Half the price and weight, but not quality, of the 55-200mm

I have always wanted the 55-200 but I have owned the 50-230 for years now.  I will say that there is zero difference in the optics between the first version and the II model.  That update was about the OIS and yet I have never had one iota of strangeness or trouble from the OIS on my first version.  I have owned the 18-55 for years and the OIS on the XC always performed great.  I got mine for 150 dollars I think, it's been so long I can't recall but I got it new and that baby is still working great all these years later.  I look through the Flickr groups for this lens and there are about 4 or 5 of them and the photos are just wonderful and you see fabulous shots from either version, so have no fear about buying the first version if you find one you want.  \

It is, of course, a great outside daytime lens but no doubt it does fine with flash for portraits inside as well.    As many here say, Fuji doesn't make any BAD lenses.  I love to tell folks about a friend of mine I go out shooting with every now and then and he has a Tamron I think 75 to 300, a cheap model not these new awesome ones, but when he saw the shots from my 50-230 he was just gobsmacked

, lol.   He had me spitting up my cola.  He was saying,"damn that Fuji lens just wipes the floor with my Tamron, the sharpness, the colors, he just couldn't believe that I got it for 150 dollars, he said, "NO WAY can you get a stabilized FF equiv of 75 to 345mm with low weight and sharpness like that for no 150 dollars"

So I think about selling my Viltrox 85 1.8 and the XC and add some cash and buy a good used copy of the big brother for about 450 to 475, but then I realize that I would be forking out literally hundreds of dollars for just the difference between the 50-30 and it's big bro.  That would be just dumb.  I would of course gain sharpness and lens speed, but I would be giving up much lower weight and 45mm of full frame equiv extra reach.  That's a big chunk of reach, can't just blow that off as If it means nothing, that 50-230 reaches out there more and it's enough to be a big difference.    Here's a few from my baby over the years.