mdotson90

The XF55-200mm isn't compatible with the teleconverter, and it's a physical issue, not Firmware. The teleconverter compatible lenses have a recessed rear element, and the teleconverter has a protruding front element that fits into that space. This isn't the case for the XF 55-200mm, and XC 50-230mm

Probably not.. I'm curious though, what would be the appeal of this vs the 16-55mm f/2.8 WR? The OIS? The way I understand it, the constantly aperture in the 16-55mm sacrifices the OIS because you can gather twice as much light at the long end (somewhat) negating the need for stabilization. That, and the size and weight of having OIS in lens this would been unreasonable.

If you can get a good deal and the focal length and aperture work for you, why not? The image quality is great as with virtually all of Fuji's lenses, and it's very well corrected (has little distortion for such a wide lens). A great and unique focal length for environmental portraits. It's one of the older ones so while I wouldn't call it "slow", it isn't as blazing fast to focus as others. That, plus the fact that it has no weather sealing and it's a little slow in f-stop for a wide prime of that size. It's essentially the same size as some of the primes that are two stops faster. For me personally, there are just more attractive options for wide angle X mount lenses. But as I said, if the focal length and f-stop and price work for you, you'll find very few reasons to be upset with this lens.

If you're worried about not having anything wide enough, and your budget is a factor, why not try the Samyang/Rokinon 12mm f2? It's a permanent part of my travel kit and I think the IQ is great, comparable to Fuji glass. If you can deal with no autofocus, I think it'll serve you well, especially for the price of $250, it's less than 1/3 the cost of the XF 10-24mm. Protip: Set to infinity, and everything beyond 3 feet is in focus, so if landscapes are your thing, you probably won't have to adjust focus much anyway. Also, it's 2 stops faster. The only negatives I can think of with this lens is noticable light falloff on the edges, especially wide open (depending on your style, this may or may not be negative) and lack of communication with the camera, so no autofocus/EXIF data. Other than that, it's small, light, cheap, fast, and the IQ is good. It's a really good landscape photographer's tool. Flickr has lots of shots taken with it. Check it out. https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=rokinon%2012mm and https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=samyang%2012mm

Those lenses aren't equipped with OIS. The 80mm is. Do you have OIS turned on? It takes a bit of juice to stabilize big heavy lens elements. Mirrorless cameras aren't known for their battery life. You can go into the settings and change the IS Mode from continuous to shooting only so that it's stabilizing the image only when you press the shutter button, vs all the time and see if that makes a difference Depending on your shooting habits, I don't think 200+ frames is bad for a camera that's only rated for 350 frames WITH the 35mm f1.4, and that's straight from Fuji themselves. If I were you, and I was otherwise happy with the lens, I would carry another battery or two and deal with it. They're cheap on Amazon and i'm sure the lens is worth it. Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

Bravocharlie, what brand of filter are you using? Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

There are a few things to consider here, a few of which aren't exactly related to the physics of optics, but we'll start there. A lot of engineering has to go into a lens to give it the highest resolving power. Ultimately, aberration and diffraction limit this. A lens' job is to focus light into a single point. As light strikes the surface of glass, or any other medium, some of it is reflected and some of it travels through, but it refracts (changes angle). In an ideal lens, the change in angle would be as close to 0 as possible, and the reflections kept to a minimum. Lens manufacturers try to mitigate these problems with differently shaped lens elements and fancy coatings, but they will never completely eliminate them. It is easier to tune the glass elements for a specific focal length, which is why primes tend to be sharper than zooms. You have to make sacrifices when designing the lens elements to be used across a large focal length range. Now that that's out of the way, on to your issues: 1. The filter Any time you add a filter of any sort, you're adding an element to the lens that wasn't accounted for when the actual lens elements were designed for optimal light transmission. A high quality filter with high quality glass and coatings can minimize the image degradation beyond what your pixel peeping eyes might make out. However, I believe it is unsafe to say that there is any filter available that completely eliminates it. 2. The zoom Like I said above, manufacturers must make compromises when designing zoom lenses. Some do better than others. Most (I say most...) consumer lenses do have some degree of softness at their longest setting. Obviously, a piece with superior optics will do better than a cheaper lens. Lenses with large zoom factors are worse than ones with smaller ones. For example, my 18-135mm (7.5x zoom) is annoyingly mushy at 135mm. The 100-400 (4x) is not nearly as bad in this respect, but still, physics. 3. The atmosphere Fog, dust, smog, smoke, pockets of warm air, all these things scatter and refract light as it passes through the air. The effect is much worse at telephoto focal lengths. 4. The f stop Everyone knows that most lenses perform best anywhere from 1-3 stops down from the largest aperture due to the minimization of aberration. The sweet spot is different for each lens but the idea is the same. Stop down too far, and diffraction becomes an issue. Diffraction is the disturbance of a wave when it encounters an obstacle -- think of a ripple in a pond encountering a rock in the water. When waves of light travel through your aperture, the Iris itself causes some disturbance in the light. At smaller apertures, diffraction becomes very noticable depending on the lens/camera, but it could begin degrading an image as low as f/11. At 400mm, the largest aperture on the XF 100-400mm is f/5.6. This gives you about two stops from wide open until you're in potential diffraction territory. It's a fine balancing act. 5. What are you actually doing? Aside from the limits of your lens, the environment, and physics... What could you be doing better? I'm not going to lie, I've been thinking the whole time ive been writing this about the possible application of 10 stops of ND filter @ 400mm, I guess not everything is here for me to understand. Even in broad daylight, a 10 stop ND requires stupid long exposure times (I guess that's the point). And, not to insult your skill/intelligence in any way but I ask you: Are you using a quality tripod? Any wind? That could affect very long exposures. Do you have OIS turned off? Are you using the timer or a remote to start the exposure? All of these things are probably working against you. Sorry for the length, but I hope this helps. Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

Brexit, higher tariffs, and the devaluation of the GBP?

I've used both.. And I feel that both of the 23mm have a very clinical way of rendering things. I've not used the 14mm, but I have the 56mm and that magic you speak of I've only ever really seen in the 35mm f1.4. Just my personal experience Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

I wouldn't.. It misses focus quite a bit and is painfully slow due to such a large heavy element and not having the linear motors found in most of Fuji's medium to telephoto lenses. At f1.2 the DoF is so thin that I'm still struggling with this lens wide open a year later. It's something of a skill that needs fine refinement. You would need to stop it down somewhat to be able to get use it practically especially for moving subjects. So you could do the 50-140, 100-400, or 55-200 but none of those are brighter than the F2 you're using now. The only other options would be to get the 1.4 version of the lens you have now (which is slower focusing) but you'll still have DoF issues depending on your distance to subject, or do the 90mm F2 which has the LM so it's fast focusing and the extra reach will help you with less cropping in post Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

Fuji vs Fuji did an excellent write up of this as well. The 18-135mm is shorter and lighter than the 55-200, even though it is a little fatter. To me, it feels perfectly balanced on an XT-2. So you have a little bit of objective advice, here's some shots with both lenses. I wasn't being exactly careful and the shots with the XF 55-200mm ended up being at 128mm. This test is far from perfect but it'll help you get the idea. They were all taken on an XT-2 and had no filters. https://www.dropbox.com/s/clktuiiuzfybl4a/comparison.jpg?dl=0 As you can see, when racked out, the 18-135mm is incredibly soft at larger aperatures, especially when compared to the 55-200. It doesn't really start getting its act together until f/10-ish. Hopefully this can help the OP or someone else stuck in this dilemma. If low light is causing a problem for you with the 18-135 its probably going to do the same with the 55-200. It really only has at best a one stop advantage in the overlapping zoom range. Telephoto zooms of this size aren't exactly known for their low light performance. If the sharpest photo is of the utmost importance, then get the 55-200. If ultimate versatility and WR are important, go with the 18-135. Sometimes the subject matter is so compelling that noone will notice your photos at 135mm are kind of soft. It's a great thing to have such range in one lens.

I travel quite a bit and my XT-2 stays mostly paired up with my 18-135mm. While I do have some gripes about it's sharpness and IQ especially when racket out to 135mm. It tends to be a little soft but the lens is infamous for this. Where this lens shines is the wide focal length range and WR. It's a day time lens so I usually have it stopped down to like f/8 and it does fine given the light is enough. It's been everywhere from the rainy muddy hills of Iceland to the Sahara desert. In these conditions the less you have to change lenses the better. In fact the 90% of the times where I do change lenses is to put on my Samyang 12mm because 18mm just doesnt cut it for mosy landscapes. The only other lens that I carry in my travel kit is the 23mm f/1.4 for low light. For what its worth, one of my travel buddies has a XT1 with am 18-55mm which she uses mostly and a 55-200mm which she loves, but doesn't use often as it isn't too versatile as a travel lens and finds herself taking it off just as quickly as she put it on. Could just be different styles. Here is my travel photo blog. http://mikeo0.synology.me Im unsure if all the EXIF data is intact, but nearly everything was shot with the 18-135mm except the obvious low light photos which were done with the 23mm.

Like I said above, if you want the best low light performance, a faster aperture is needed. So one of the 23mm/35mm f/2 primes would be better. Even if you aren't shooting in dark alleys, a bigger aperture gives you better low light performance and cleaner photos due to faster shutter speeds/lower ISO. If that is your main concern, get one with a bigger aperture. If you want good environmental portraits (that is, the subject and some of their surroundings) then a good medium focal length is the 23mm. The 27mm also works well. 35mm is do-able outdoors, but you'll have a harder time framing subjects and a lot of their surroundings when indoors. It's not so much the weight as much as it's size/profile compared to the 35mm f/2.

The XF27mm is a great little lens and pairs well with the XT10. The lens weighs next to nothing, and is incredibly sharp for what it is. It also can make some nice small amounts of bokeh depending on how you frame your subjects. At f/2.8, it's 1+ stops faster than your 16-50mm at similar focal lengths, but if the light is getting bad, then f/2.8 still isn't terribly fast. It's better than what you have currently, but if light gathering is your primary concern, you can do better. If you want the best for low light, go for one of the f/1.4 primes - either the 16mm, 23mm (my personal favorite), or the 35mm. The XF23mm f/1.4 is a part of my travel kit along with the XF18-135mm and Samyang 12mm and I'm absolutely happy with this kit. If your primary concern is getting the lightest possible kit, look no further than the XF 27mm. A good compromise between size and speed would be either of the f/2 primes such as the 23mm or 35mm. A word about OIS, is that it's not always the end all-be all. Yes, it helps if you are shooting static things. OIS helps for camera shake but not for moving objects. If you're shooting people or have anything in your frame that you want to freeze, you'll want a faster shutter speed anyhow, which will mean a higher ISO. Better to have a noisy high ISO photo than a motion blurred photo. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I recently traveled for 3 months with my X-T2. I used the 18-135mm and XF 23mm f1.4 for when the light got bad, and the Samyang 12mm f2. As said, the 18-135mm is one of the lenses you pretty much have to use in the day time. That said, the focal length range satisfied just about everything I needed it for. The OIS does wonders especially if you like taking video and the weather resistance came in handy more than a few times. Unless the goal of your trip is to take high quality Nat Geo photos, I can't see the benefit of carrying the size and weight of red badge zoom. Don't forget that the 16-55 is physically larger and heavier than the 18-135. So basically, --18-135mm-- Pros: More versatile due to zoom range, smaller and lighter than 16-55mm, OIS, slightly cheaper Cons: Slightly lower IQ than 16-55mm, bad in low light --16-55mm-- Pros: Slightly higher IQ, 16mm on wide end, 2/3 to 1 2/3 stop advantage through overlapping zoom range Cons: Heavy and big as hell, no OIS, limited zoom range especially for travel, a little more expensive What means the most to you?