pluton

As the others have said, if the field of view works for you, there is no better lens for Fuji at this focal length. IMO, the 14/2.8 is one of the great optical designs of the last 20 years or so. The absence of distortion is amazing. The sharpness is pretty evenly distributed across the frame, and unlike zooms, it's small and lightweight. It's a strong wide angle, but not what anyone today would call "super wide" . This, and the lack of distortion, means that carefully composed shots can be made to look quite normal, without the typical super wide-lens artifacts of blurriness and pronounced volume anamorphosis at the sides of the frame.

The current Photo Ninja 1.3.3 claims to support the XE2s.

The person you quoted is so stupid, he doesn't know he's stupid.

I have the XE1, which has identical dimensions. As the others have said, your battery life is normal. I ALWAYS carry a spare in my pocket. If I was going on a remote journey, I'd carry 8 batteries. I own 4 right now. I can recommend the Really Right Stuff hand grip for the XE1/XE2. It's modular, consisting of the bottom plate, handle, and left side L-plate. I got the bottom and the handle. It's really nicely shaped and machined.

I've only got the 14mm and the 23mm. I agree the 23mm is, unfortunately, larger than I'd like. I wish they'd made it an f/2, although getting rid of AF would have done the most to shrink it. On the street, even with the 23mm, my XE1 is so small and dorky looking that folks don't pay it (plus the 23mm) much mind.

C1 is famous for displaying "pretty" images on first convert. The old Nikon converter Capture NX was famous for this(with Nikon files only, of course). Even the current execrable Nikon Capture NX-D(a Silkypix product) has that seductive "nice color" look. To my eyes, PN often has this effect with both Nikon and Fuji-X files. Lately, I have noticed, and increasingly cannot ignore, the jacked-up midtone contrast in Photo Ninja, which, on some files, contributes to the better initial impression, but on many files just looks oversharpened. Sharpening, in general, has been oversold. When I feel this way, the X-Trans conversion in Lightroom is like a pleasant vacation from the popular oversharpening look.

Many, maybe most, of the famous, big-name documentary photographers of the 20th century arranged for someone else to do the darkroom work as soon as they could, career-wise. You are not alone.

I also wish for a non-distorted 18mm. f/2 would be fine, however. Helical manual focus would be the best.

I have tentatively concluded two things: 1. That Lightroom gives a result that is slightly lower in resolution than the "better" raw converters, in my case Photo Ninja. At any "normal" inkjet print size, such as 10x15 inches, this resolution difference is not noticeable when viewing the print. And... 2. That the X-trans sensor may have a slightly lower resolution in the green area of the spectrum. This hypothesis will be tested if I can find my old tri-color Kodak glass filters.

Sounds like C1 has improved since I sampled it about three years ago.

I have Photo Ninja, but use Lightroom for X files 98% of the time.