Have you ever noticed how many online reviews of photographic equipment, no matter how thorough, are illustrated with at best, very ordinary pictures? In fact, the reason I decided to write this series of reviews for my website was to address this very issue….that is to say, I felt there was a need to fill a gap in the potentially useful information available to owners and prospective owners of Fujifilm equipment.
It all stems from a recent purchase dilemma I faced; whether the Fujifilm XF 8-16mm f/2.8 R LM WR lens would be any good for landscape astrophotography. I could not find anything on the internet that adequately addressed this question. The best I could find were a few sites that reviewed this expensive ultrawide lens and added an unsubstantiated statement that the lens would suit astro work……but no examples, no first-hand details on its application to astro work (I apologise if I overlooked anyone who actually did review this in the detail I was after). This paucity of online information did nothing for my quandary of whether to buy this lens or not! I’m sure I’m not alone in being frustrated by this.
Influencers/preferred reviewers get early access to newly released kit and have a week or so to do their assessment, and as often as not they shoot boring pigeons, sparrows and tall buildings under a grey and dull sky. Image files that likely don’t do justice to the equipment they are testing, and which truly good photographers would probably be too embarrassed to share.
I hope that in contrast, my reviews will be seasoned by time, and provide the best possible assessment of equipment based on real usage. To this end, I thought it would be interesting to compare three of the best Fujifilm landscape lenses for their application to astrophotography, a topic not often highlighted with Fuji equipment.
- Fujifilm XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS lens
- Fujifilm XF 16-55mm f/2.8 R LM WR lens
- Fujifilm XF 8-16mm f/2.8 R LM WR lens
Without any doubt, the 10-24mm lens is my most used optic. It is outstanding in every respect, although corners can be a little soft/smeary wide open. Despite my fondness of this lens, its maximum aperture is only f/4, so it will need a very high ISO of 6400 for it to get down to a good 30 second exposure of the night sky that renders stars as points rather than rice grain shaped quasi trails (exposure time for FF and APS-C sensors respectively based on 500/300 rule [500/15mm = 33 seconds; 300/10mm = 30 seconds]). One such image is shown below.

I hate having to go to ISO 6400, but sometimes there is little choice. This is not the best lens for astro work but excels at sunset/dusk photography. The next image shows the same landscape scene as the stars first begin to show themselves during the blue hour, and this is a far better use of the 10-24mm lens given the residual ambient light.

I could have used a longer exposure to allow for an even lower ISO, but this way I kept the stars as points of light (i.e. 30 sec exposure). With this lens, sometimes there is enough light to select ISO 3200 and still shut the lens down to improve its sharpness. The image below shows the mauve aurora (southern lights) over a local beach on 11th May 2024 when there was a huge solar storm that reached deep into lower latitudes in both northern and southern hemispheres.

One of the very sharpest lenses in the “wide to short telephoto” range offered up by Fuji is the ‘red badge’ Fujifilm XF 16-55mm f/2.8 R LM WR lens. Even at f/2.8 it is tack sharp corner to corner. This is a great lens for astro and means you likely never need to exceed ISO 3200. Below is an astro shot at ISO 3200 and then one at ISO 400. The difference in noise is very noticeable. I have the first image framed on my wall, but would not print larger than say 24 inches because of the ISO noise.


I assume the recently released MkII version of this lens would behave similarly.
As good as modern noise reduction software is (Topaz/Adobe etc), it’s always best to shoot at the lowest ISO possible. It’s quite apparent that the second image taken with the 16-55mm lens exhibits way less noise. Indeed, I dislike noisy files so much that I’ve taken to shooting at base ISO and upping the time of the exposure whenever I can. I love 15-minute exposures that create great star trails but exhibit zero noise. 15 minutes doesn’t let the sensor get so hot that I get a blizzard of hot pixels to deal with, so I find it a good compromise. In the picture below, you can still see the nebulae in the milky way and other galaxies such as the Magellanic clouds. I also like that you can see the star colours better (OOI the blue star trails are from large super-hot suns). The picture below was taken with the Fujifilm XF 8-16mm f/2.8 R LM WR lens, which, to answer the initial question posed above, is a superb astro lens. At its widest setting and f2.8 it is razor sharp corner to corner. See the image below.

For this shot I did a quick mental calculation extrapolating from a good 30 sec, ISO 3200 file – I got the calculation right first time, but forgot to turn off noise reduction (second dark slide exposure is made to subtract any hot pixels), so this was actually a 30 minute exposure on a very cold night. Out of interest there wasn’t a single hot pixel to deal with. In summer on warm days I’d opt for noise reduction on long exposures, but it was about 3 degrees when I took this shot, so it probably wasn’t really needed.
All the above images were taken using a 26-megapixel sensor apart from the image above, which was taken on a 40 megapixel sensor. Apart from the obvious ability to crop more heavily with the larger sensor, noise is reasonably comparable up to ISO 3200, although the smaller sensor does, in my opinion, have a small advantage…. nothing that should be considered as a deal breaker though. To prove this point, have a look at the image below. This was taken on the same 8-16mm lens and a 40-megapixel body, but at ISO 3200. The red colour in the sky is the aurora australis.

For completion, the shot below shows the same scene at ISO 800, but earlier in the evening. It also shows one of the problems with the 8-16mm lens – unwanted reflections running riot within the many lens elements…I’ve left them in here, but they would be easy enough to remove in Photoshop. In contrast, coma seems to be well controlled.

So far, my view is that the 8-16mm is the top Fuji astro lens, followed by the 16-55mm, but, are there any more options? In my opinion there are three other potential options worth your consideration:
Fujifilm XF 18mm f/1.4 R LM WR lens
Fujifilm XF 14mm f/2.8 R lens
Fujifilm XF 16mm f1.4 R WR lens
In terms of perspective, the 14mm lens is perfect – I could argue that for landscape photography, this 21mm FF equivalent lens is the best of all Fuji prime lenses. Despite this, the Fujifilm XF 18mm f/1.4 R LM WR lens is in my view, optically the best of these three lenses, and while it’s the least wide-angle at 27mm FF equivalence, images are sharp as a knife even at f/1.4, meaning you can get more starlight to the sensor than you can for any of the other lenses. This translates to shorter exposures and less star trailing and an ability to use lower ISO settings to kill noise. Stopping down to f/2.0 makes things even sharper (see below). The 16mm lens is not as sharp, even though 16mm is a better perspective than 18mm for landscape work. Despite this, I love the way the 16mm can be used for very close work at f/1.4, and for many people this makes it worth owning, but for astro, the 18mm reigns supreme based on its winning optical formula (see image below).

So, what are my conclusions? Fujifilm’s best “red badge” zoom lenses are a good match for their best (fastest) prime lenses, but offer much more flexibility when it comes to perspective. The best astro lens in my opinion is the 8-16mm f/2.8. It is sharp across the frame and at all focal lengths from f/2.8. Anyone coming from FF will consider this a fairly light weight, easily manageable lens, although several reviews knock it for being heavy – frankly, I find these kinds of comments bizarre. The next best lens is the 16-55mm f/2.8. This again is a superlative performer for astro work. Neither of these lenses have image stabilisation, but this is irrelevant for astro as you will be working on a good solid tripod. In any event, most Fuji camera bodies now have image stabilisation built in.
For sunrise/sunset, blue hour/golden hour or daytime landscape photography, the 10-24mm f/4.0 is the best all round landscape photography lens. It’s not as optically refined as the previous two lenses, but is capable of outstanding results when used carefully.
As primarily a landscape photographer, when it comes to prime lenses, the winner specifically for astro would be the 18mm f/1.4 lens, but for all round landscape work, the winner would have to be the 14mm f/2.8 lens. The 14mm lens gets very little on-line attention, I have no idea why when it is so unbelievably good.
I suppose to summarise, for general landscape photography, the winners are the 10-24mm f/4.0 and 14mm f/2.8, but for astro work, the 8-16mm f/2.8 and 16-55mm f/2.8 are the winners – horses for courses!
I should just mention that all the lenses apart from the 8-16mm can be used with screw-in or magnetic filters, while the 8-16mm f/2.8mm requires an expensive assembly to make use of filters due to its huge bulbous front lens element. I use the NiSi S6 150mm holder system. You might think you don’t need this for astro – not so, they sell a NiSi 150x170mm star soft astrophotography filter that is worth considering to amplify major stars whilst losing the myriad of less relevant celestial light – i.e. you can pick out constellations etc.
Overall, Fuji equipment is an excellent choice for astro work, and as good as my old FF cameras were for astro (maybe better). They also yield way fewer hot pixels and are sharper, perhaps because they don’t have anti-aliasing filters over the sensor.
So, don’t hesitate to buy Fuji if astro is your cup of tea.
For completion, the vital statistics and my considered score of the four top lenses I’ve listed are:
Fujifilm XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS lens (version 2014-2020):
15-36mm FF equivalence, min focus is 0.24 meters (0.16x reproduction), 72mm filter thread, separate lens hood supplied, weighs 410g, 87mm long, 14 elements in 10 groups. 9/10
Fujifilm XF 16-55mm f/2.8 R LM WR lens (Mk I):
24-83mm FF equivalence, min focus is 0.30 meters (0.16x reproduction), 77mm filter thread, separate lens hood supplied, weighs 655g, 106mm long, 17 elements in 12 groups (Red Badge). 9/10
Fujifilm XF 8-16mm f/2.8 R LM WR lens:
12-24mm FF equivalence, min focus is 0.25 meters (0.10x reproduction), no filter thread, built in lens hood, weighs 805g, 121mm long, 20 elements in 13 groups (Red Badge). 9/10
Fujifilm XF 14mm f/2.8 R lens:
21mm FF equivalence, min focus is 0.18 meters (0.12x reproduction), 58mm filter thread, lens hood available but not supplied, weighs 235g, 65mm long, 10 elements in 7 groups. 8.5/10