We always love coming across articles written by passionate photographers who know the products they review inside and out. Today we’ll be looking at two posts, one by Olivier Duong of Inspired Eye and the other by Matthew Maddock of PhotoMADD. They deal with the authors’ respective favourite wide-angle options within the Fuji X range – namely, the XF 10-24mm f/4 and the XF 16mm f/1.4.
Olivier Duong and the 10-24mm f/4
Olivier Duong has a real soft spot for the XF 10-24mm f/4, and I can understand why. In the short time we owned this lens for testing purposes, it was practically glued to our X-T1, a sentiment Olivier echoes in his own review. To quote his article:
“Through this lens, the world seems grandiose, epic, you can almost hear an epic soundtrack in the back when shooting with it.”
He talks about his love for wide angles in general, saying that they force the user to be creative and, in his words, “need a bit of wrestling with” to be tamed. The versatile focal length of the 10-24mm is another aspect he enjoys, as you can go from the extreme 15mm equivalent all the way to the good-for-all-occasions 35mm equivalent with just one twist of the zoom ring.
You can read Olivier’s full review of the 10-24mm f/4 here.
Matthew Maddock and the 16mm f/1.4
The second wide-angle review is from Matthew Maddock. He has declared the XF 16mm f/1.4 his second favourite prime next to the XF 23mm f/1.4, which speaks volumes considering the number of excellent fast primes there are now available for the Fujifilm system.
Besides the obvious traits like image quality and sharpness, Matthew explains that he enjoys the wider perspective, fast aperture, small dimensions (compared to the Fuji zooms and DSLR equivalents), and the push-pull manual focus ring on the barrel.
However, he does admit that this lens may not be for everyone, especially if you are a photographer who needs to quickly zoom in and out to capture the action or use OIS in low light.
You can read Matthew’s full review of the XF 16mm here.
It goes without saying that both articles are overflowing with beautiful imagery taken with these two lenses. Most of Olivier’s are from the streets and have been converted into B&W while Matthew’s are from his recent trip to Morocco.