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

Oregon Dawg wrote:

wantfastcars wrote:

Thanks for all the replies everybody! I'm not going to reply to everybody individually since there's a lot, but I'll try to address the responses and questions.

First, re: teleconverter confusion. I caused some confusion in my initial post because I was uninformed. I had thought that the teleconverters could be used with any lens, and what I meant was using the 18-135 as a daily driver and buying a teleconverter to use with the 50-230 for the very long reach, instead of buying an additional longer lens. I didn't realize that only certain lenses were compatible with the TCs. That information alone swings me a little more in favor of the 16-80 since I'd likely be looking at replacing the 50-230 (which I do agree is a good lens, I got it in a kit) down the line anyways. Not yet, though.

Second, re: what do you want longer than 230 for? As others mentioned, occasional wildlife photos, but mainly, it's because I live in Japan (sorry, bastibe!). I sometimes find myself taking pictures downward from the top of a mountain, aiming for a small detail on a tall building, or trying to take pictures across bodies of water. The 230 is usually adequate for my use cases, but not always (in particular regards to that, I recently had the opportunity to take some pictures of commercial ships as well, which, shooting from the shore, really pushed the limits of the 230), which was why I was thinking about trying to add the teleconverter to it. That plan is out the window now, though.

Third, re: the Tamron 18-300. Despite the high praise I do see for it in individual lens reviews, I saw a review on another website that compared it directly to both the 16-80 and 18-135 at the same focal lengths and the Tamron lens was noticeably softer throughout the image. Granted, that was only one source, but being able to directly compare it to both of the other lenses I was interested in felt like it had more weight to it. I'll look into it more.

Based on peoples' replies here, I feel like the 16-80 would probably be the better lens for my use cases if I made the purchase right now, and then getting a lens longer than the 230 for those extreme reach pictures.

Thanks for all the responses so far folks. I'll make sure to keep checking back and let you know if I make a decision.

16-80 and 70-300 would be a very nice combo in my opinion.

Good luck!

I agree, and the 70-300 can be used with the teleconverter.