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The Best Fujifilm Lenses Under $500 for Beginners

Chris Gampat
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09/21/2022
4 Mins read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Fujifilm 16mm f2.8 R WR weather sealing

Last Updated on 02/03/2023 by Chris Gampat

Congratulations! You’ve chosen to get into the Fujifilm X series camera system. So many photographers who adore the retro looks and aesthetics love Fujifilm. You’re about to find out more as you explore the film simulations, lens selection and see just how durable the cameras are. And lucky for you, we’ve reviewed most of them. Here are some of the best Fujifilm lenses under $500.

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How We Chose the Best Fujifilm Lenses Under $500

Here’s some more info on how to figure out the best Fujifilm lenses under $500.

  • Our Editorial Policies don’t let us talk about lenses that we haven’t tested. With that said, you’re getting a lot of transparency here. We’ve tested all of these lenses in our full reviews. You can see those linked in each section. What’s more, we’ve also shot all these photos ourselves.
  • Believe it or not, Fujifilm has a lot of great lenses under $500. You don’t need to decide whether or not to buy a lens or make a student loan payment with these. In fact, to some, the best options available are the Fujifilm lenses under $500.
  • Weather resistance is insanely important. It keeps your sensor clean and your gear always operational.
  • For the fastest autofocus performance, try to keep your camera in the boost-mode.
  • These lenses are incredibly small. You can shove a few in your camera bag and be happy to shoot all day.
  • There are Fujifilm lenses under $500 for landscapes, portraits, street photography, candids, and so much more here on this list.

Fujifilm 16mm f2.8 R WR

Pros

  • Small
  • Lightweight
  • Weather sealed
  • Fun to use
  • Affordable
  • Good for documentary work and travel
  • Incredibly fast autofocus

Cons

  • Not sure why there isn’t an effective manual focus distance scale for hyperfocal length shooting
  • It’s a wide angle lens with a relatively slow aperture for an APS-C camera system

In our full review we state:

As with any other Fujifilm lens, the Fujifilm 16mm f2.8 R WR lens relies heavily on the sensor output and the specific exposure that the photographer snapped. This is due to how the X-trans sensor works. To that end, Fujifilm’s newest line of prime lenses leave a look that is very digital and not analog in appearance. With that said, the Fujifilm 16mm f2.8 R WR lens is indeed capable of rendering beautiful colors.

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Fujifilm 23mm f2 R WR

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Pros

  • Good image quality
  • Seriously and surprisingly fast focus. This lens is officially Fujifilm’s fastest.
  • Fast focus on the X Pro 2, X-T2, and even the X Pro 1. The latter completely shocked me.
  • Nice colors
  • Compact size
  • Weather sealing
  • Turning the aperture ring feels nice and smooth until the clicks come in. It’s a tactile experience that’s just lovely.
  • Sharp images
  • Fairly nice bokeh
  • Affordable price point

Cons

  • Something about this lens just simply doesn’t have the magic the 23mm f1.4 R does

Here’s what we said in our full review:

The overall image quality from a lens like this is to very good. However, there are just things about it that make me like the f1.4 more. The bokeh is overall the same but I feel that the f1.4 is slightly sharper–at least my copy is. For the money though, lots of photographers will love this lens. Anthony swears by and absolutely loves his.

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Fujifilm 27mm f2.8 R WR

Pros

  • Compact
  • Weather-sealed
  • Great bokeh, when you get in close
  • Good center sharpness
  • Great price

Cons

  • Some colored fringing
  • Softer corners

Here a quote from our full review:

The Fujifilm 27mm f2.8 R WR is a new lens that’s kit for cameras like the XE4. But, the lens captures images way better than most kit lenses. It’s a tiny, versatile lens that will be great for lifestyle and street photography and, in a pinch, portraits, and landscapes.

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Fujifilm 35mm f2 R WR

Pros

  • Great sharpness
  • Nine aperture blades make the bokeh as good as it can be
  • Small size
  • Weather resistance
  • The fastest focusing lens that Fujifilm has offered as of the publication of this review.

Cons

  • Just f2…a refresh to the 35mm f1.4 actually would have been more appreciated and pushed the system ahead overall

Here is a quote from our full review:

With nine aperture blades to this lens, you’re bound to expect beautiful and creamy bokeh. Indeed, that’s what you get. Amazingly enough though, I expected even better bokeh from this lens but it’s about on par with the f1.4 version.

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Fujifilm 50mm f2 R WR

Pros

  • Weather sealing
  • Fast autofocus performance on the newer cameras (sorry X Pro 1 users)
  • Sharp optics and image quality
  • Nice bokeh
  • Only gets sharper when you use a flash
  • Pretty compact
  • Nice build quality

Cons

  • Not much, honestly

Here’s an essential quote from our full review:

The Fujifilm 50mm f2 R WR has fantastic image quality that really, truly speaks for itself. There isn’t a single reason for photographers to complain. It’s sharp, has nice bokeh, doesn’t suffer from any sort of issues the 23mm f2 suffers from when it comes to image quality, and most importantly it’s got great colors. When using the Fujifilm system, it’s honestly tough to complain about the colors anyway.

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The Phoblographer’s various product round-up features are done in-house. Our philosophy is simple: you wouldn’t get a Wagyu beef steak review from a lifelong vegetarian. And you wouldn’t get photography advice from someone who doesn’t touch the product. We only recommend gear that we’ve fully reviewed. If you’re wondering why your favorite product didn’t make the cut, there’s a chance it’s on another list. If we haven’t reviewed it, we won’t recommend it. This method keeps our lists packed with industry-leading knowledge. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.