18mm f/2 - Your experience/opinion on this lens?

[Hermelin]

Read so many different reviews and comparisions about this lens.

 

Optically it seems to be inferior to the 18-55 but the wider aperture is fun

 

I myself prefer using primes and really want to plan to get this lens but the 18-55 seems to be sucha more reasonable choice so I'm lost.

 

Tell me your opinion please!

[yukosteel]

If you are ok with 18mm only, this lens is great, very compact even with lens hood (which I never used). It has slightly reduced performance in corners, but not dramatic.

It can also be purchased from Hong Kong for less than $300. Very good option for street photography as well.

[Tikcus]

Really like mine, going to be the primary lens I use on a city trip next week.

 

Personally I've never had any issues optically, but at same time, I am not pixel peeping

[CRAusmus]

When I am considering a lens, one of the places I go is to Flickr and look for people who shoot the lens, then I spend quite a bit of time looking at their photos taken with that lens...https://www.flickr.com/photos/spyrospapaspyropoulos/

 

As far as I can tell, every time Spyros shoots his Fuji, he shoots it with the 18.  His style may not be what you like, but look at his photos, the 18 is an impressive lens for it's price, and it's size only adds to it's appeal.

 

At any rate, this method is one of the best for researching purchases in my opinion...

https://www.flickr.com/search/?q=XF%2018%20f2.0

Edited March 12, 2016 by CRAusmus

[addicted2light]

I only tried one at a Fuji event a few months ago.

 

Full disclosure: I'm a sharpness nut (I tend to print fairly large), but I also value the general rendering of a lens.

 

The 18 might be not the sharpest Fuji out there (still pretty competent though, at least the sample I briefly tried), but at f/2 is extremely 3D for near subjects. I loved the results, and at some point I'm definitely going to buy one (a 35/1.4 is on the wish list first).

 

You can see some of the shots I took with it (the one opening the post and the one with the backlit cat) on:

 

45 minutes with the Fuji X-T10

[Jackalized]

What do you want to shoot with it? It's not the best lens for landscape where perfect corner to corner sharpness matters (it relies heavily on software distortion correction*). 

Otherwise it's a fast and small lens perfectly suited to documentary, street, photojournalism style.

Nice rendering, smooth bokeh, sharpness-wise it's perfectly fine from wide open.

It has some problems with chromatic aberrations, it may be not well suited if your favourite photosubjects are tree branches against bright sky

It focuses fast (although it's a little bit noisy compared to other and especially newer X-lenses) and it's very flare proof (you can leave the hood at home, the only flare it cuts down are rare situations where a strong light source shines directly in something like a 80° angle on the front element).

 

This lens' biggest problem are pixelpeeping armchair-testchart-brickwall-photographers

 

 

*if you're using a raw converter which lets you control the applied correction, you can even use this as an advantage to counter the stretched-head-wide-angle look in the corners

 

 

some snapshots with my 18mm:

 

f2 near distance in seriously low light

f2 near-medium disctance in slightly better but still low light

f4 medium-far distance in low light

f4 near distance in ok light

f5.6 far distance in ok light

Edited March 12, 2016 by Jackalized

[kim]

I think it is a fine lens, great value second hand, small & light on the camera and plenty sharp with typical Fuji coluor and contrast. I love the metal hood and have left the cap in the box ages ago. Don't listen to the nay sayers about it's quality - it's good. Yes a bit fluffy near the corners but small and light and cheap = Super Value.

 

 

18/2 @ f/2 img

Edited March 12, 2016 by kim

[Jürgen Heger]

I agree with Jackalikzed and his verdict and I like the "pixelpeeping armchair-testchart-brickwall-photographers".

[Warwick]

I've just bought one second-hand after getting an XP2. It just seems to go with the camera. I'm going to Ghana for a couple of days soon and planning to use it for street photography there

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[FX Admin]

Just deleted 10 posts here.

 

Please stop personal fighting.

And if you make bold claims please provide proof.

 

THX 

Andreas

[mdm]

Just deleted 10 posts here.

 

Please stop personal fighting.

 

Jesus God! Haven't seen the battle but I know who's in charge... so the war might not be over...

[Hermelin]

Thanks everyone for feedback.

 

I'm looking to use this lens for street photography but also some landscape shots, but my landscape shots I will shot at f/8 I guess that even the corners should be reasonable sharp by then.

 

My head says that the 18-55 is the more reasonable lens because it seems to be optically better than the the 18 f/2. But I enjoy shoting primes, and I enjoy lightweight and discret. And f/2 vs f/2.8 is not huge, but it is a difference.

 

So I'm pretty sure I will go with this lens after all  

[Jürgen Heger]

Some of the corner softness seems to come from the digital correction of the distortion.

 

lightpriority.net/2014/01/fuji-18mm-f2-r-review

 

So if you need to get the best corner sharpness make sure to use a RAW converter where you can switch off the distortion correction.

[frod]

As ever, there is a tradeoff between size and quality. It's not really a lens for landscapes, but then surely if you're doing that properly then size isn't really a huge consideration.

 

I like it a lot for street photography and also group portraits, as long as you're mindful of distortion.

 

I guess it just depends if you value sharpness over utility, for me it handles well, the aperture ring and viewing angle makes it preferable to the 27mm for when I need a small, discrete option and finally, sharpness is just not a panacea for me. Sometimes I don't want to count bricks or pores!

[bradsarno]

I think this 18mm f2 lens has something very special going on with it. My only gripes have to do with what happens at the far sides with the digital distortion correction, that could have been done by Fuji just a bit better. So avoid group people shots with faces at the extreme edges.

 

And sharpness, well, this lens is plenty sharp, often VERY sharp where it matters. That's a non-issue for me. People should make more photos and stop peeping. Sharpness is generally not what gives a lens its character and special qualities. 

 

What I love about the little 18 is its look, how it renders a well placed subject. Shooting with an 18mm on a cropped-sensor is an art. It's easy to take boring shots if you don't make your subject and your viewpoint interesting, easy to make everything seem blandly distant. But when done well, this lens really has a special pop to it, a nice 3D realism. I also love its color and contrast and a certain liveliness about it. Even it's bokeh is nice. 

 

And don't forget, f2 is fast. That's a real factor to consider. 

 

It focuses quickly too. 

 

It's affordable, especially used. 

 

It has a fairly close near focus distance, not quite macro, but nice and near. It's small and light and has a great hood. It has the nice aperture ring and focus ring. I think it's quite the special lens, often misunderstood, tragically underrated among the XF collection. A well kept secret actually. 

 

Highly recommended. 

[Phil]

I think this 18mm f2 lens has something very special going on with it. My only gripes have to do with what happens at the far sides with the digital distortion correction, that could have been done by Fuji just a bit better. So avoid group people shots with faces at the extreme edges.

 

And sharpness, well, this lens is plenty sharp, often VERY sharp where it matters. That's a non-issue for me. People should make more photos and stop peeping. Sharpness is generally not what gives a lens its character and special qualities. 

 

What I love about the little 18 is its look, how it renders a well placed subject. Shooting with an 18mm on a cropped-sensor is an art. It's easy to take boring shots if you don't make your subject and your viewpoint interesting, easy to make everything seem blandly distant. But when done well, this lens really has a special pop to it, a nice 3D realism. I also love its color and contrast and a certain liveliness about it. Even it's bokeh is nice. 

 

And don't forget, f2 is fast. That's a real factor to consider. 

 

It focuses quickly too. 

 

It's affordable, especially used. 

 

It has a fairly close near focus distance, not quite macro, but nice and near. It's small and light and has a great hood. It has the nice aperture ring and focus ring. I think it's quite the special lens, often misunderstood, tragically underrated among the XF collection. A well kept secret actually. 

 

Highly recommended. 

 

 

I agree. I shoot primarily people, and I'm happy with the 18mm. The only reason I don't use it as much as my 23mm is because I shoot at 1.4 pretty frequently. I'm growing to prefer the 18mm focal length, and for shooting JPGs, the 18mm is perfectly fine. I definitely notice softness and some distortion in the corners when I'm shooting RAW, but like I said, since I mostly shoot people, that doesn't really affect me. 

 

I really need to shoot this lens more. It's easy to forget how fast f/2 actually is when you normally deal with 1.4 and 1.2 lenses.

 

Depending on your usage, I'd say I highly recommend the 18mm. It's small, fast, affordable, and image quality is at least good enough IMHO. The only thing I wouldn't really recommend it for is landscape/architecture, where you don't need the speed and distortion is more important. But for people, low light, and as a walk-around lens, I think it's great.

[darknj]

As said before the XF 18 is a fine lens, my only issue with it is, it has less sharpness on the edges @F2.8 when compared to the kit lens 18-55 F2.8-4.

 

The center sharpness is just as good, if not a tiny bit better.

 

So if your edges are valuable to you, might be worth considering the purchase, if you don't care about edge to edge sharpness and just want something small, cheaper and nifty field of view, the XF 18 will be a perfectly fine lens.

[jaff]

I agree. I shoot primarily people, and I'm happy with the 18mm. The only reason I don't use it as much as my 23mm is because I shoot at 1.4 pretty frequently. I'm growing to prefer the 18mm focal length, and for shooting JPGs, the 18mm is perfectly fine. I definitely notice softness and some distortion in the corners when I'm shooting RAW, but like I said, since I mostly shoot people, that doesn't really affect me. 

 

I really need to shoot this lens more. It's easy to forget how fast f/2 actually is when you normally deal with 1.4 and 1.2 lenses.

 

Depending on your usage, I'd say I highly recommend the 18mm. It's small, fast, affordable, and image quality is at least good enough IMHO. The only thing I wouldn't really recommend it for is landscape/architecture, where you don't need the speed and distortion is more important. But for people, low light, and as a walk-around lens, I think it's great.

 

Do you find the 23 fine for architecture and landscape?

 

I see you don't own the 16, but in general does this handle distortion better?

[darknj]

Do you find the 23 fine for architecture and landscape?

 

I see you don't own the 16, but in general does this handle distortion better?

 

While both the 16 and 23 are optically corrected, I find the 23 a bit too narrow for architecture, landscapes would be fine to a certain point. Also, when going wide, I like to go really w-i-d-e, hence personal preferences for the 10-24 even if it is not optically corrected, the digital correction works very well in my books.

[Phil]

Do you find the 23 fine for architecture and landscape?

 

I see you don't own the 16, but in general does this handle distortion better?

 

 

Honestly, I'm a bad one to ask. I rarely shoot architecture and don't do much serious landscape shooting, so I really don't know what I'm talking about there. I've never noticed any issues with the 23mm, whereas with the 18mm in Lightroom I really notice the corner performance. Say I shoot a landscape with buildings in it, you can really see softer, angled lines towards the corners. I haven't noticed that with the 23mm yet. I'm assuming the 16mm will be quite a bit better, especially stopped down, but I've never even tried that lens. It's next on my list to get, though.

[bradsarno]

The BIG issue with the edges on this lens seems to have EVERYTHING to do with the lens correction profile that Fuji developed for it. While it fixes the central barrel distortion issue quite nicely, they seem to have overstretched things at the very outer edges. If you open a RAW file from this lens in a program that doesn't automatically apply this profile, you can actually see how much sharper and LESS distorted it is at the wide edges. Importing a RAW into LR looks different at the edges too compared to an in-camera JPEG. Then in Raw Therapee or Iridient, you can also see how the lens correction varies from place to place. Surprisingly, the worst edge stretching happens in the camera with Fuji's own correction.

 

So my great wish is that Fuji would fix this issue somehow, perhaps with camera firmware, perhaps with the profiles they've submitted to Adobe and others. The lens is optically better than Fuji's correction would lead you to believe. In the middle it's wonderful and wonderfully corrected. But at the wide side edges, they seem to have paid less attention when refining their correction algorithm. 

 

But again, this is only at the wide edges that it's an issue. For most photographs, this is not an issue. I've got thousands of wonderful in-camera JPEG's with this lens, and I hardly ever find myself bothered by this. But it would be nice to nail it better - c'mon FUJI!!!

 

It's still a gorgeous lens, great contrast, great rendering, nice 3D, very sharp, wonderful colors... It's my go-to. 

 

B

[Hermelin]

Are the edges still soft at f/8?

[Hermelin]

Are the edges still soft at f/8?

[arty]

The BIG issue with the edges on this lens seems to have EVERYTHING to do with the lens correction profile that Fuji developed for it. While it fixes the central barrel distortion issue quite nicely, they seem to have overstretched things at the very outer edges. If you open a RAW file from this lens in a program that doesn't automatically apply this profile, you can actually see how much sharper and LESS distorted it is at the wide edges. Importing a RAW into LR looks different at the edges too compared to an in-camera JPEG. Then in Raw Therapee or Iridient, you can also see how the lens correction varies from place to place. Surprisingly, the worst edge stretching happens in the camera with Fuji's own correction.

 

So my great wish is that Fuji would fix this issue somehow, perhaps with camera firmware, perhaps with the profiles they've submitted to Adobe and others. The lens is optically better than Fuji's correction would lead you to believe. In the middle it's wonderful and wonderfully corrected. But at the wide side edges, they seem to have paid less attention when refining their correction algorithm. 

 

But again, this is only at the wide edges that it's an issue. For most photographs, this is not an issue. I've got thousands of wonderful in-camera JPEG's with this lens, and I hardly ever find myself bothered by this. But it would be nice to nail it better - c'mon FUJI!!!

 

It's still a gorgeous lens, great contrast, great rendering, nice 3D, very sharp, wonderful colors... It's my go-to. 

 

B

I totally agree with you, my 18/2 is shart from corner to corner when wide open - just use RAW in the proper converter, without distortion correction. So it's amazing lens for the price - and yes, it has very pretty, soft bokeh. 

And one more profit - it's cool for family selfie with a camera in hand 

 

[bernie.fjx]

I think that 18/f2 is quite useful and enjoyable for street and people, but not very useful for brick walls.

Edited April 6, 2016 by bernie.fjx