Fuji Showcase Fuji 16mm 1.4

Bobby T

Out Of Nowhere
I get to start the 16mm showcase
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Awwww man I am losing my grip here. I've been trying to resist it. I have this scheme in my head where I buy the 23 and the Samyang 12mm f2 instead (for almost the same $), but these look good. I've been wary of using the 16mm as a walk-around lens due to distortion in the corners. A brief history:

- I have the 18-55, and it's almost wide enough for everything I need. Sometimes it's not. And often at night it's not fast enough for me.
- I had the 14, and the corners were too wide for people shots to work well (distortion), AND it was too slow for night time interior shots or star shots, so I traded it for the 18-55 above.
- The 23 would be a nearly ideal walk-around and/or night time "take one lens" lens.
- The 12mm f2 would be great for landscapes and star shots, and could be made to work well enough as a walk-around with zone focusing.

...but...

The 16 MIGHT do all of it.
 
When I was shooting DSLR, I had moved from 35mm to 24mm and loved it. Since moving to Fuji I've bounced from lens to lens, never truly happy. As soon as the pre order on the 16mm opened I jumped on it. A 24mm full frame equivalent was one of the things I badly missed. For me it is a do it all lens. People shots, landscape, urbex, walk around, etc. The macro close focusing is a huge bonus.
 
[QUOTE="KillRamsey, `......
- The 23 would be a nearly ideal walk-around and/or night time "take one lens" lens.
- The 12mm f2 would be great for landscapes and star shots, and could be made to work well enough as a walk-around with zone focusing.

...but...

The 16 MIGHT do all of it.[/QUOTE]


Then you must get them all!
 
So this weekend, for the motocamping trip, I had my old 14mm lens back on loan from the guy who bought it from me. So I got to dip a toe back into the Wide Pool after being out of it for some 6 months or so. I found that...

1. I really missed having something wider than 18mm.
2. Sometimes I found the 14 actually not wide enough! I caught myself wishing for the manually focused 12mm f2.
3. The "faces distort near the corners" problem with the 14 is certainly still there, but I was much better able to work around it. It used to devil me terribly, but for some reason now I've got the rules down in my head, and I can use all that width for the scenery and keep people relatively normal.

...so I'm even more confused now. I can't seriously consider getting the 16 AND the 12. Good lord.
 
I put together a Shopping Cart at BH. It doesn't have the 16 in it... I went with the 12 manual focus and the 23, thinking that the 23 is really the superior "Only bringing one lens and it's gonna be dark" lens, which is a scenario I am in pretty frequently. Right now that's being filled by the 35, but it's sometimes too long for interior shots. And the DOF at 1.4 is so thin that I'd gladly trade a little bokeh for more faces in focus at the same operating speed. I can see me ordering the 16, and then wishing I hadn't, because it's TOO wide for a do-it-all dark lens for me, whereas the 23 would really do it all. So then the 12 fills the Extra Wide / Star Shots gap I have, and I'm good.

Side note: the cart also has a cactus off-cam flash setup. It may finally be time...
 
Those are really good.

I took a 23 with me on vacation to try side by side with the 16. My opinion is still that the 23 is one of the best lenses out there. But I still prefer the 16mm(24mm) focal length. You really can't go wrong with either lens.
 
I've been a little let down by the 23 wide open. I got a lot more fringe than I'm used to seeing from an XF prime at f1.4. And I haven't really been able to get the 23 to "pop," if that makes sense. Longer lenses like the 35 can isolate a subject so nicely, or stack distant things up in a row like a paper cutout box. Super wides can bend and claw things into the corners, stretching and distorting the background around your (hopefully centered) subject. The 23 is so ... normal... that I struggle to find a trick it does that makes interesting, slightly unrealistic images. And yet I loved the X100 so very much.

I'll find something.
 
I noticed the 16 had pop where the 23 didn't. The 16 has such a close minimum focus distance that it can do things which the 23 could not. The 23 has good shallow DOF. But as you noticed, not like the longer focal lengths. And not like the 16 due to the closer focus distance.
 
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