XF 18-55 subjects are soft when aparture is wide open at the wide end

Interesting input indeed

It is the lens that gives me the highest % of blurred pictures..OIS as you mentionned is slow to be fully operational (not tested with my XH1 yet) and the AF is very slow.

In good operational conditions the lens is excellent

Bob

From the testing I've read, at 18mm the lens suffers from field curvature which means wide open the corners won't be sharp no matter what you do so you have to stop down. I just bought an X-E3 with this lens I'll start shooting with it next week and I'm going to try different things, the first of which is no OIS vs OIS. I decided on it over the 23mm as the kit lens because of its versatility, not under any illusions not it is the "be all" of lenses. But I want to get comfortable with it it so I have confidence I'm getting the best out of it within its limitations.

... that Fuji brings out a XF16-80 f4 OIS WR.

This is exactly what I'm wishing for also.

After Fuji finally gave me a a camera with EVF but without X-Trans I will now switch from Nikon to the X-T100. I used the Nikon almost exclusively with the 16-80/2.8-4 which was a pretty decent performer given its 5x zoom ratio and I think that such a quality travel zoom is pretty much the only thing I am really missing in the Fuji lens lineup.

I will go for the 18-55/2.8-4 + 14(/2.8 because the 16-55/2.8 lacks OIS and is probably too heavy to use it comfortably with an X-T100. Nikons 16-80/2.8-4 weighs 480g and this would sit very well between the 18-55/2.8-4 and 16-55/2.8 and should still be usable with an X-T100, especially if it would weigh even less than that with a constant f/4 aperture.

TheWhiteDog wrote:

I just bought an X-E3 with this lens I'll start shooting with it next week and I'm going to try different things, the first of which is no OIS vs OIS.

Curious for your findings. Happy shooting!

Sutto wrote:

What you are experiencing is perfectly normal. When I bought my first copy of this lens years ago, I was very disappointed and thought I had a dud. I sold that off and over the years ended up buying 2 more. Three lenses in total and they were all the same - disappointing. Particularly for somebody like me who only ever shoots people and only ever shoots wide open.

You have to realise this is a cheap kit lens and is quite poor wide open at 18 and 55. My 18-135 was much sharper at these two focal lengths wide open than the kit lens. The best thing I ever did was to sell off all of my 18-55's and buy the 16-55. This lens is from another planet compared to the kit lens. Razor sharp wide open, fixed aperture as you zoom, proper aperture ring, WR, no sloppy play on the lens mount - I could go on but I think you get the point. Really - for the little bit extra size and weight, the 16-55 is a no brainer. An absolutely superb lens that stays 'glued' onto my T2 and will never come off!

Sutto

philipsuttonphotography.com

Thanks for your posting. This matter about inter-sample variability seems to come up in many reviews almost anecdotally. The typical amateur is left scratching his or her head upon reading or viewing utube reviews where this sample specific performance gets mentioned. Most people do not have the money to buy multiple times nor do they have the time and/or patience to keep returning their new lens (unless of extremely bad quality or defective) to the manufacturer or distributor (specially if it is an online purchase) so it is kind of consoling to hear that different samples can turn out to be equally bad!
I bought a 27mm XF lens few years ago from an online *warehouse* (3rd party vendor). The lens was about 100 dollars cheaper, tack sharp and of good quality but with a rather stiff manual focus ring. However, it worked splendidly in AF mode and since that was what I was planning to use anyway, rather than fiddling with the narrow focus ring, I decided to keep it and it has worked flawlessly (IQ wise) except for that manual focus ring. When I feel OCD (not really!) and have nothing to do, I do keep giving the ring a manual twirl -- hoping that the sucker would come loose and angels shall sing again (levity folks!). Well angels have not, the MF ring is stiff  but the lens keeps functioning well, otherwise, just as it did on day 1.

What's the problem exactly?? These sample images are tack sharp! Much better than most of Nikon's midrange zooms.

xtm wrote:

What's the problem exactly?? These sample images are tack sharp! Much better than most of Nikon's midrange zooms.

Hi,

Have you noticed that the thread is four years old.....?  FWIW, I think my view is just the same as it was in 2018......  The central subjects are sharp enough, but the near elements in the corners - the nearer tiled building elements in the last few images - are significantly out of focus because there just isn't enough DOF.

Regards, Rod