Reviewing the Fujinon XF 16-80mm F4 R OIS WR

I purchased this because I delayed my purchase of the XT-4 and miss image stabilization for my Fuji gear. Again, I wasn't expecting much having read some mixed reviews prior to buying it and having been an almost exclusive prime lens shooter for the last decade. But lo and behold, this lens is a joy to use. In fact, because my FF Nikon D810 was recently sold, I had to use my Fuji gear and this lens for professional shoots. Two food shoots and a COVID preparedness commercial shoot. I shot them tethered to a Mac using Capture One Pro, which doesn't play as well with Fuji for tethered shooting.

The images are sharp straight from the camera! And they are just gorgeous! I even achieved some depth of field separation shooting on the telephoto end of the zoom.

Usability
A zoom is unbeatable in this regard and this lens, which is equivalent to 24mm-120mm, is a general-purpose zoom range. The lens just works reliably overall and is easy to use. Auto focus is quick, confident, quiet, and accurate.

Image Stabilization
I think Fuji claims up to 5 stops of stability. I easily manage 3-4 and yes, even 5 sometimes, shooting down as low as 1 sec shutter speed handheld and still getting sharp results (albeit rarely).

Image Quality
9/10. It's somewhat softer on both ends of the zoom range but still sharp enough for my needs. The sweet spot is in the middle of the range, which gives you very sharp results. I shot a documentary of firefighters in action, which you can see in my previous post, and the images from that shoot were sharp, contrasty, and just plain lovely.

Some Issues
I'll be somewhat harder on Fuji being such a great optics maker.
1. The jumping exposure when shooting video is still unfixed despite the latest firmware (writing this in Jan 2021). This ruined a video session for a dance I covered. The workaround is to make sure you don't touch the zoom intentionally or accidentally to avoid this issue. Better yet, keep the zoom at 16 or 80.
2. Still on the subject of zoom, the ring is impossible to rotate smoothly. Hence, will look jumpy on video.
3. There is more distortion on the wide end than I had hoped (perspective mostly).
4. Minor issue: The lens sticks out a lot when zooming. It's ugly if you don't like extending zooms.

So do I recommend it? Yes. Especially if you can get it bundled with a new body. I bought a 2nd XT3 with mine. Do not be in any way discouraged by the issues I've mentioned. They are quite common for this zoom range from any OEM. If you need something wide for APS-C, I would get this over a mid-level Fuji prime. See the sample images and judge for yourselves... they are some of the good photo work I've shot with this lens.

Apropos shot since I lost the included lens hood again. (photo credit: fujifilm-x.com)

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