the 18mm f2 for a two pancake lens setup.
I have found the 27mm extremely sharp (perhaps I got a good copy who knows) but it was enough for me to give up both the 23mm and 35mm f2 lenses.
If I'm heading away anywhere (city breaks are ideal) then the 18 and 27 are generally the only lenses I bring. Although I recently added the new 16-50mm which I will probably throw in the bag as well.
 
CGrieves said:
It's probably a mistake to strongly correlate optic size with image quality. After all, a pinhole camera can be extremely sharp!
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True, was more thinking sensor size so not sure why I said that.

Thanks for the replies. There are rumours circulating Fuji may be releasing a 23mm pancake this year so going to hold off for now and see what happens.
 
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Noticed Fuji support relaunched their site, seems to have "Estimate" on everything now instead of fixed pricing.

Not sure if just not updated or changing their fixed price policy, I'll be sending my X-M1 soon for shutter button so see what price they come back with.
 
Watched a couple of YT quick look so far and I don't think it is for me. It has a FF enq of F/8.0 in terms of DoF and no phase detect AF (although i doubt that will be much of a problem since it is like F/8).

I love the size, I even like the workflow and even the design but for like £700, I can't help but think I will just get a XM5 and forgo the workflow out of it then use my own lenses. Since I have the X100VI it makes even less sense.

(The vertical framing also not a fan....)

I am certainly not its target demographic but I am not sure if the instax/instragram crowd want to spend £700 on a camera?
 
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I think if it was half the price and you can disable all the gimmicks then it may be a compelling purchase for a compact camera. Its pretty at least.
 
Spleen Sauce said:
I love Fujifilm but this is absolute junk. It's a shame they've pivoted more to pushing out fad devices compared to the Kaisen updates they used to do. But then I guess they're just going where the money is.
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They’ve done the same with film. Completely ceased production of many stocks and significantly wound down production of colour positive stock, all in favour of servicing Instax production. I get it, that’s where the money is now, but it would be nice to see more support for the more dedicated customers.
 
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I saw a pie chart recently that the majority (large portion) of its revenue and profit comes from their Instax camera/film sales. It make sense in that aspect for them to lean towards that crowd. I suspect this camera will still sell very well because there will be enough people from both sides who will dip in.

I personally just think the novelty aspect will wear off really quickly and then I will never touch it again. I have the Mini Instax camera and it has a pin-hole esq lens and built in filter effects. I have never ever used it. I much rather to shoot on my Fuji bodies, edit it on my phone then send the file to the mini instax to print.
 
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I can think of several friends/relatives who this is perfect for but it’s still way too expensive. Fujifilm are shooting themselves in the foot by not having a budget model. My friends who aren’t that into photography think it’s absolutely insane how much their entry level camera costs.
 
What utterly overpriced junk. If it was 300 I could kind of get the idea but it's priced like a real camera and most definitely isn't one.


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It's an intriguing camera purely for its quirkiness however when all is said and done I'd wager you could get as good an image from a high end smartphone.
Heck, based purely on JPG output I actually sold my X-E3 in favour of just using my iPhone 15 PM as a small walkaround solution.
 
I don't think we are the target demographic for the half, seems to be aimed squarely at the social media people who jumped on the X100 hype train.

40th birthday is round the corner and I'm considering an X100VI again. Mad they are still out of stock everywhere!
 
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