That first paragraph could be the entirety of this article. It says everything that you need to know (although my full review of the 27mm f/2.8 lens can be read here). If there could only be one lens in our household, it would be this one! But why? What makes this lens special? Optical excellence, lots of metal parts in the same size as a lens cap for not much money? Everyone should have one of these! While some lenses perform better than others and while this lens may not be everything we want in a lens, its size more than makes up for any of its flaws and it becomes a very fun and practical lens to use. The Fuji XF 27mm f/2.8 ASPH is a fantastic little lens. It does everything I'd need it to do with superb optics and tiny size. I often prefer fixed lenses over zooms. If this 1,200×900 pixel crop is about 3" (7.5cm) wide on your phone, then the complete image printed at this same high magnification would be about 11 × 16" (0.9 × 1.3 feet or 25 × 40 cm).

On the X-S10 I get a real-world improvement of five stops. I get 100% tripod-equivalent sharpness handheld 86% of the time at a quarter of a second! These are just snapshots; my real work is in my Gallery. These are all shot hand-held as NORMAL JPGs; no tripods, FINE JPGs or RAW files were used or needed. This is a cheap Chinese copy of the Fujinon XF 27mm f/2.8 R WR (2021-). It has very similar specifications and appearance, but inferior optical performance and sells for 62% less money. This TTArtisan lens also comes in titanium color and also comes in mounts for Sony and for Nikon Z, and it's made of all metal rather than plastic and metal like the legitimate Fujinon XF 27mm f/2.8 R WR.What's new | How it compares | Body and handling | Image Quality | Autofocus | Video | Conclusion | Scoring | Samples | Full specifications

This lens on my humble Fujifilm X-A1 means I look a lot less fancy than the guy next to me with a lens longer than my head! Looking like an amateur, in this respect, is a very good thing. The focus ring is smooth in action without being loose. As with the original, it has no “hard stops” at either end of the focus range. People worry waaaaay too much about lens sharpness. It's not 1968 anymore when lenses often weren't that sharp and there could be significant differences among them; ever since about 2010 all new lenses are all pretty much equally fantastic. Not having an aperture control on the lens takes some time to get use to and I don’t love how the front element telescopes out when focusing close. However, those are forgivable features and would be even more forgivable if the lens was less expensive, which brings my to the only real problem I have with this lens – the price. It’s a little high for a pancake lens especially for on that’s not weather sealed, so you might want to wait for this one to go on sale.Additionally, a tiny metal dome-shaped lens hood (LH-XF27) is also included in the box which screws into the 39mm filter threads on the front of the lens.

The Fujifilm 27mm lens is smaller than the lens hood of my kit lens! I’d never haul around the other one on my daily jaunts. The specifications might look pretty unadventurous, but this is a terrific little pancake prime that deserves a place in any Fujifilm fan’s camera bag, especially users who like to travel light and use unobtrusive kit.

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Do you bring your camera with you wherever you go? Have you ever left it at home or the hotel because it’s just too heavy?