Fuji 16mm F/1.4 - Can I get some user feedback?

[TopDownDriver]

What I'm really hoping to determine is if I should add the 16mm F/1.4 to my collection.  This currently includes the following: 18-55, 10-24, 40-150, 56 1.2

 

The 16mm would be primarily for street shooting and to get the shutter speed up in these situations.

 

Thanks

[Tom H.]

What I'm really hoping to determine is if I should add the 16mm F/1.4 to my collection.  This currently includes the following: 18-55, 10-24, 40-150, 56 1.2

 

The 16mm would be primarily for street shooting and to get the shutter speed up in these situations.

 

Thanks

 

Love the 16mm for street shooting, especially at night and in dark places. As from 1.8 it's as sharp as you'll ever need. I can take it down to 1/30th, even 1/15th and still get usable shots.

 

Fuji X-T1, 16 1.4, wifi shared to my phone and quick edit in VSCO.

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[Neil_SI]

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[x-shooter]

Hi,

http://photograph.cz/tags/fuji+xf+16mm+f1.4/   

 

All photos contain EXIF metadata. XF16 is very versatile glass. My baby while working on the street together with XF14, of course .. :-)

Jakub

[Sundo]

I've also been thinking about getting the 16mm. It'd be a no-brainer if it didn't have such horrible coma performance, but because the coma is absolutely awful I'm most likely not going to get one. I had the 23mm F1.4 for a while and sold it for same reason. In case you don't know what I'm talking about, check Phil's star pictures in another thread.

 

I wonder what it is about lens design that causes 16-55mm F2.8 to have good coma correction, yet it's sorely lacking in all Fuji primes. Since I do a lot of night photography and starscapes, such miserable performance really bothers me. It's doesn't affect just star pictures either, night cityscapes can easily get messed up and it can cause blurriness on high contrast edges in other situations as well.

 

I know it's not impossible to correct properly in prime lenses as Samyang/Rokinon seems to do admirable job (12mm F2.0 is a good example). Most major camera manufacturers just don't seem to care enough.

[MrPolite]

Another vote for the 16mm.. lots of detail posted already. If you are into astro photography this lens has coma. There is something about it that renders different as others have pointed, maybe it has something to do with the lens coating? I have the 10-24mm and favor the 16mm over it nowadays, the images seem slightly more contrasty to me. Weather resistance is a big plus. It's a heavier/larger but the short focusing capability definitely makes this a more versatile lens as well

 

[FSP]

I picked up the 16 in June and have used it a ton from weddings to family stuff. Everything that's been said regarding build and performance are on point.

 

One thing I truly love about it is the clutch manual focus override. During receptions I set the 16 to manual focus and I live around f/2 to around f/4 or 5.6 and zone focus with peak for the dance floor.  Super fast! 

 

I also really love the close focus ability.  Ring shots and details are great with it.

 

A few examples from details, family and weddings:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[winnaford]

I think it's great. I got this lense primarily for product shots, landscape work and candid people snaps and have zero complaints. It's a wide angle lens so no, the bokeh is not super dreamy but it's no trouble getting subject separation and I've never felt any of the shots were unusable because the bokeh was too busy. I think the canon 24l would be the best but it's $500 more and I don't think the bokeh is much better. See this photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelbmxking/21711584354/in/pool-24l/

 

Yeah, shooting astro there is coma but again, this is also a problem with the canon 24l and nikkor 24 1.4. I'm no optics engineer but if you want coma to be optically corrected expect a larger lens and a price tag to match. Just stop it down to 2.8 and be done with it.

 

Contrast, sharpness, AF speed, wonderful clutch MF, build quality, price. I'd say this is up there with the very best if not the best you can get at this focal length.

 

Samples:

 

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[Sundo]

Yeah, shooting astro there is coma but again, this is also a problem with the canon 24l and nikkor 24 1.4. I'm no optics engineer but if you want coma to be optically corrected expect a larger lens and a price tag to match. Just stop it down to 2.8 and be done with it.

However it's not a problem with Samyang/Rokinon 12mm F2.0 and many other lenses they make. There also goes the price and size arguments, that lens costs around 350e new and it's ridiculously small. It's manual focus, but still shows that the size and cost requirements for the glass and mechanical parts are not the limiting factor.

 

Stopping down to 2.8 completely defeats the purpose of having a fast lens for astrophotography, you get one fourth the light and might as well go out with the 16-55mm. I'm sure the 16mm F1.4 a great lens, but it's definitely not without any drawbacks. That "just stop it down and be done with it" is rather ridiculous comment when discussing a large aperture prime. I seriously doubt people buy it so they can stop it down to one fourth of the maximum aperture when doing photography in the dark.

[winnaford]

However it's not a problem with Samyang/Rokinon 12mm F2.0 and many other lenses they make. There also goes the price and size arguments, that lens costs around 350e new and it's ridiculously small. It's manual focus, but still shows that the size and cost requirements for the glass and mechanical parts are not the limiting factor.

 

Stopping down to 2.8 completely defeats the purpose of having a fast lens for astrophotography, you get one fourth the light and might as well go out with the 16-55mm. I'm sure the 16mm F1.4 a great lens, but it's definitely not without any drawbacks. That "just stop it down and be done with it" is rather ridiculous comment when discussing a large aperture prime. I seriously doubt people buy it so they can stop it down to one fourth of the maximum aperture when they need as much light as possible.

 

 

I was pointing out the coma as a negative aspect of the lens. I was comparing it to two the best 24mm equiv. lenses out there (that I know of). Show me an Auto Focusing 24mm f1.4 weather sealed lens that is smaller, less expensive and doesn't produce coma shot wide open. I did not even come close to saying it's better than any lens at any focal length for any purpose. This lens isn't marketed as an astro lens, OP didn't say anything about shooting astro, I just wanted to agree that the coma was terrible but point out that the other top lenses at this focal length suffer from the same problem. Don't you think the coma is terrible? Glad we agree. Is there a lens that has ever been made that corrects for coma, yes, lots. Is there a lens that makes better bokeh, so so many. But OP wasn't asking about those, he was asking about the XF16mm.

[Nightynight]

Bought this lens for astro photos due to its incredible wide angle to large aperture combination. On paper it should own everything else out there, and if you don't mind cropping out the edges, it basically does. You do lose a couple of mm but I'd take more light over wide angle anyway. Sadly the edges show significant coma which takes this lens down a couple of notches if you're into astro. Having said that, I've taken the best astro photos in my collection with this lens, as well as the Samyang 12mm 2.0.

[Neil_SI]

Following up on my earlier post, I still haven't really had a chance to give the lens a thorough blast, but here's some casual walk around stuff.

 

 

 

 

 

[Antonius]

i love my 16 mm. Awesome lens. I don't really care about the lens hood. It is sharp enough and no-one will really see the difference between other lenses anyway if you present your work on a gallery since they are standing 2 m away anyway.  Just buy the Fuji. You will enjoy the quality of the lens. My aperture ring is a bit loose, but i will have to adapt. 

[Warwick]

Like Antonius, I love my 16mm lens. I thinned my lens collection down to 3, and this is one of them, alongside the new 35mm f2 and the 56mm. After selling my other lenses I bought the metal lens hood for the 16mm - I never would have spent that much money on a hood otherwise, when you can get metal hoods for a few pounds on eBay - but the hood is amazing too. It clicks into place beautifully and looks and feels super-professional and solid. I'd highly recommend it, even though the price seems stupidly high.

 

Here are a couple of photos taken with the lens: me on a train with my dog, another of my dog, and my eldest daughter at her graduation.

 

 

 

 

 

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[Nero]

The 16mm is my go-to landscape lens. I love the 10-24mm, but I bought the 16mm for a WR option because I found that the bulk of my best shots from the zoom were right around 16-17mm or 24mm and I already had the 23mm to account for the upper end of that range. It has not disappointed. I've found myself revisiting places nearby that I had shot extensively with the 10-24mm to capture new sets of images with the 16mm. It was immediately visible as soon as I opened up the RAW files. Don't get me wrong, the 10-24mm is a great lens, but at slow, handheld shutter speeds when the stabilization kicked in real hard the corners would start to get soft on some shots even if most of the frame was tack sharp. I was finding myself pixel peeping because I would second guess the quality of the corners on some shots. The 16mm is incredibly sharp edge to edge. Also, I found the 10-24mm struggling with fine detail against bright sky, tree branches on a sunny day. I'd have to push the adjustments on my RAW conversion more than I'd prefer to get the detail to come back. Not so on the 16mm.