An Ultra-Compact Lens? Nikon SE vs. Fuji 27mm

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I don't mean to be picking on Nikon lately. I'm really not. We all love Nikon, right? It's a given. I like the new 28mm SE and if I were getting the new Z fc I'd get the 28mm SE with it. But...well—and yeah, this might seem a little snarky—I kinda had to snurfle when I read the marketing description "ultra-compact" applied to the SE.

Maybe today it is.

The pinnacle of Nikon's manual-focus and early AF 28mm ƒ/2.8's was the 1981 AIS. Remarkably, it's still listed as an available product at B&H, although it's currently back-ordered. Nikon's published statement about it is: "Available through special order only against confirmed and non-cancelable orders. Allow 60 to 120 days for delivery. Subject to limited availability." Compared to the new SE lens, the old "pinnacle" AIS 28mm is 5 mm smaller in diameter and only 2.7 mm longer.

So basically the new SE is the same size as the old AIS! That's what counts as "ultra-compact" in these days of giant pickup trucks, giant houses and giant lenses—the way lenses used to be normally. Made me chuckle. What was ordinary and expected then is "ultra-compact" now.

Of course the new SE lens is much lighter than the old AIS, because it's plastic instead of metal. The AIS weighs 250g / 8.8 oz., and the new SE, 160g / 5.6 oz.

Of course, you have to remember the Nikon SE is a full-frame lens, not one that's limited to APS-C. That's a smart decision, because a lot of people use Z full-frame cameras and it means the SE lens can do double duty. But it also means that if you compare it to a nearly identically-spec'd lens made specifically for APS-C, you get something that's really compact:

Courtesy CameraSize

The new version of the Fuji XF 27mm ƒ/2.8 R is 22.7 mm shorter than the Nikon SE and about the same diameter. It's also considerable lighter at 84g / 3 oz.

It also sports about the tiniest lens hood ever...almost comical-looking. And yet, who wants a giant hood on a tiny lens?

There are a few more differences. The Nikon SE has nine elements and the Fujinon, seven. The XF 27mm has an aperture ring and the 28mm SE doesn't (neither did the original Fuji 27mm). The Fuji costs $399 (although, as Fujiphiles know, Fuji has periodic sales) and Nikon says the SE will cost $299 when it's available by itself.

That won't happen till autumn, we're told.

...But you can't get the Fuji now either! It's been a particularly hot-selling lens and it's basically sold out everywhere. Maybe you can find one, but it might not be easy. B&H is listing it for purchase but says it's a "New item, coming soon," and if you add it to your cart the shipping date is stated as "Not available." Amazon says "Temporarily out of stock. We are working hard to be back in stock as soon as possible."

My take
Personally, I like smallish primes but I don't see any particular reason to be a nut about it. It's not worth it to me to "optimize" this particular parameter by seeking out extremes. Too far down on the list of things I'm more likely to obsess about! Over the years, using many dozens of lenses, I've just empirically observed my own feelings about it, and my standard, as it has evolved, is that anything less than 300g (about 10.6 oz.) is okay, and conversely that any lens that weighs over 500g (about 17.5 oz.) is going to pull on the strap and annoy me sooner or later. I don't see a lot to choose, size-and-weight-wise, between the Fuji 27mm discussed here (84g) and, say, the Fuji 35mm ƒ/1.4 (187g). But, really, that's my personal preference, when I have a choice. Of course you use heavier lenses if you need to, to get the shot you want.

Still and all, there's something very appealing about the little Fuji 27mm. Given the state of the supply chain at the moment, I guess I'm not the only one who thinks so.

Mike

UPDATE: Oren, who reads Japanese, found a page at Nikon Japan listing the discontinuation of a number of products (he called it an "older-product-line massacre"), and many of the surviving metal AIS manual-focus primes are labeled "old product." So, once the existing lenses are out of the pipeline, that's it. The only one B&H has in stock is the AIS Micro-Nikkor 55mm ƒ2.8. Get it while you can, if you want it new....

Book o' the Week:

Byways: Photographs by Roger A Deakins. Damiani, September 2021. Note: PRE-ORDER ONLY. The little birdies are telling me that these will go fast. This is the first monograph by the legendary Oscar-winning cinematographer Sir Roger A. Deakins (born 1949), best known for his collaborations with directors such as the Coen brothers, Sam Mendes and Denis Villeneuve.

Original contents copyright 2021 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

DavidB: "Ah, the Nikon 28mm ƒ/2.8 AIS lens. A favorite of mine for many years on a Nikon FM—and it still gets used from time to time on my Nikon D750."

Jamie Pillers: "If you purchase the Fuji 27mm as part of a kit with the new X-E4, you get the lens for $200!  :-)  "

Richard Tugwell: "I've had good optical experiences with 'pancake' lenses (Canon 40mm, Summicron 40mm, etc.), but I find the balance a bit off-putting, even if it is probably just subconscious. You mention the Fujinon XF 35mm ƒ/1.4. I started my Fuji journey with that lens, intitially on the X-T1, but for years now on the X-Pro2. I pair it with the much maligned XF 18 ƒ/2 for street / travel photography. Smaller, lighter, and easily pocketable, but also nicely balanced on the camera. Neither obscure the optical viewfinder. It's a combination I haven't really had to think about for the last five years. (Street / travel stuff.)"

Mike replies: That's the ideal, right? Just to have the lenses you need and need only what you have.

James: "I have the new Fuji 27mm (and the old one, but I love aperture rings, sigh...). The Fuji 27mm is all metal construction, not plastic. It's also weather sealed. So that might explain the $100 premium along with the fact that it has an actual aperture ring. It's also a really great lens."

Albert Smith: "The 27mm Fuji has changed the way I shoot. It didn't happen immediately, and it wasn't dramatic, but my images look different than previously when my lens(es) of choice were the 16mm, 23mm and 35mm ƒ/1.4 primes. Having the ƒ/1.4 aperture made me feel that if I didn't use it, then what did I pay for?

"With the 35mm particularly over 50% of my shots were at full aperture, even outdoors in good light using the electronic shutter which gives a couple of stops more shutter speed than the mechanical 1/8000th. I was grinning at the selective focus that I kept thinking was separating me from the cell phone users and their hyper-focused tiny sensors.

"The 27mm was different. The wide-open aperture was fairly pedestrian. There was not the eye-arresting drop off of 'in focus/out of focus'...it was gradual. I tend now to shoot at ƒ/5.6 and up to ƒ/11. My compositions now have to support the overall depth of field, so I have to think about the whole frame; no more pastel blurring to fill the non-primary subject area.

"The 27mm with moderate aperture has changed the way I shoot and I'm enjoying looking at my shots when I return from an outing with it."

Comments

[Allan Ostling]

I had the original Fuji 27mm six years ago, when I owned an X-A1 (which had no viewfinder). Knowing the virtue of this lens I waited until the new X-E4 was available in chrome and with the aperture-ring 27mm as a $200 kit lens. It was the miniature trap-hood which sold me. For street-walkers like me this is the perfect combo.

[Stephen McCullough]

Hi Mike

A small but cool thing about the Fujinon: this new version is weather resistant.

[Daniel]

On the new Nikon throwback camera for the new lens. The FM/FM2 were "Full Frame". Why isn't this one? Nikon making nostalgia can't even make it right.

[Mike Ferron]

All said and done the Fuji is an APS lens while the Nikon is full frame. The Fuji has a right to be smaller. This is a good subject though. Once upon a time I did not mind larger cameras and lenses but now they seem, well just too much ya know?

[Colin Odenbach]

I can't resist, Mike. I'll add my two cents of snark for Nikon. The Series E 28/2.8 (the optics of which became the AF Nikkor from 1986-95) remains the most compact and lighest of its kind from Nikon: 150 grams/5.3 Oz in weight and 6.8mm shorter than the new SE (hmm, SE versus Series E, both budget lenses, I wonder where Nikon may have looked for nomenclature;-)). I will give them some props for getting nine elements into that space versus the five of the Series E, and it will undoubtedly blow the older lens away optically...but ultra-compact? Marketing hoopla.

[Jayanand Govindaraj]

Surely, the question should be which one takes better photographs? Far more interesting than size, to a person like me who owns, and uses, both Fuji X and Nikon Z systems. By the way, I have the original iteration of the Fuji pancake 27mm lens, and have never used it much because I find that the design quirks makes it difficult to use, for me, in the context of the Fuji X system.

[schralp]

That is the only AIS lens I have kept; it just works and I could never justify replacing it with an autofocus version. All the others have been sold.

[Arg]

To me, the Z fc is “form-over-function” when compared to the minimalist elegance of the a6400 and 35/2.8 T* lens:
https://j.mp/36lWJ6R

Or, to price-match the SE lens, the Samyang 35/2.8AF:
https://j.mp/3dSWAfd

Cheers

[Graeme Scott]

The 'almost comical-looking' lens hood on the Fuji XF 27mm looks identical to the one supplied with my Voigtlander 40mm Ultron.

[Pak-Ming Wan]

I do agree with this optimization of lens design for the format - otherwise what benefits would you get from going mirrorless / smaller sensor?

However, on the flip side, I wouldn't do that at the expense of ergonomics. As much as I like the Panasonic 20/1.7, the mismatch of this on a larger body (than say the GF/GX/GM series) as well as missing an aperture ring has pushed me to the Panasonic 15/1.7. Which is unfortunate, because I really do like the 15/1.7.

Pak

[Kenneth Tanaka]

I am very much a fan of these small, sharp contemporary primes, Mike. I have (at least) one for each system I own, even medium format. For examples, the Fujifilm GF 50mm f/3.5 R LM WR for the GFX system and the Hasselblad XCD 45mm f/4 P for the XCD System are each relatively economical small lenses optimized for their respective platforms. And they’re each excellent generalists. I speculate that advancements in computer-aided lens design techniques and coatings have enabled these “pancake” style lenses to shed many of the negative traits they had (fall-off, edge blur, flare) common to their genre in olden film days.

Btw, the new version of the Fuji XF 27mm isn’t just smaller and sporting a tiny hood; it’s also weather-resistant (the “WR” designation), making it worth an update for older model owners who have weather resistant X bodies.

[Mani Sitaraman]

Back in the early 1980s, Nikon had a small number of economy lenses, labeled the "E" series. They were released when it came out with its Nikon EM economy SLR, priced below the FM and FE, themselves seen as amateur standard cameras of a somewhat lesser build quality, the first non-professional bodies to bear the "Nikon" label like the big Nikon F or F2. Back then, I could afford only the Nikon E series 28/2.8 lens priced at $80, which was smaller and lighter than the Nikkor AIS equivalent.

No matter. It turned out to be an excellent performer, as did the inexpensive 75-150/3.5 which I bought a few months later. Looking at it now, it is very well built, by modern standards, and like my AI and AIS lenses, has held up over decades of use.

[Michael Perini]

Re Discontinuation of older Nikon lenses, I suspect they were part of the products that Nikon Produced in their Sendai Factory which they announced would cease manufacturing Cameras late last year.
The older all metal lenses probably have little in common with newer production lines.
Sad to see, but you really can't fault them from a business perspective.

Re the new 28mm, I'm not at all troubled boy the fact that it covers full frame, I think it makes sense that it fits all their all their newest cameras and is relatively small on either, --as long as its performance is good on both formats, and build quality is adequate.

[B Grace]

The Fuji lens pictured here reminds me of my 1 Nikkor 10mm lens, which I thought worked well on my Nikon V2 camera. I think it might be interesting to add that V2 and 10mm prime combination to the left of the Fuji in the comparison photo here, and add the Z6 or Z7 with this new Z 28/2.8 Nikkor to the right of the Zfc. The Fuji and Zfc (as well as the Z50, which I think is a wonderful little camera) strike a nice size and image quality balance for the price range.

My opinions of my AiS 28/2.8 are that it is a great lens, but it gained its reputation on the results it offers at close focus distances. I wouldn't say it's better than many of the other 28mm Nikkors when focused to infinity. And it's never autofocused well on any of my Nikon cameras. :)

The size of the new Z 28/2.8 SE is probably about right for me. Being close in size to my AiS 28/2.8 tells me it's similar in size to the Z 16-50 on my Z50, and that's about a perfect size for a nicely compact camera.

As for the Zfc being a Fuji copy, all I see is my Nikon FM in its styling. Indeed, there was a gap of several years between the end of FM3A production and the Df, but the lineage is there all of the way back to the rangefinders. Looks good to me, anyway.

[Earl Dunbar]

The new Fuji 27 might push me back into the XF camp - I currently have no digital camera other than my iPhone and a couple of old Olympus (pre E1) digicams lying around. Somewhere.

When I had the XPro-1 my favourite lens was the Zuiko 28/2.8 via adapter - gorgeous rendering in b&w, which is mostly how I used it. I’ve been thinking about jumping back in with the XPro-3 now that they supposedly have fixed all the control buttons/dials issues that drove me crazy. I’d have to sell some gear to justify it.