Fujifilm XC 50-230mm f4.5-6.7 Review

Welcome to my humble review of one of the unsung heroes of the Fujifilm line-up of lenses.

Welcome to the family!

I've searched high and low on the internet for reviews of this lens, but alas only found a handful. I guess most photographers of the Fujifilm X caliber would have bought the XF 55-200mm lens already. 

Having all wide angle lenses on my Fujifilm X collection (8, 18, 35), I needed a telephoto zoom lens for my event photography and general travel usage. Currently, all I own are manual legacy Tamron Adaptall lenses which I have collected from my Pentax days. While they are pretty decent (for lenses of more than 20 years of age), I have had much trouble using them on my Fujifilm X-M1 camera. They are very heavy (with lots of metal), bulky, lack of optical stabilization and they are all manual focus lenses. All this means lots of blurred shots because of camera shake and simply bad focusing even with focus peaking on. Recently, I took my Tamron Adaptall 70-210mm f3.5 (model 19AH) out for my vacation in Beijing and regrettably I hardly used it due to the inconveniences above. However, because I was outdoors, my shutter speed was not too much of a problem, but when I am indoors, I need to maintain at least a shutter speed of 1/250 to have any sharp photos assuming my focus was correct.

Smaller and much lighter than my Tamron 19AH

I've been looking out for the XF 55-200mm, but this lens has so far been a bit too over my budget to justify my purchase (I mostly like wider shots and thought I would probably not use this lens as much). However, recently I found someone selling a used Fujifilm XC 50-230mm which for many days had no buyers, and I decided to snap it up as the price less than half of a new XF 55-200mm lens. I did wonder initially if I made a good choice, since this lens is rather slow, so I'm here to share my experience with it after taking two events and four personal outings.

Size Does Matter

First of all, let's talk about the size of the lens. Well compared to most of the lenses I have, this lens is big. But, if I compare it with my other Adaptall telephoto zoom lenses, this lens is considered small, and equally important, lightweight. The lens looks balanced enough of my X-M1 (after all, Fujifilm made it as a companion lens to the lower end series), especially with the leather jacket on. When it comes to quality of the lens, this lens is made mostly of plastic, but it is very sturdy and doesn't feel cheap at all. The zoom ring is very big, and pleasantly made of rubberized material (unlike the XC 16-50mm). The hood is also rather large, and although can be reverse stored with the lens, it is impossible to turn the zoom ring with the lens hood there. 

One negative (and can be also positive) thing about having a bigger lens (apart from weight and storage) is that when I bring the camera with this lens out, people tend to think I'm using a professional lens. This is not very good in those situations that I want to sneak in my camera. For example, when I was shooting in KLPAC with my XF 18mm, nobody bothered me. But when I was using this lens, the security guard came to tell me to stop taking photos. 

But if you are taking photos for an event, looking "professional" is an advantage!

Focus!

Focusing on the lens makes no noise at all. It's totally silent! Speed of focusing is acceptable, but not very fast. In low contrast areas and low light, focusing hunts quite a bit. However, it's extremely accurate when focus is locked. Most people might wonder if the lens is any good in low light (apart from the focusing speed) due to the smallish aperture range. At the longest, the largest aperture is merely an f6.7. Sounds really meh on paper, since even budget telephoto lenses like the Pentax DA55-200mm come with a max aperture of f5.6.

But if you compare with the Fujifilm XF 55-200mm at 200mm, the difference is a full stop (f6.7 vs f4.8) and at 55mm it is 2/3 stops (f.4.5 vs f3.5). If you compare with a f2.8 constant zoom at the longest, then the XC 50-230mm is about 2 1/2 darker. BUT, this lens has a little talent that beats most lenses out there, which is it's superb optical image stabilizer (OIS) which I can attest works as advertised. I've taken sharp photos at 230mm at a shutter speed of merely 1/20 seconds, which would have required me to use a shutter speed of at least 1/250 for the same result without OIS. That is a whopping 3 2/3 stops! However, as most you may be aware, OIS is great for preventing shaky hands, but does nothing to help if you are shooting moving objects. 

This was taken handheld at 230mm f6.7 with a shutter speed of only 1/20s! 

This was taken using my XF18 to give you a sense of the surrounding. Can you spot the flower pot from the photo on top?

Image Quality

I do all my review based on real life experience with my equipment and let my photos speak for themselves. The Fujifilm XC 50-230mm has good contrast and colors (like all Fujifilm lenses!), really sharp and I see no visible chromatic aberrations (CA) even when I pixel peep. Even the bokeh that I get from the lens is pleasing. I do not hesitate to shoot wide open as the results I get are sharp and contrasty already. You don't get to control a lot of depth of field since the maximum aperture is pretty modest, but I find it 90% adequate for me. I never encountered any flare from the lens, except when I had my Kenko UV filter on it.

Macro?

The Fujifilm XC 50-230mm's minimum focal distance is 1 meter, which is quite standard for a telephoto lens. I have found that switching to Macro mode on my camera makes a minor difference in the lens trying to focus on closer subjects. So I usually just keep the camera focus as normal.

The lens is not made for macro, and does not advertise itself as such. However, one still can get a nice shot of flowers from a distance.

A tree flowering. I believe it's the kedondong (umbra) tree, but can't be sure. It blooms only once or twice a year. Taken at 230mm wide open.

As close as I can get with the lens. This is the HP WiFi Mobile Mouse, which is probably the world's first and only WiFi mouse. Check out my review of the mouse! 

Sample Photos

You might find it strange that I only dedicated one paragraph to the IQ of this lens. The fact is you can already get lab results from other websites. What I prefer to do is simply to use the lens and share my photos with you.

To view my with the EXIF data (i.e. aperture, shutter speed, ISO settings), I suggest you use this Chrome Extension or this for Firefox. It should automatically show you my camera settings when you mouse over my photos. If you are on Safari, use this and press Cmd+E when you mouse over a photo. Plus I'm just too lazy to copy my metadata to the captions. Only a few photos has been post-processed, while the rest are just resized to give you a taste of what this lens can really do.

My favorite place to test my lenses

Comfy? Nah.

Welcome to KLPAC

Using a telephoto lens allowed me to tighten my composition and give a nice natural border to this photo. Impossible with a wide angle lens.

Yup, Sinbad is here in Malaysia.

Due to the smallish aperture, I am unable to isolate the object by much.

Fully zoomed in and wide open, the details on this flower pot is excellent! Oh, yes, handheld!

Taken at 230mm again wide open through a glass window.

But the bokeh here is pleasing enough.

Very punchy colors from Fujifilm!

Where I was hanging out.

More bokeh test.

Notice the foliage swirling around. However, the clock is tack sharp, and I took it at 230mm wide opened handheld. The flare in the photos is due to my UV filter (Kenko) which came with my lens

Some of the great things you can do with a telephoto lens. Shoot through colored strings to get nice soft effect.

Summary

I've always been a fan of ultra wide angle lenses and never really wanted a telephoto lens. But I'm really happy I did invest in the Fujifilm XC 50-230mm lens as not only does it deliver wonderful image quality, it gives me the flexibility to make even more creative images without making a hole in my pocket. Getting it as a kit with the X-A1 may be the cheapest route to acquire it, as a new one would set you at least RM1100 here in Malaysia (or USD350). After using it for a couple of weeks, I'm getting very fond of it and believe that it's actually worth the RM1100 price tag.

As mentioned in the beginning of the post, this lens is probably the most under-rated lens from Fujifilm, but it has every quality of it's more expensive siblings inherent to Fujifilm. If you are on a budget and looking for a high quality telephoto lens, the Fujifilm XC 50-230mm f4.5-6.7 is something you should not snub because of the aperture range.

If you liked my article here, don't forget to check out my reviews on the XF18mm, XF35mm, XC16-50mm and the Samyang 8mm fisheye lens! Also, if any you find any ad on this blog interesting, do support me by clicking and visiting the advertisers. Thanks and till next time!