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I always thought the f1.4 lenses are slightly sharper than the smaller f2's hence the price

Great as usual!🌞

Nice review! Have you try the TTArtisan 56/f1.8? wondering which one is sharper🤒

Interesting results Kirk! I can tell you that for my photography, lens resolving capability is far down on the list of considerations as to whether I chose to use it or not. Keep up the great work!

I love the sunrise lighthouse, Oregon Pine trees, and the black & white waves from the long lenses. All beautiful images, mind blown 🤯👍

Encantado con tu reseña, tu video realmente me ha ayudado mucho a elegir uno de estos dos objetivos. Gracias y saludos

For the price this lens do better af and 93% quality compare to 56 wr 1.2 , so surprised why fuji lately have bad overpriced products

Sorry Kirk, a little bit exaggerated

The 16-80 is my Jack of all trade. What a versatile lens . I broke the lens on a trip to Costa Rica bought another one . Using it with the 70-300 and a couple of fast prime and i'm a happy traveller . As always nice video.Thank you.

For years, I have been using the original Fujinon 23mm f/1.4 lens on X-Pro1 and X-Pro2 digital mirrorless bodies. Love the images. Do not like the clutch and the focus-by-wire. Too many times I have accidently moved the clutch from auto focus to manual focus.

Great video. It’s good to get the perspective of a serious user, not just a reviewer. After watching review after review trying to decide if that camera is for me, yours finally made my mind up. So it’s bye bye ancient and well worn Nikon DSLR and hello shiny new X-T5.

I have been using the 1.4 r. It's beautiful with no issues on my x t3 but on my new xt 5 shooting at 1.4 is almost unusable. It's not soft it's blurry big time. Clears up completely by f2. Still works fine on the t3 at 1.4. Anyone experience this?

Running my Fuji XT3 with my laser sharp Zuiko Olympus Glass. The 50 1.4 wide open is still sharp at 400% zoom. Zuiko makes surgical equipment glass so its to be expected! MASSIVE range of glass too!

I own the XT-3 and X -T100 Fujifilm cameras, whenever I use the 18-55 lens 2.8-4 the images come out clean and sharp as you mentioned with any of the two cameras from Fujifilm. It is a pleasure to use the small lens for a walk around and for professional use. Now I would love to get the 16-80 one of these days I sometimes use the 18-135 variable aperture lens and it is okay but at some of the extension less sharp.

Nice video! I’m thinking of buying this lens! The shots are fantastic!!

That Viltrox is so more better than fuji!😊👍🏻👍🏻💪💪 so sharp. And rich colours.

It really doesn´t matter if the viltrox is acceptable or good or what-so-ever. It´s a chinese product and it will NEVER EVER find a way into my camerabag, only in the trashcan. chinese only steal knowledge, we can´t trust them at all. Pls don´t review their products, pls. don´t buy them.

I'm so glad when I saw this comparison. All other reviewers compare the Viltrox to the TTArtisan, but not the Fujicron. I think the photos stopped down revealed more depth of field, especially at the furthest distance, than the Viltrox 1.7. There is also the Sigma 56 1.4 which competes well against the 56 1.2 WR, at less than half the price, even 1/3 of the Fuji when on sale.

Great review.. couldn’t notice the boat windows until it was enlarged to 100%, . Great quality, but it doesn’t seem it would handle a lot of use or abuse.

Good tips!

To me, the OOF areas and transition to OOF looked much better on the Fuji. I'm biased since I have the 50 and love it. Its and engineering masterpiece and IMO, a great used lens bargain.

Nice video, very informative and great example with the figurines.

wow thanks for that! clearly, fujinon is better. colours, clarity, contrast, optics on another level. I consider the 50f2 a boring lens compared to the fuji 56f1.2. I purchased the 50f2, new, 6 years ago. It's a lens I don't use very often, but for being so great, I've never sold it.

There's a guy on my Facebook Fuji group shooting a lot of tripod nighttime stuff with a 23mm 2.0. The stuff is nothing short of fabulous. He posts all his settings. Edge to edge the stuff is world class. I have the lens.

I have small hands and even though the canon rf 24-70 isn’t a long lens it’s heavy. Just ordered a harness strap but do you have tips for me with that given my smaller petite hands and finding the lens heavy? I have a monopod and tripod but sometimes I will need to hold it.

Nowadays with everything is overly clinical where we strive for optical perfection I find myself looking for character in my lenses and in my professional work. The 50 f2 is a workhorse of a lens couple that with the 35mm 1.4 Fuji or even the 32mm ziess 1.8 are beautiful I’m just looking for a 24mm (35 full frame) with character. Keep up the good work Kirk you swung my decision on getting the 16-80 f4 I love it also and I can’t stop using it!

I did photograph from the same vantage point early one morning few years back when there was a foggy cloud moving in the foreground at the edge of the trees and lake and I used a tripod with a Nikon D810 SLR. Somehow the images from this shoot they looked too bluish and a bit dark on my 27" monitor maybe is the compression of You-tube. I do watch your videos sometimes and I have seen many that are quite nice and colorful. Thanks for posting.

I appreciate you doing these videos. I think I often see more of a stark difference between the lenses as I'm looking around the images. For instance when they're both f8, the viltrox should be a lot closer if it weren't for the wild field curvature. This where TTartisan and Viltrox, etc often struggle, and the one's I've compared (even with their wide primes), shooting scenes and landscapes where some parts of the composition that should be in focus aren't.

I like when you compare two lenses - it helps make clear what the differences are i.e. what you perhaps give up when you choose a less expensive option or a slightly different spec. Contrary to what so many other sites say when they talk about one single specific lens ... "It feels solid." "It's a good lens." "Excellent image quality." Compared to what? So thank you very much for your comparisons. Helpful. (Btw ... 50mm f2 Fuji for me for a handful of years. Small, fast, IQ.)

I am a new Xt5 owner and I have been melting my brain trying to learn afap. I'm trying to create a space to help people with ADHD using tennis/pb and photography for focus hobbies. Are there any tips you can give me relating to 18-55 lens until I can pull trigger on a better lens? I am aware of all features including modes. my 300 test point and shoot photos came back perfect for everything not moving. Any tips for the 18-55 you can give me will be greatly appreciated! Should I even be able to get tennis shots in focus with the 18-55?

I bought the 50mm f/2 Fujicron about 4 years ago as an intermediate step towards the ultimate goal of the 56mm f/1.2 fujifilm lens. After using it, I never bought the 56mm. It's small, light and sharp, and by all accounts focuses faster than the longer lens. It's nice to have options like the Viltrox and for seldom used focal lengths going cheap makes sense. The Fujifilm 50mm is so good and not astronomically priced that I would not buy the cheaper alternative.

Not as sharp. 50-56, at some distance, the difference in sharpness should not be as noticeable. But for the price is more than OK.

Thank you very much

Love yours with the duck sailing through. What lens were you using. Have a tripod but it rarely gets used ! Keep the videos coming.

Ok, with all due respect to your photo skills Kirk, I'm going to give today's prize to Andrew! Such a great "Oregon" photograph. As for the tripod question, I always try to pack one when I go on vacation. Fortunately companies like Peak Design make some very lightweight and compact ones so it doesn't take up too much room in the luggage.

Fuji's CC simulation was all about saturation reduction but you've gone the other way and got a light version of Vivid.

Fun stuff Kirk, and the history lesson adds to the story and the art.

Should i be able to see my aperture changes thru the view finder when making changes? although the light changes when i turn the aperture ring it always reads 0 when looking thru viewfinder. I am using it with my XT5, Thanks in advance.

Hi Kirk, great photos. I always take my tripod when I’m out and about with my camera, it comes in handy as a walking stick, but I rarely set it up an use it. I am seriously considering mounting a ball head to my good walking stick, and after watching this, I think I will give it a try.

As always, an entertaining and informative video, always fun for a gear head like me to window shop for new stuff. While we’re talking, your review of the Tamron 18 to 300 mm lens helped me make a decision to buy it. I put the lens on my XT3 and then moved it to my new XT5 last March. I have not taken the lens off since I bought the camera. I guess you could say I turned the XT5 into a “point and shoot bridge camera”? I have to say that, set up this way, I am having the same fun making photographs now as when I got my first Fujifilm SLR back in the early 70s. Now here comes my question. What do you think about the macro attachments that can be put on the front of the lens? Do you think I would get any use out of putting a Roblox 150 on my camera lens just for casual macro shots. And again, keep those cards and videos coming,

You have some amazing photos sir, nice job. Are you using sharpening software and are they jpegs? I’m in a dilemma here. I bought the Fuji xh2 with the 16-80 and absolutely love the camera body itself but I’m having a hard time getting the image quality even close to my Canon R5. That being said I’m very unhappy with the lens choices and cost of the Canon lens lineup like the 70-200 not being able to use a teleconverter and the 100-500 being a slow aperture lens and not being able to zoom the lens back to 100mm with a teleconverter etc etc. When I bought it they said they were going to open the RF mount to 3rd party… and we all know what happened with that 🤦🏻‍♂️ I have heard that Lightroom has problems with Fuji raw files and I definitely can see some of those issues when I’ve shot in raw and uploaded them to Lightroom. I am wondering what your editing process and camera settings are to get these great images thanks in advance.

Another great video! I have an XT5 plus the same 70-300mm. So far, I’ve never been out taking photos in conditions as bad as that. But I have a trip to Alaska coming up. It’s good to know the gear can handle it. Very nice photos. My favorite is the one that included the tree as well as the waterfall. I also appreciated the photography tips. Thanks!

What a terrific and affordable lens! Appreciate you making this video. Too bad the price has gone up to $180 😮 Not a lot, but still a surprising jump.

I have a M10, after having the M9 and the M240 (worst of all the digital Leica IMHO). I am actually considering if it is worth changing it with something with a viewfinder instead of the rangefinder. My favorite lens to shoot at is a 50mm, usually pretty open. So it gets tricky with the rangefinder. I have an Hasselblad X2D for when I need more resolution, but for as small as it is, it is not as portable as the Leica or a Fuji. I absolutely love the Leica sensor, as for rendition of colors (skin tones specially) and the feel for it. Fuji (and Hasselblad) is the only other manufacturer that has a feel to its sensor that I can compare to it. I am just not sure whether going to a crop sensor makes sense.

This is a fun lens! Is nice to practice using the focal length at that low price point and light weight.

Stunning images. I tried using a tripod, but I don’t have the patience to set it up. Something always goes wrong. At home, it goes flawless.

I was there a couple of years ago, but I never saw a clear reflection/sky. I'm really jealous 😂. Good video!

Beautiful images Kirk, and I loved the one Andrew took with the duck. I only use a tripod now when I'm doing long exposures. Sometimes in the winter, if i don't have one, I'll lay my hat on a wall or maybe a picnic table to get a couple of seconds or so. The IBIS and OIS on the XT5 /16-80 combo are amazing.

I'm old fashion, give me a tripod and throw in a grad filter. I realize you were traveling light; nice to know how good the new tech is though.

It's interesting that this is a tripod video. I bought a nice Manfrotto tripod about two years ago to use with my X-T3. Turns out I really used it for the first time last week. I was shooting flowers indoors with a friend who also wanted to try some ICM on the flowers. Shutter speeds were 1-2 seconds for the ICM shots and the tripod was indispensable. Kirk, that's a beautiful part of the country!!!