16-55 2.8 availability?

It's is a beautiful lens - you will like it.  It seems to be as sharp as my very sharp 35mm f2 (I mean very little difference taken with this lens and the 35).  However, don't get to thinking that it is the holy grail of lenses.  Like all Fuji lenses they have their good and bad.  so much so that even though I love my fuji lenses for their build and quality optics, they all seem quite specialised in what they do so are actually more frustrating than when I was with Nikon.  Nikon were more cut and dried so I just had the two Nikon lenses and they did everything.  However, with Fuji it is always a bit of a strain working out what lens to put on my cameras.  I love the 55-200, light very sharp, beautiful rendering, great OIS. Unfortunately it has no WR so it precludes me using it when travelling in dusty Asia.  the 18-135 is a great all rounder but because it is 5.6 when you zoom in a bit, I find it hard to isolate the subject from the background.  Also, after about 100mm - it is too soft to use wide open.

My 35mm f2 is the lightest and most lovely fun lens of them all - but of course you are locked into a standard focal length which does not always suffice.  Then there is the lens in question - the 16-55.  A lovely chunk of glass, sharp and beautiful wide open, fixed aperture all the way through and great it has WR.  However, unlike the 18-135, no OIS.  You kind of get used to that on this lens and shoot accordingly - it is really not a huge problem.  However, the biggest bug-bear is the weight and size.  I sold off all of my Nikon lenses to get away from dragging bricks around.  Unfortunately with this on my X-T2 and the alloy grip, it really is not fun to drag around all day.  I find the 18-135 nicer to carry but of course then you are missing out on the great optics.  I hope you can see the dilemma with Fuji glass.  I am going to write a detailed review on this subject shortly on my blog.

Sutto

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