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Features

These Third Party X Mount Lenses Complement Fujifilm’s Film Simulations

Brett Day
No Comments
02/19/2020
3 Mins read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Rokinon 50mm f1.2 portraits of Asta (4 of 4)ISO 2001-1000 sec at f - 1.0

Last Updated on 02/20/2020 by Mark Beckenbach

There are some great third party X mount lenses available for your Fujifilm cameras.

Recently, Sigma told the world that they would love to make lenses for the Fujifilm X mount platform. Still, because Fujifilm will not play nice and share their algorithms with third parties, Sigma said they would have to walk away as they do not have the time to reverse engineer Fujifilm’s AF system. You would think this means that you cannot use or buy third party lenses on your X mount camera, but you would be wrong. You can actually get your hands on some fantastic third party X mount lenses; you just have to know where to look for them. In this roundup, we will share a few of our favorite third party X mount lenses.

Not only can you get genuinely excellent third party X mount lenses, but you can also buy fully functioning adapters for your Fujifilm cameras as well. This adapter from Fringer (who took the time to reverse engineer Fujifilm AF system) lets you adapt Canon EF mount lenses and allows full use of automatic focus and electronic aperture control (read our review). However, if you don’t want to use an adapter and don’t mind manual focus lenses, the third party X mount lenses we list below will blow you away. The image output, overall build quality, and reasonable prices of these lenses make them must-haves. Let’s check them out.

Zeiss Touit 12mm F2.8

Here are the pros and cons from our full review:

Pros

  • Very good build quality for a Mirrorless camera lens
  • Sharp and contrasty
  • Distortion only really apparent around the corners
  • Compact size
  • Fairly fast autofocusing speed

Cons

  • The lens hood is made from plastic and doesn’t feel very Zeiss-like at all

Buy now: $999

Rokinon 12mm F2

third party x mount

Here are the pros and cons from our full review:

Pros

  • Great colors
  • Small build
  • Lightweight
  • Nice aperture clicks
  • Sharp

Cons

  • There are lenses with better bokeh for sure

Buy now: $318.76

Lensbaby Trio

third party x mount

Here are the pros and cons from our full review:

Pros

  • Compact size
  • Nice feel, though the exterior is a bit plasticky
  • Good image quality
  • Fun to use with a camera that has focus peaking

Cons

  • No aperture changes

Buy now: $222.51

X Mount Lenses - Rokinon 12mm f2
Captured with the Fujifilm X-T3 and the Rokinon 12mm f2

Pro Tip: All if the third party X mount lenses listed here are fantastic, but just like any other lenses, they are bound to get dirty. Dirt, dust, water spots, and grease from fat fingers will tarnish your glass at some point. We always recommend that you keep a basic lens cleaning kit in your camera bag or on your person at all times so that you can take care of any mess when you see it. You don’t need anything fancy; this one will do nicely.

Mitakon 35mm F0.95 II

third party x mount

Here are the pros and cons from our full review:

Pros

  • Ultra-fast f0.95 aperture
  • Balances well with Fujifilm cameras
  • Adds a nice weight to Fuji cameras
  • The smooth accurate focusing ring

Cons

  • No Autofocus
  • The aperture ring is clickless, easy to move by accident
  • No electronic communication with the cameras

Buy now: $479

Zeiss 50mm F2.8 Touit

third party x mount

Here are the pros and cons from our full review:

Pros

  • Super sharp both wide open and stopped down, though we feel like we’ve seen sharper macro lenses
  • Beautiful color rendition: the way it performs with skin tones impressed us quite a bit
  • Fairly fast to focus
  • Great feel despite the fact that we’re not completely smitten about the rubber

Cons

  • Slow focusing when in the macro range
  • Lack of depth of field scale, which can make focusing at the macro range even tougher

Buy now: $950

Samyang 50mm F1.2

third party x mount

Here are the pros and cons from our full review:

  • Very, very sharp image delivery
  • Beautiful bokeh
  • Smooth focusing ring
  • Lightweight design
  • Affordable price point

Cons

  • I really think it’s time for Rokinon and Samyang to give their lenses a metal body/exterior

Buy now: $360.15

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