Fujifilm Fujinon XC 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 OIS Lens Review

Fujifilm Fujinon XC 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 OIS Handling and features

This lens is incredibly lightweight at only 195g, thanks mostly to the materials used for the construction of the lens barrel and the plastic lens mount. Owing to its compact, lightweight stature, it makes a travel friendly combination with the Fujifilm X-Pro1 used for testing.

The 58mm filter thread does not rotate, as focusing is performed internally, which makes this lens perfect for use with polarising and graduated filters. The focusing and zoom rings aren't as well damped or as smooth as on Fuji's premium XF lenses, although fine adjustments are still quite easy to apply and autofocus is reasonably quick and precise.

Unlike Fuji's XF lenses, a manual aperture ring is not provided, with aperture control being provided via the adjustment wheel on the rear of the camera. The X-Pro1 required a firmware update to properly support the lens. The process for completing this is fairly straightforward, so long as you have a USB card reader to copy the update to a formatted card.

Optical image stabilisation is included on this lens, which promises to allow sharp hand held images to be taken at shutter speeds up to 4 stops slower than would be possible without this feature. With care and allowing a pause for the system to catch up, sharp images are possible around half the time at shutter speeds as low as 1/8sec at 50mm, which is around three stops slower than the usual rule of thumb for shooting hand held allows.

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