XF16-80mm vs. XF18-135mm for travel/landscape/architecture photography

Oregon Dawg wrote:

Flying Fijian wrote:

Oregon Dawg wrote:

"Even that review says "from 35mm to 150mm or so it performs much closer to the Fuji zooms". That's where I mostly use this lens...better then having to switch between 2 lenses."

Off topic: Tamron makes a 35-150mm f/2-2.8 lens for full frame. It's a big and expensive lens, but I like that they did something outside the box for the focal length range of that lens.

Oh yeah that is definitely a good lens...bag of primes of sure...great for event photography but that's not what I do.

Choosing an all-purpose or walk-around or travel zoom can be a challenge. It's pretty tough to be prepared for all eventualities, in that case the Tamron 18-300 is a really good option.

Yes it's great for this purpose.

For me, I would be choosing between the 16-80 and 18-55. When I'm shooting longer than these lenses, it would be for a specific purpose, and so I'd have a 70-300 or 50-230 or 55-200 for that. I would likely opt for the 16-80 for the newer lens, AF, OIS and WR. But the 18-55 is tempting for size/weight/price. And both lenses are really good. All Zooms have their strengths and weaknesses, you just figure them out and work with them. In return you have a lot of flexibility.

Yes the 16-80 & 18-55 are nice indeed and difficult to pick between the two. I sold the 16-80 but it's not a bad lens and the marked aperture ring is great too. I replaced it with the brick but then realised I don't really need the f2.8 as much just for walk around. I'd rather have the longer reach and close focussing of the 18-300. I still have the 18-55 but I would be selling it soon. I never used the 18-135 but it does seem decent...unmarked aperture ring though you could find a used one for cheap.

With the telephoto lenses, the 70-300 seems like a winner if you're going to use that longer reach. 50-230 is also great for price an starting at 50 could be useful. I never tried the 55-200 but that also looks nice.

Thanks for the tips, I appreciate it. At some point I'm going to add a zoom, and maybe pick between the 16-80 and 18-55. But maybe not. Lol. I'm trying to keep things simple at the moment, so don't want to add any lenses for awhile. I'm thinking I could be in good shape with a 10-24 and 70-300 combined with my 33. For some reason, I don't get on with mid-range zooms and mostly use them in the 28-50mm-e range. I can see the versatility of zooms at the wide and tele end though. The 18mm f/1.4 is also tempting. There are a lot of nice choices.

Well I know what you mean about standard zooms. You can generally use 2 primes and zoom with your feet. They good for event photography or hikes etc but for hikes I don't really need f2.8 or even f4.

The issue I have with uwa and telephoto lenses is that they're specialised lenses and would require lens swaps or 2 bodies. I find uwa difficult and you need to be in a great location to find good compositions.

The 16-55mm f2.8 is a great lens but it just doesn't work for my needs. The 16-80mm f4 needs to be stopped down to f8 to get sharp images so that f4 aperture is only really worth it to get a marked aperture ring. The OIS is handy though.

That led me to the Tamron 18-300mm which I use at 35-150 but have tested at the extremes wide open (still good enough). You can see plenty of details in the review below:

https://sonyalpha.blog/2021/09/28/tamron-18-300mm-f-3-5-6-3-di-iii-a-vc-vxd/