All hail the beater

Some people only buy new; some people only buy used gear if it’s mint… I’m a bottom feeder: I’m fine with the well-used items that few other people want. Functional but tatty; the “beaters”.

Nowhere is this more true than with lenses. The bad copies get sold on with barely any use; the good copies become workhorses.

So when this “heavily used” XF 18/2 arrived from MPB for the agreeable sum of £164, I was quite happy. A beater for sure. Recently I’d purchased another copy in great condition, but it seemed to give some odd results around the edges of images and quickly exhibited a fault in the aperture ring, so it went back. I had higher hopes for the beater.

An upgrade to the latest firmware turned it into a different lens. The transformation was staggering: autofocus, previously an agricultural experience at best, is now better than the 27/2.8 mk2 and up to the level of the Fujicrons. Fast, with no hunting. And image quality seems spot on, too.

Another win for the beaters, then: don’t fear the heavily used kit, it’s usually just rough diamonds.

And a few shots from its first day out… (all SOOC JPEGs from the X-Pro2; one, maybe two, with very minor tone adjustments).

I like to buy used too but with a different strategy... If I buy something used and like it, then I'll flip it (normally for the same price) then buy a new version. I look at it like a cheap rental! I did that with the 18mm f2 recently. I've never used that prime before but am getting closer and closer with my street photography recently so was finding the 23mm f2 too long. I had such fun with the 18mm focal length that I'm going to stick with it to see if it's a long term thing.

So far though, it's a great lens. On my X-T5, it's super fast at focusing and on the street, it's basically silent.

Phil

CoffeeBeans wrote:

Really nice summary of the lens. Did you experience any stuttering in low light conditions at night?

Not that I recall, but that wasn’t the only bit of kit I was using so I only took about half a dozen shots with it in the dark.