I'm done with lens reviews

CatBus wrote:

If it helps, I'm very, very new to buying lenses (I'm buying an X system with lenses as an anniversary gift for my wife, who understands what the knobs do from the film days but hasn't had a real camera for years), and I have to say, even a complete newbie like me has come to very much the same conclusion -- but there was some newbie-specific info buried in the photos of brick walls and garbage cans. And I read/watched a lot of them, believe me.

For example, I now know (loosely) what vignetting and bokeh and chromatic aberration and coma are, and I know about focal lengths and apertures, and I even can sort of describe what ISO is (which went totally over my head for the longest time). As far as how they applied to the specific lens being reviewed, yeah, pixel-peeping photos of dumpsters left a lot to be desired, but as a crash course in terminology and concepts, it was okay.

I actually found more lens-specific substance in the measurement-free reviews. People who would talk more about what the focal length allowed them to do, the weight and size, and just went around town snapping photos and either gushing about how they loved it, or meh. The photos these types of reviewers took tended to be better in terms of artistic merit, which, again, would tell me something about what that focal length and aperture is capable of, even if that would apply to ANY lens with those characteristics. But I had zero lenses of my own, and I knew I wanted to get in on the X system, so this at least told me where to start.

So, as an utter newbie, there was value in the reviews in that they sort of got me up to speed on everything at once. If I was looking at them to upgrade equipment I'd already used for years... yeesh, no. I'm not sure I'd see much value in there.

Basically I decided early on that having the best of anything was chasing rainbows, and what I was really looking for in a lens was flexibility. But oddly not looking for a zoom, go figure. Everyone's got their quirks.

For the record, I ended up getting:

An XT-5: we were both deeply distrustful of any EVF, but we were finally won over by everything else (and the fact that the only thing people complained about with the EVF was the resolution). And the silver styling, wow -- we have an old Praktiflex FX that it reminds me of. It's beautiful.

A 27mm f/2.8 R WR: we're definitely both types that prefer subtle smaller cameras for general walking around. Seems like a flexible focal length with a very low profile. Might not be ideal for portraits, but heavy cropping of that 40MP image could definitely give us some of the advantages of a longer lens. Not the best at anything in particular (reviews seem very focused on it's either the very best or it's crap), but it seems a very solid performer in a small package.

A 16mm f/1.4 R WR: It's a little older, but then again, so are we. We like small, but for special occasions, pulling out a bigger lens is just fine. I liked the focal length, the low-light capabilities, and the remarkably close focus. I saw plenty of people starting to turn on this lens for its full-aperture sharpness, but full-aperture sharpness isn't everything. This seems like a very flexible lens, and to me, being able to use it in lots of scenarios means I'm more likely to enjoy having it.

And then a bunch of related swag: a bag, a tripod, some basic filters, and cleaning gear. Happy Anniversary! But now that all of this is on the way, will I read any more reviews? Maybe, but I will likely not give them a lot of weight.

There are definitely YT personalities who teach as opposed to reviewing while giving you the run down on a piece of gear/kit. I don't take issue with them but I don't spend a bunch of time on them either. The curse of the information age is that the signal to noise ratio on good information can be skewed the wrong was. Take your comment about understanding ISO; do you believe you're changing your sensor's sensitivity to light or amplifying the signal (and noise) generated by light? You couldn't be blamed for believing the first because that's the predominant explanation of ISO in digital photography despite being wrong. That's just to say you can be lead astray by a mountain of info on something objective. It's even worse when we get into opinions. 
With that out of the way, congratulations on the new kit. I think you'll be very pleased. I moved over from Nikon in 2017 and was wary of the EVF. Now I rely on it. I love zooming to the focus point to check/adjust focus in the EVF. We have an amazing array of tools at our disposal now, despite what a few may say.