The Fujifilm GF 20-35mm f/4 R WR lens brings ultrawide versatility to the GFX medium format system, catering to professionals who demand exceptional sharpness and detail in their images.
Coming to you from Christopher Frost, this thorough video explores the strengths and weaknesses of the Fujifilm GF 20-35mm f/4. Frost highlights its versatility with a full frame equivalent focal range of 16-28mm, making it a flexible tool for various genres. While the maximum aperture of f/4 isn’t particularly bright, the lens compensates with superb optical performance. Frost notes the build quality is a mix of metal and plastic, designed to balance durability with weight. At 725 grams, it’s relatively heavy, though, especially for landscape photographers traversing rugged terrain.
The lens features a smooth rubberized zoom ring and an aperture ring with firm, tactile clicks, a hallmark of Fujifilm's design. Its autofocus is quick, quiet, and accurate. However, it lacks built-in image stabilization, which isn’t a dealbreaker, since most modern GFX cameras include in-body stabilization.
Key Specs
- Focal Length: 20-35mm (35mm equivalent: 16-28mm)
- Maximum Aperture: f/4
- Minimum Focus Distance: 13.8 inches (35 cm)
- Maximum Magnification: 0.14x
- Optical Design: 14 elements in 10 groups
- Diaphragm Blades: 9, rounded
- Filter Size: 82mm
- Weight: 25.6 oz (725 g)
Frost’s testing reveals outstanding sharpness at f/4, particularly in the center of the frame, with minor softness in the corners that resolves when stopped down to f/5.6. This lens is clearly optimized for detail-heavy work, performing exceptionally well on the 102-megapixel GFX100 II. However, shooting in raw exposes significant distortion and vignetting at both ends of the zoom range. Strong barrel distortion dominates at 20mm, flipping to pincushion distortion at 35mm. Vignetting is also pronounced at f/4, requiring corrections in post-processing. These issues are largely mitigated by Fujifilm’s in-camera corrections for JPEGs.
Close-up performance at the minimum focus distance reveals softer results at f/4, improving at f/5.6 and f/8. The lens handles bright lights effectively, showing only mild flaring and minimal coma smearing. Its background rendering is surprisingly smooth for an ultrawide zoom, adding a touch of versatility for creative compositions. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Frost.
