The Brick aka. XF 16-55 mm F2.8 LM WR

First I say that I'm not a professional photographer, I just use my camera to document my traveling and my skillset is very limited even to do that. But anyway I decided to do a short review about the Brick I bough as an used one. I took today my first images. And I'm pleased with the lens.

Size is just right to be used by my big hands and the X-T2. And I'm happy with the fact that it fits nicely to my Mindshift Horizon -bag. Currently it holds 10-24 and 55-200 at the bottom and the camera with the Brick is at top of those ready to be used.

Good review from someone else Here: https://improvephotography.com/33979/mindshift-gear-rotation-180-horizon-review/

Camera and lens are well balanced and combo is pleasure to use. At this point I have no experience about hanging the combo at my neck for full days of photography, but I have seen people doing cross country ski'ing while dog sledding with Canon 5D and 24-105 mm lens hanging from their neck - so I will probably cope with the Brick just fine.

Ok, and now to the images. First some "brick"-wall tests. My lens was bought as used one and I hope there is no problem with lens de-centering. I do not see such a problem - I hope nobody else does. (Please tell me my lens is OK!!! )

16 mm

23 mm

35 mm

55 mm

Images are from LR. At 55 mm there was leftover vignetting I had to remove manually.

And then some images of my wife's chickens. They are one of the reasons I did bought this lens. She sometimes needs images for a selling purposes - and chicken are very photogenic, but fast moving animals. Fast shutter speed is essential. And feathers are good indicator of wrongly placed focus point. Like in this first image...

Focus is somewhere else it should be. Even if the F 2.8 is only F 4.0 with FF terms, it will be a steep learning curve to me to use this lens effectively in fast moving chicken photography.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochin_chicken

And if they are not moving, their heads are down. Rooster is serving dinner it has found from the yard to the flock.

Here is another "head down" one, but I do like this lens!

Look at those feathers!!!

I should also learn to be aware of the shutter speed...

The Cock and his favorite entourage. (cropped)

Thanks for reading! Hope it was time well spent.

I gave 5 stars, lens is not the problem - if there is some - it's the photographer.

(Only the last image was enhanced with saturation (38), clarity (26) and vibrancy (20) sliders. And sharpened with amout 38 (vs. standard 25) and masked 31 (vs. standard 0).)