Which zoom (55-200 or 50-230)

Jared Huntr wrote:

Vic Chapman wrote:

Jared Huntr wrote:

slimandy wrote:

I read a few reviews and they same on a par in terms of IQ, either being better depending on who's review you read.

I would tend to believe this based on Fuji's product planner for X cameras who said of the 18-55:

"We made it f/2.8 to achieve both brightness and high image quality. Consequently the cost would be higher, so there was the problem with the price even though we wanted a wider range of people to use our product. This is why we then created the XC lens “XC16-50mm” and “XC50-230mm” as the beginners’ model. The only difference is the material used for the lens exterior. The inside is the same optical design and technology as the XF lens."

The last sentence is telling and throws cold water on all the baseless speculation in these threads. Yes, the XF lenses are typically designed to be faster (brighter) optics with metal bodies. But it is incorrect to assume that the XC glass is of poorer optical quality or resolution within the same operational parameters.

Having owned several lenses with plastic mounts, I'm convinced that owners that have had problems relating to the plastic mount tend to be abusive toward their equipment. Either that, or Fuji is different from CaNikon in that they made extremely fragile plastic mounts.

I don't know if you're trying to convince yourself or someone else. The lenses used may be the same but they are not the same design - how can they be when the XC lenses have 2 fewer elements and obvious difference in the groupings? I daresay they elements they do use are the same or similar. Checkout the Fuji website or numerous reviews which show the number and grouping of the elements.

I would not assume that overall optical quality can be predicted so easily by simply counting the number of elements or groups.

18-55:

http://www.lenstip.com/383.4-Lens_review-Fujifilm_Fujinon_XF_18-55_mm_f_2.8-4_OIS_Image_resolution.html

16-50:

http://www.lenstip.com/409.4-Lens_review-Fujifilm_Fujinon_XC_16-50_mm_f_3.5-5.6_OIS_Image_resolution.html

Takeaways:

- the 16-50 actually resolves more detail than the 18-50

- at the wide end, the 16-50 blows away the 18-55 in terms of resolution at the edges. "(the 18-55 at) the shortest focal length doesn’t provide high MTFs at any aperture". Whereas with the 16-50, "At 16 mm, which is often used to capture architecture and landscapes, you care about even sharpness across the frame – and you get exactly that."

I bought a 16-50 XC mainly for use as an IR lens but reports of its usability for IR turned out to be false. I tried it alongside my 18-55mm taking exactly the same images with the same tripod mounted camera and found that from about 20mm to 50mm at apertures of f5.6 and f8 there was no difference I could see but outside of those parameters there was enough distortion at 16mm to need cropping, so no gain in focal length and comparatively poor image quality at wider than f5.6 and smaller than f8 (possibly because the XC lenses don't have the benefit of of LMO).

Given the results of the tests above we can only conclude that you may have received a bad sample of the 16-50. But what cannot be denied is that the optical quality is close enough such that the two lenses are interchangeable in terms of image quality in practical use. I would argue that the 16-50 is actually better in that it offers a more 'epic' field of view at the wide end. The stretching of clouds into the corners at 16mm tends to present a greater impression of sweeping vistas.

Aaaaaaand the Photozone results tell a different story, and one that is consistent with my own testing:

http://www.photozone.de/fuji_x/853-fuji1650f3556?start=1

http://www.photozone.de/fuji_x/783-fuji1855f284?start=1

One thing both tests agree on is that the differences are greatest on the long end.

So, what, exactly, is the only conclusion?  Perhaps it's that Lenstip tested a bad 18-55?