Antonius

I've just picked up the 16mm 1.4 a few days ago.
  I've barely had a chance to use it, literally only for a couple of snaps, but can give some observations from my circumstances.   I originally had the 35mm 1.4 and the 18mm 2.0. I sold both of these lenses, as the 35mm was a little too mid-range for my needs, despite being a really nice lens. The 18mm 2.0 was fine, but I wanted something a little wider, sharper and faster overall.   I prefer to operate at both ends of the extremes, so when I replaced those two lenses, I was looking for something between the 16mm and 23mm range for the wide end, and for the long end, the obvious candidate for me would be the 56mm 1.2, should I decide to add to my gear.   I use my X-Pro1 and X-T1 for casual shooting and my everyday carry around stuff, as I have my Nikon D800 and associated gear and lenses for bigger projects. I did contemplate an all in one solution with the 16-55mm 2.8, but in the end, decided that I lacked a fast prime in the 24mm range in my overall kit (as I have the Nikon 24-70mm), so plucked for the 16mm.   Some quick comparisons and musings.  The 18mm 2.0 and 35mm 1.4 are far smaller in size than the 16mm – if size and weight are an issue for you, then this is something to consider. This is one of the reasons why I also opted for the 16mm over the 16-55mm, because it is slightly smaller (but not by much). I haven't found the 16mm to be overly heavy or bulky – nor do I find it a problem in terms of balance on the camera body. You may improve that further with the battery grip though, especially on smaller Fuji bodies than the X-T1. This was originally a concern of mine before I bought it. The combination however no longer fits my Black Rapid SnapR 35 bag – that's annoying. The aperture ring is ever so slightly loose. Not horribly so, but it's a lot easier to move the aperture ring versus the 18mm and the 35mm, which had a nicer "click" to it. I suspect it will be easy to accidentally knock the aperture ring off one of the settings. No big deal, but something to be aware about. The lens hood is plastic – but Fuji's lens hoods and caps have always been a bit flimsy to me, but the cheaper 18mm and 35mm came with metal hoods. Having said that, the plastic hood is well made and doesn't bother me. It's similarish to some of the Nikon ones. You can attach it to the lens reversed for travelling with, which is a plus point. The lens itself is well made and feels good in the hands. It's a premium lens. The mechanism for switching to manual focus is really nicely done. You pull back on the focus ring and it switches from auto focus into manual mode. I really like that, and it's made me use manual focus far more. The lens does seem to suffer from chromatic aberration, but then, that's something the majority of lenses I've used suffer from and can be corrected in post. From what I can tell, it does an excellent job of minimising distortion and is sharp across the frame. It focuses close and at 1.4 it does a good job at isolating subjects. This is what you're spending your money on really. If you feel that you need something faster than 2.8, then pick it up. If you don't, consider one of the alternatives or the zoom for convenience.If you intend to take photos of people and portraits, and you're not used to a lens this wide, then you will need to get a lot closer to them in order to fill the frame. This can be off-putting for people who are not used to having their photo taken and make them feel self conscious. So that's something to be aware about in terms of expectations. The difference between 16mm and 18mm is actually a lot – that 2mm goes a long way. The 16mm is definitely wide wide and feels so. Coming from the 18mm 2.0 and 35mm 1.4 – you go from a 52mm adapter ring to a 67mm one, which I didn't double check at first and meant I couldn't use my Lee Seven filter system until I purchased a new one – easily rectified but obviously at another small spend. Autofocus seemed reasonable to me – but I've not done any extensive checking or testing. But even around the house I was fairly impressed with how well it locked onto things, and as I mentioned earlier and as someone has mentioned since, the manual focus override is excellent and useful. Obviously when you shoot at a shallow depth of field like 1.4, you need to be technically disciplined to ensure you lock on and focus on what you need to. From my early tests, it's not really different to what I expected and will likely require some time to get to know how the lens best behaves in these circumstances. How will it best be used? It's a specialist lens, so landscapes, street photography and environmental portraits or in certain wedding scenarios, it'd very handy. It's good for tight situations and obviously low light, so if you shoot any of those things, then it's worth considering.   In the end, the 18mm was a cheapish sort of lens, but I got results from that which I was happy with. I can tell in my short use that the 16mm's image quality is better overall, so look forward to seeing what I can do with it. They are however all very good lenses these days, so whatever you buy you should be pretty happy with.   Hope that helps – here's one of the very few images I took with it so far...     For some comparative purposes, here are some images I've taken in the past with the 18mm 2.0.
 

 
           

And for all you guys arguing about a lens hood.  Who gives a flying sh*t?    On eBay you can get a lens hood of any style for under $8.00 US Dollars but the petal hood provided works just fine as well.

How many AF lenses you had in the 70s? How many rolls of film that was capable of producing 300+ frames you had in the late 90s?
 
We're shooting too much.

Any infos about the wireless control? 

olli, awesome images, thanks for sharing! Antonius
 
 
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Thanks Karinatwork, I don't know these things because I'm coming from Nikon, after 31 years, one day soon I will be a X-T1 newborn and shooting tethered which I think will be awesome.
 
 
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