Fujifilm 8mm F3.5 - Hands On Review 

Excellent review Andy. Thank you

Very detailed review, with some fabulous images. I hope you’re well, Andy.

Thanks for introducing the new Fuji lens. 🙏👍👍👍

Solid review. Very informative, thanks.

Thanks, Andy, very helpful!

Thanks for this review! Coming to Lisbon and Madeira in late August… may bring this for landscape in Madeira 😊

Hello, Thanks for the info and your insights.

Always love your reviews and been looking at a ultra wide to compliment my 10-24mm. This could be the lens I look at. f3.5 seems pretty good for the width and could be a good lens to get. As always excellent video. Thanks

Hi Andy, many thanks! It will be mine as soon as it will be available in Italy!!!

Bought this lens your pod cast made the decision easier, thank you!

Looks like a nice lens, could be an addition to my kit. thanks for sharing.

Thanks Andy. I've been thinking about getting a super-wide lens for my XT-4 that's small, light and practical. This one looks ideal. Great review.

You’ve been asking for this for a while haven’t you. I cannot wait to get my hands on it to compliment my xt2 and XH2

Thanks for a really useful review (as ever) Andy. I am an Aussie touring Europe and am lugging my XF 8-16mm and, to save weight, left my XT5 at home and have my XS10 which is a bit clunky but light and with excellent IQ. I have been praying for a Fuji 16mm shift lens for my architectural work since trading my heavy Canon with its 24mm and 17mm shifts and buying my first Fuji X camera, an XT2. The 8-16 does a great job in cathedrals etc but the 8mm is going to be so much more practical. I agree it is a shame that it is not f2.8 but I bet that would have needed to come with a significant weight and bulk gain. I think for astro f3.5 will be OK as the cameras now seem to cope with high ISOs that a couple of years ago we would only have dreamed of.

Great review and samples Andy. Thanks for that. I actually checked out your other suggestions and will go for the Nisi 9mm f/2.8. Half the price of the Fuji, better Focus and according to other reviews does very well too.

I give you the 500ths like and subscribe. I enjoyed your proper and fair review of the attractive Fujifilm 8 mm. The point that it’s just F3.5 will not effect the great quality in sharpness and colourbalance. So for me it is the missing standard for my x-t4. Love the compactness of this lens for streetphotography. THNX!

Excited. A small, wide angle prime. I would much rather carry this around than one of the zooms. Thanks for the Video.

What these wides make me think of is those fashion pics from the 60's, with those tall skinny models shot from the ground up.

Very good review sir! Loved that you compared real life samples side by side with it's main competitors.Many thanks 👏👏 I just wondered how it perform against Xf14 and 12mm Samyang only for astrophotography purposes.

0:22 stunning photo! A great capture!

Thanks for the on-point review. Looks like a lovely lens, and compact to boot! I think it would be OK for astro, especially given it’s sharpness wide open. Some of my favourite night-sky shots have been captured with the Samyang 8mm fisheye f/2.8. The wide field of view gives plenty of head-room with shutter speed while avoiding star-trailing, and I imagine this lens would be the same, making up for the lack of a fast max aperture. I can happily go up to 40 secs with the Samyang on my 24Mp X-pro2, although one might not get away with that on the 40Mp sensor. I might try one in the Autumn. (Night sky season is pretty much over here in the far north of Scotland just now!)

Thank you for a nice review, Andy. You need a boom arm for your mic, it picks up your hand gestures from the table.

Great fan of your reviews. This one also amazing as usual. Expecting to see a review on Sigma 10-18 for Fuji. And a comparison of wide angle lenses options for Fuji. (Fuji 8mm, Tamron, SIgma )

Thanks for the great review. I love ultrawide lenses and after leaving Canon full frame I was missing my 12-24 heavily, but the 8-16/2.8 is absolutely not an option - big, heavy and expensive as I would only need it for the 8mm. So this prime is exaclty what I want, since the manual ones are not a real option having several visual impairments (short and far sightened and other tiny problems), so AF is mandatory for me. And of course the image quality is just superb compared to the Nisi or Laowa, which would be the widest options otherwise. Astro on f3.5 "on occassion" should be pretty fine too. Thanks again and thanks for the really great "real life" pictures that resemble also my fields of photography.

Andy, Thanks for all your advice on the 8mm. I bought it and after a week I realized, I am never using something this wide. I returned it and went to the WR version of the 10-24 which I had the non WR version years ago on my X-T3. Well, let me say on the X-T5 its very very good. I don't understand this idea that the lenses aren't good enough for the X-T5. As we discussed, I used the 16-80 and like that as well. Now the perfect setup for me is the 16-80 10-24 70-300. Can't go wrong with this setup and its light, effective and I'm leaving the Nikon at home most of the time.

Nice overview, some impressive shots of yours in it. Reminds me of my Sigma 8-16 zoom back in the day, which was amazing and frustrating at the same time. When you nail a shot it's like nothing else, but it's just so hard to wrap my head around 8mm ultrawide. Guess i'll pass on this one, although your example pictures at least forced me to put it on the nice to have some day list.

Lisbon. Really one of my favourite cities.

Very well done and detailed review you made and beautiful photos you taken despite having just one week 'deadline' to coincide with Fuji X summit announcement. I owned Viltrox 13mm f1.4 lens and decided to just hold on from selling it to upgrade to the new 8mm f3.5 for now. The new 8mm lens is so tempting but the thoughts of having to still fork out a few hundreds dollar more after selling my viltrox lens only to get f3.5 seems not feasible. I am just a hobbyist photographer, not even pro. The viltrox 13mm is already good enough (in fact waayy good enough!) for me to capture wide angle scenery

Great review Andy, thanks! Finally an UWA prime from Fuji. 8mm is extremely wide, though; would have preferred a 12mm 2.0 or 10mm 2.8. Guess I’ll hang on to my Samyang 12mm 2.0 AF for now….

Thanks for the video. Always great to hear your perspective Andy. I also wish it was an f/2.8, it would have been the perfect lens for nightsky shooting. Really interesting points about the lack of light falloff towards the edges, wouldn’t that make it equivalent to the Laowa 9mm in terms of astrophotography?

Hi Andy. Thanks for the video. XF 10-24 OIS WR versatile and looks the same in corners. Having OIS seems to be an advantage for photos and videos as well.

Hi Andy..thanks. I have the 8-16mm and it's phenomenal lens. NISI make a filter kit too and it's good. I also have the Viltrox 13mm 1.4 too ...i dint understand how it couldn't have been 2.8 or even 1.8. But I'm glad they have released an ultra wide lens.

Great, clear, just-right review. Have retire before I can sign up for one of your trips. I think this is a great addition and hope to get this and so have a 8, 12, 18, 27, 33, 60, 70-300 XF kit. I would be very interested in a comparison between the Laowa 15mm on the GFX vs this 8mm on the X-T5… I would 16:01 like to have one camera system but now use both XF and GFX… feels like too many choices and cameras.

This lens was the reason I kept postponing the decision to get the 10-24. I’m still holding on to my Canon 10-18 + Fringer II since this setup really performs well, especially for video work, but the XF 8mm f/3.5 will complement amazingly well my Viltrox 13mm f/1.4 😃

SHOULD BE FINE FOR ASTRO: f/3.5 in the wider 8mm focal length should be similar to f/2.8 in 9mm for astro, since sky objects move slower the wider the field of view gets. A longer shutter speed can be used to still keep stars as dots, not trails. Northern lights won't seem to move as fast.

I was really hoping for a bit better minimum focus like the Laowa 9mm I already have. The Laowa is 12cm from sensor while the Fuji is 18cm. The autofocus would help a ton in crowds taking photos or in dances that are a bit fast paced manually focusing with the aperture wide

Thanks Andy for this really interesting review in the real world.. as always ! Do you plan to compare it to the 8-16, which I own and love, at 8mm, as it’s the sole Fuji lens that wide ?

Merci beaucoup pour cette review , j'attendais cette avis avant de l'acheter, mais vu son prix je préfères le Nisi 9mm f2,8 car moins cher, plus lumineux et proche en performance.

Nice review- regarding lack of light falloff wide open - are you sure LR wasn’t automatically applying a baked in lens adjustment profile?

I noticed in the treated image at 8:00, you were getting some gulleys, or white trim at the edges of things. I see it on the top of the upper black umbrella near the 30 sign. Now, I've spent mucho time cleaning this kind of stuff up from my jpegs shot with a pocket Canon Elph 310 years after I shot them, and did retouch for a living for many years at a custom lab. So, thank god for the dark tool setting on the copy and paste tool...But the shot has to be important to work on it. Have to say that Topaz Photo AI turned a lot of those 12 meg files into 30 meg files. (Even after getting rid of that layer it gives them)

Great to get your feedback Andy, did you get to try the new app and its geo logging features?

nice!

Thanks Andy, often you comment on your plans for the lens. Will you take it along on some of your trips? I love the idea of this lens but feel like I would still need the 10-24 for its range.

Hi Andy, another great video (liked) and long time subscriber here. I guess you don’t still have a copy of the 8-16 mm to compare against the 8 mm end? I bought this after your excellent comparison with the 10-24. The 8-16 is big and heavy, but my goodness, it is a truly fine lens! I’ve just had four days in Florence where I carried my xt-4 around wit the 8-16, the wonderful new 18, the amazing new 33 and the new 56 (which I have n’t spent enough time with yet. I took the fabulous 90mm with me but it did n’t leave the hotel room, and the 16-55 (?) f2.8, stayed at home and I think I’ll sell because the new primes is this range are so good. I might get new 8 mm to eventually pair with an Xe-5 as part of a small set up, and now I’ve seen the review of the new Leica Q3 and I won’t be buying that, I have more cash to spend on Fuji gear :-)

I recently purchased the Laowa 9mm and have been quite disappointed by the vignetting, which is on the order of two stops difference in the corners. Stopping down to f8 or f11 doesn't remove the problem. I am really interested in the new Fuji 8mm as it seems to expose far more evenly across the from. Thank you for this direct comparison!

Very interesting review. Have you tested the Meike 10mm f2?

great review andy, but when you compare the lenses, in my opinion the fuji 8mm looks very bright and more color accurate...i think the final review is to field test it and do astrophotography and compare the results, thanks again!

How does this 8mm work for group photos in a tight space?

Hey Andy - thanks for the excellent review ! .. I am concidering buying this lense soon (as a wedding photographer) - indeed the Astrophotography is not my field of photography - but I do shoot couples sometime with burst of stars etc. - my question now - why do you think, with the F3.5 it wouldnt been an option compared to the 2.8 ? .. I mean, I would need only a little bit more time (shutter speed) to compensate .. but what you mean, is that the stars than get these "shifted stars" effect, is that right? .. Thanks for your answer!

Really nice review. Do you suggest this 8mm instead of 10-24mm for real estate photography?

Complimenti belle foto . Sono un fotoamatore uso Fuji XH1 e come grandangolare il 14 f2.8 ottimo peccato non WR . Questo 8mm f 3.5 credo sarà il prossimo acquisto 👋👋.

Thanks for the review of the fuji 8mm.What astro lense do you recommend ? Have been using the fuji 10-24 mm.

Your last point is spot on here! And most Fuji photographers I talked to agree with that. They would have made a beast of a lens at f2.8. But it would have shadowed the 8-16mm, so this is a pure commercial decision and has nothing to do with consumers' need. Otherwise, thanks for the video!

800 is a good price, but i was hoping for more like 600. The 8-16 is fantastic, but i guess the R WR steps this lens up a price point instead of being a budget version like an XC lens. I've been using the laowa 9mm but it's just not sharp enough for me, unless you really stop down, and the manual focus can be somewhat annoying if you are trying to take close-up photos. But most of the time just leave it locked near Infinity. Mine focuses past infinity though which is annoying. I'm guessing this lens probably wouldn't have that problem. The big benefit though of the laowa is how tiny it is. I wasn't even going to bring it on my trip to Japan, but I carried it around in my backpack for a month because I simply couldn't not pack it, yes I can take ultra wide photos with my phone, but with the camera it's awesome as well. I definitely got some shots that made it worth bringing because of how small and unintrusive it is.

For years, I was hoping Fuji would make a 12mm at 2.0 or 2.8. But now it is a moot point for me. I have the Laowa 9mm, but often it is too wide…. and the vignetting. (My next lens up in focal length is the Fuji 16/2.8). Based upon great reviews and focal length coverage and light weight, I’ve ordered the Sigma 10-18mm and am waiting for it to arrive. I already have Sigma’s 18-50mm and am happy with that, especially for the size/weight. I’ve had the Fuji 55-200mm since it was new and am happy with it, but I might change to the 70-300 for its several advantages. For my backpack, it’s a nice set of small zooms: Sigma 10-18, Sigma 18-50, and Fuji 55-200 or 70-300. Are you still carrying just the 10-24 and 55-200 for most of the time? How often do you add the 8mm or 9mm or 12mm prime? Same question for 35mm prime to fill the gap? Thanks for your honest and well made reviews!

Hi Andy, so will you pick viltrox 13mm f1.4 or 8mm f3.5 for your next trip?

Andy, great review!! Yes, we all wish it was a little faster. What about the Zeiss 12mm f/2.8 for astrophotography? I haven't tried the Zeiss, although I'm thinking about it. Do you have any experience with the Zeiss? In the end, I might end up getting both the Fuji 8mm and the Zeiss 12mm for their different strengths...

Hi Andy, I can see some of the pictures were taken with the XS20 and some with the 40 MP XT5. Would you say your very positive conclusion is only referring to the 26MP or also to the 40MP? Thanks a lot, Christian

When you were comparing lenses for vignetting, did you have lens corrections in Lightroom disabled? So that the software would not pick up automatically built-in lens corrections that are applied by the camera via lens profile? Or via Lightroom itself via its own lens profile?

I'm going to get one and shoot some Milky Way cores and long exposure astro shots and report back, because I bet we can still get some amazing stuff with this, not to mention all star trackers out there will be happy to know this weighs so little, its so practical and hiking-friendly cmpared to the bazooka the 8-16 is

Great review and I put a lot of weight behind your opinion. As an architectural photographer I'll put one on order, especially as I sold the 8-16 a couple of years ago for the reason you state: it is so large as to be impractical but I have missed the 8mm (12mm equiv) fov. There is one thing which intrigues me. I've never done astrophotography, what is the obsession with f2.8 vs slower aperture lenses? Does half a stop really make that much difference?

thx Andy

Great review, thank you. As an amateur landscape photographer, if I already own the xf 10-24mm, what benefits are there to get the 8mm? Would it be worth it?

So is this lens part of the optimized for 40megapixel sensor lens? the samyang/rokinon 12mm is so bad on the XT5 for me, worked fine on the older sensor, so this might be a good option if it is "optimized"

I really want this lens as a wedding and event photographer. F3.5 is not a deal breaker for me at all.

Ciao Andy, nice one I was waiting for your review as I enjoy your style, how do you feel this tiny beast in comparison with the 8-16? I know don’t keep it and that dimensionally and weight wise the 8mm wins but in you opinion given previous images with the 8-16? Initially I was reluctant but having seen the first samples (not all bc some samples are really……hum… s…..) I’m thinking about trading the 8-16 and the nisi filter kit for this especially bc I think it could be the best uwa xompanion to the viltrox 13mm that is a beast of a lens and really the go-to lens in the dolomites (imho) thank you so much Cheers

Hi Andy, I’m currently shooting with an X-T3 body and have an interest in shooting pano’s, so I have a question. Current wide lens is the 14 2.8 and for wider frame the 10-24 XF zoom. As I’ll be shooting at 16x9 format, what would your thoughts be on trying one of the 9mm Ultra Wides available, the Fuji 8mm is out of my reach. Geoff Howard

I’ve tried… tried… and tried… to like and use super wide angle lenses. I have the XF 10-24, I have the 12 mm rokinon f2.8, I even have the Laowa 17 mm f4 for the GFX… and I just don’t use them… ever! I just can’t get interesting images from the wide angle aspect. The GFX lens is course awesome for indoors shots, but beyond that limited use case, I find it difficult to re-commit to wide angles.

Thanks for the great review. The f3.5 is a unfortunately a deal breaker for me.

Not to nit pick but you said the Laowa was 1 stop brighter and you thought it was 1/2 stop difference. 2.8 to 3.5 is actually 2/3 of a stop which is close to what you suspected the difference is. Great video Andy! I am on the fence here. Just got back in to the Fuji system as a primary camera with the X-T5 and am torn on wide angle lenses. Being a Nikon Z7 shooter (razor sharp, contrasty and almost perfect glass), I am always a little disappointed in the glass coming from Fuji. Most of their lenses start to fall apart at 40 MP but I understand they are correcting all of this over time. I’m just waiting on a replacement for the 16-80 (my favorite lens) that actually fully holds up to this new sensor. Fingers crossed! I’d shoot the GFX to get the amazing glass but I don’t want the weight or the lack of range in the focal lengths. One of the reasons I am so excited about the Fuji system moving to 40 MP is that I can leave the Z7 and its heavy lenses at home and carry a lightweight system that still allows me to make large prints without AI or some other technology to fudge the resolution to be usable in a large print. But back to this range of lens, I’d sure love a refresh on the 10-24 that actually brings its resolution up to the new sensor. That would be great. I’m worried that with the 8mm 3.5 I will be missing such a huge range of focal lengths that I will regret the purchase. Any thoughts on this too long and rambling post? 😊

Thanks for sharing. Not enough content in this lens right now. If I can make one criticism… every time you set your hands down on the table there’s an audible “thunk” in the audio. It may not be noticeable on mobile, but using bass heavy earbuds and on a home theatre system for large screen viewing, it is quite obvious and distracting.

I wish you would compare to the 8-16

Great review! Question: Do you still have this lens in your possession, and if so, would you be willing to sell it to me? I bought a bad copy and yours looks almost perfect. Thank you.

Good video thanks for sharing your thoughts. It's just that I think you place too much value on the maximum aperture. F3.5 is an "in between" stop between F2.8 and F4 so that's just half an exposure value less than F2.8

All these astro and landscape comments are fine for that crowd, but I'm guessing that a major target market will be vloggers who want a walk-and-talk lens to use on all the X-S20s Fuji is hoping they'll buy. Those people need a light, compact lens that will be easy to balance, and the half-stop difference between f/2.8 and f/3.5 is completely trivial to them (and to most other users, tbh…) I figure Fujifilm has pretty much hit the bulls-eye for that use case.

@~15:20, the difference between f3.5 and f2.8 is 1/2 stop, not 1 stop. 1 stop from f2.8 would be f4.0. Not a big deal though. Subscribed.

Honestly, they shouldve made it slightly larger to get it to f2.8 because everything else is perfect

I'm surprised why so many people wish it was F2.8 instead of F3.5 ! The majority of people will buy this for landscape, architecture or interiors - not Astro. I bought it for real estate interiors to compliment my 16-55, and it's amazing. I believe it's overpriced though - it should be closer to 600 than 800 based on the value of other Fuji lenses. However, compared to the system I used before, XF lenses cost significantly less.

As you say - 8mm is very wide and it makes you wonder if they could have made it f2.8 had they made the lens 9 or 10mm - it would still have been pretty wide

to compare native to non native glass, the (in body) camera profile corrections must be off. apples to apples.

I would go a step further and say Fujifilm should also release a 8mm f/2.

Confused why it's 3.5... :/ I do concert photography in low light and would love to be able to use it for some fish eyed stuff