Thinning the herd: am I dumb to sell my most valuable lens?

jmiller2032 wrote:

I My thinking about the 14 is that I hate changing lenses all the time while hiking. My hiking shots are either at 14, 23 or telephoto so when I go out, I bring three lenses to suit those purposes. However, I have two bodies so it's really tempting to mount the 10-24 on my X-Pro2 and the 55-200 on my X-E2 and never change a lens.

I have the 10-24 & 14 and the 14 rarely gets used when I hike, or at all, anymore, since I have the 16 as well and if I want a fast-wide, it gets the nod.  But the 10-24 is essential when I hike.

Having said that, you may want to think about your data a bit.  You've said you never take your 18-55 hiking, and only bring primes, so naturally your landscape keepers tend to be the primes.  Have you ever hiked with the 18-55 mounted?  I find the 16-55 - yes, the brick - to be a perfectly wonderful lens to have mounted when I hike.  It has a fantastic focal length range and yields pictures with a wonderful clarity.

It's a bit sad, though.  When I have the 10-24 mounted I often find myself at 24mm, but when the 16-55 is mounted, I often find myself at 16.    Sometimes there is no winning for the compositionally ADD among us like myself.

Having said all that, I think your idea of a two-camera setup with the 10-24 & 55-200 is a very good one for hiking, if you can find a way to manage two bodies.  I'm not sure I'd like that, but I've never tried.

You might even toss the 35/2 in the bag "just in case."  Be aware, however, that the 10-24 gets a little soft over 22mm.

Or am I nuts for selling the perfection of the 14? Also, while OIS isn’t very important for wide lenses like the 10-24, would it be useful for video?

OIS can be very useful with the 10-24 if you like to shoot blurred water shots handheld.

The 16mm is really compelling because it has 2 extra stops of light for indoors, is weather resistant (while the 10-24 isn't) and I keep hearing over and over that it’s Fuji’s best lens. I might even use it for some street photos.

Well, it may or may not be Fuji's best lens, but it is fantastic.  It's great for night street, and also some cool, close-up flower work with nicely blurred backgrounds.  It's a great auxiliary lens to have while hiking, if you don't mind the added weight.

So what do y’all think? Sell the 14 and 18-55 for the 16 and 10-24, or stand pat with my 14/23/18-55 combo?

For me, I use zooms 90% of the time when I hike, and I'd take the 10-24 over the 14/18-55 combo any time.  18 just isn't wide enough, and there is so much that is interesting between 18mm & 14mm (or even 12 or 10mm) that I'd go nuts swapping lenses.