Fuji X PRO 1 vs Fuji X100 (part 1)

The Fuji X PRO 1 is a new and exciting APS-C camera combining high quality image with a small and travel friendly body. How does this compare to the last year surprisingly successful Fuji X100?

18 mm f2.0 lens
In this first part I am going to compare the Fuji xpro1 equipped with the 18mm f2.0 lens against the x100 (with its fixed 23mm f2.0). I am not going to shoot charts but rather use a real-life scene.
There are some mixed opinions about the 18mm lens from reviewers and users and I just want to do my own tests to form my own opinion.
The 23mm on x100 is on the other hand regarded as an excellent lens by most reviewers.

Because of the difference in the number of pixels and CCD sensor the results could not be applied to each lens as a physical "glass" but more as the system. If we could mount the 18mm on the X100 we would probably get different result.
 
The crops are 1:1 for x100 and the xpro1 image had been non-fractionally resized down when needed to have the same POV. While some may find this method questionable, it works for me. Regardless of how I compared the images, including both 1:1 or both resized, my final observation remains exactly the same about each system. The image on the right shows where the samples come from the frame.
I took few different shots of the scenes to make sure there is no temporal error.

Center area.
Here is the crop from the center, I was especially interested in the rendering of the shadow area, high contrast and small details. Left is the xpro1 with 18mm and the right is the x100 with 23mm. (ISO 200,  f8)

My view: Xpro1 system produced a little higher contrast at the center. The verticals are sharper (the missing AA filter?).  We can split hairs here, but so far for any normal purpose the characteristics of the center area could be considered very similar.

Edge Area.
Next is the edge. What I call edge is more in the line of "action safe" area not the edge of the frame. Here I was interested in the rendering of the greys but avoiding much of the contrast. The x100 image is again 1:1

My view: Not sure what (or if anything) went wrong with x100 image, I did re-shoot this few times with the same result. The crop from xpro1 with 18mm gives significantly sharper look with more contrast, but also little of chromatic aberration starts to creep in. The 23mm seems to render low contrast a lot softer (bricks), which may be the difference between having AA filter on CCD (X100) and no AA filter on xpro1. This is f8 so I don't think a focus is an issue here.

Extreme Edge Area and axial chromatic aberration.
Next is the extreme edge in regard of axial chromatic aberration with contrast subject and reflection to get as much CA distortion as possible. Getting visible axial CA was very easy on xpro1/18mm, but nearly impossible on x100.

My view: You can't hide from the chromatic aberration distortions of  the 18mm in the edges. You don't have to hunt for it, it will be there with just enough contrast. Thanks to the excellent edge-to edge retention the x100 renders more details.

My final opinion of this (very subjective) test

I would be very careful to call the 18mm on the xpro1 "soft". The softness and smearing became issue only near the very edge. For most of the part the lens retains its equal sharpness and contrast across the whole image then it rapidly deteriorate near the very edge. This is in contrast to x100 where the lens go just a little softer much earlier but then never really tanks. We will never know if the overall details are attributed to the glass or the new Fuji new sensor without AA filter but I suspect the later.

The only real visible issue is that the 18mm lens is easily prone to exhibit chromatic aberration on the edges of the frame - a common problem on most lenses of this type (unfortunately $600 today wont buy you a great combination of excellent 1. auto-focus, 2.wide angle prime, 3.fast lens, on any system).

But how this CA distortion affects you in the real-life? Let's take the whole image and print it on a large 16 x 11 inch paper. The crop on the right is how much of purple fringing you would see with your eye on the print in the corner of the frame. If you ask me that is not something I would be terribly concerned with.

I attribute the mixed reviews of this lens to the fact that the next Fuji 35 mm f1.4 lens is just too good edge-to-edge and the expectations were very high.

Is the lens worth consideration? If a wide angle is your thing, I would say so. I have yet to compare it to other wide angles but for most of the part the lens retain its sharpness and all the "nastiness" really shows only at the very edge of the frame.

So there it is for now. Stay tuned. There is still this excellent 35mm for the xpro1 that should blow my sock off.

 

Next: Xpro1 18mm vs Sony NEX 5 with 16mm