Very first pics with 16-55 - and some short impressions

Hello,

as it happened I got a call from the owner of a local camera store whom I know very well yesterday afternoon - the 16-55 is finally in stock here in Malaysia.

No chance, I hade to jump by after work to have a brief look. After I had my look the owner said "Take it until tomorrow to test, if you like it, pay it and keep it, if not bring it back tomorrow evening". The price here in Malaysia is with my current exchange rate around 822 Euro or with the current $-rate around 1013 USD. Nah, I don't need to buy another lens, but of course I'll try it.

First impression: It's big, but not THAT big. It's heavy, but not THAT heavy. It's well build, and really THAT well

Overall it is a good fit with the Medium grip attached and a very well fit with the battery grip. As these are the only options in which I use my X-T1, it's fine for me, if of course not for every circumstance.

Zoom and focus rings are working very nice and the aperture-ring is similar to the 50-140. Very good.

The lens-hood is plastic, but clicks in very nice and smooth - no comparison to the bloody lens hood of the 50-140. Not great, but absolutely ok (Dear Fuji, I still love the lens hoods of the 18 and 35mm lenses)

The AF is very, very fast on the X-T1. I dare say it's the fastest so far in the Fuji lineup, but I've not made any comparison - just guts feeling. And maybe the 14mm has at least the same speed. However, all the others are still fast enough most of the time.

When I reached home the first thing was to check the lens for decentricity - perfect, no problem.

Then some general walking in the garden and the house taking this and that picture. Afterwards checking the pics at the computer. My findings regarding the optical quality:

- Exceptional sharpness at all focal-length and apertures. Very nice: even at f16 the lens seems to me still very sharp and at f11 I cannot make out any real draw backs. Therefore, it's great for landscape.

- Even at f2.8 and 16mm the absolute corners are very sharp - no color shift towards the corners

- Colors are great and Bokeh is as smooth as it can be for this lens-type

- Distortion is extremely low, however I checked Jpegs and RAWs in Lightroom, therefore this statement is not that useful

- CAs are very well controlled and I would say a non issue with that lens

- Contrast is very nice and stays high even in backlit situation and strong lightsources in the field of view

Even, if I am definitely more a prime shooter in that focal length range, this lens is that good, that I will happily pay it today in the evening. Additional we'll have 6% GST from April onwards and when I am back in Germany the price will most probably not lower. So I grab it know

Today morning I stood up a bit earlier to take some photos on my way to work.

Please have merci, as for these pictures I just send them from the camera to my iPhone and then to my company Laptop during my lunchbreak today. So, they are more or less directly ooc with just some resizing to 1200px.

But what would this text be worth without any pictures

Daniel

Penang

EDIT: Forgot to add a pic at 16mm - here it is: