This review will be fairly short because quite frankly, I wasn’t impressed with the Fujifilm 8-16mm (except for night photography). I wanted to love this lens, I really did. So much so that I probably came into this review biased that it was going to be amazing. I put it through its paces for a month (B&H sent this lens to me for review) trying all sorts of different subjects related to nature photography.
Is the Fujifilm 8-16mm good for Night Photography?
I’ll start off with the good news. The 8-16 is fantastic for night photography if you plan to do a lot of ultra-wide nightscapes with the Fujifilm system. At f/2.8 there is very little coma in the corners, but there is a fair amount of distortion which accentuates the star trails that are not apparent in the center of the frame.
This lens goes so wide that are not many lenses to compare it to. The only lenses that come close are the Rokinon 12mm f/2 or the Laowa 9mm f/2.8. I have the Rokinon and would not recommend it anymore, it’s impossible to get in focus and I have had this experience with several copies of the lens that I’ve helped clients use, I despise this lens. The Laowa seems like a good option, I have yet to try it, but from the reviews I have read it seems like a solid lens, although it has a lot of distortion.
My advice; if you’re on a budget and want to do a lot of extremely wide-field nightscapes, you may want to give the Laowa a try. If you have the money to spend, go for the Fujifilm 8-16.
Is the Fujifilm 8-16mm good for Landscape Photography?
Short answer: not really. Although I don’t use an ultra-wide all that much anymore since my photographic style has changed, I thought it would be fun to have this insanely wide lens in my bag for times I wanted that exaggerated foreground look. Sadly the distortion and softness on the edge of the frame at 8mm render it unusable for landscape photography. This is really disappointing because the center of the frame is so incredibly sharp.
I was able to achieve relatively sharp edges at 8mm by stopping down to f/22, but of course, this causes diffraction which takes away that incredible sharpness in the center of the frame. Below is an example of this at f/22. At first glance, it looks like a nice clean image, but when you look closer it’s not as impressive. It does produce a nice sunstar though!
Below is the center of the frame at 100% magnification. It’s decent, but the diffraction has taken away a fair amount of sharpness.
On the edge of the frame, you can really start to see the problem. It’s soft and stretched out from the distortion. This was even worse at f/8 and f/11, which is where you ideally want to shoot to get the sharpest image and avoid diffraction.
I thought it might be interesting to use this lens to create some unique small scenes that I’ve been obsessed with lately. So I gave it a try pointing straight down on this interesting shore of river rock. The extreme distortion made it immediately clear that I wouldn’t be attempting this again, it just looks…weird. After you crop out the stretched rocks your back down to 10mm, only with fewer megapixels than if you shot it at 10mm.
Conclusion
Pros
- Solid build – it’s a tank
- You won’t find anything wider that’s not a fisheye
- Very sharp edge to edge at 10-16mm
- Good for night photography, little coma
Cons
- Very heavy
- A bulbous front element, so you can’t use filters without a special adapter
- At 8mm the edges are soft and it has lots of distortion
- Expensive
- Do you really need to go this wide?
In the end, I decided this lens was just not for me. I’m not an ultra-wide kinda guy anymore, at least, not very often. I find the 10-24 lens to be much more suited to my style of photography as I can still use filters, it is lightweight, small, and still exceptionally sharp. If you’re considering an ultra-wide lens I would go for the 10-24 over the 8-16. This lens has its place, but I think they missed the mark for landscape photography.
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You mentioned that you use the 10-24 for landscape. I recently bought an X-T3 and 10-24 f4. Testing it carefully from10-16mm, it seems sharp between f5.6 to f8, sometimes to f11. Not usable above f11. Does that match your experience, or do you get good results stopped down. I was hoping for more DoF.
Thanks.
Hi John, this is completely normal with all lenses and cameras. When you stop the aperture down it causes diffraction which makes the entire scene soft. You start to see this at f/11 on a cropped sensor, and it gets really bad at f/22. The sharpest aperture you can shoot at is 5.6 or 8, I generally shoot at f/8 and focus stack as needed. Focus stacking is the only way to achieve perfect sharpness in a scene with a lot of DoF. I know it’s a bit of a pain, but using Helicon Focus makes the process much easier in post-processing. I’ll have to write an article about this subject soon.
Thank you for validating that I have to accept wider apertures when using a cropped sensor. With my Canon 5dm2 (full frame), I most often used f14.
I’m glad that the X-T3 has a focus stacking mode. I will have to experiment with it and add some extra processing to those select images.
Wow, HDR Pano with focus stacking. There’s a challenge!
A final question and I will leave you alone…have you ever used the 16-55 F2.8 for night/Astro work?
Haha no worries Tom! I have used the 16-55 a fair amount, it is very good for astro, very sharp at 2.8 with little coma. The little 18mm prime is quite good too!
Thanks as I just cannot afford another lens now……..I will try it again.
Will you do a review of the 16-80 F4 lens? I wonder if it will replace the 18-55 F2.8-4 for travel, backcountry, hiking, a general all-purpose lens.
I just picked one up and will be testing it out in Death Valley over the next month, I expect it to be my new favorite lens, I’m excited to put it through its paces!
I look forward to your review…I will need to sell a few things before purchasing it.
David….Thanks for the review. What lens then do recommend for night photography in the Fuji line, as the 16-55 F2.8 mentioned?
Hey Tom, I would recommend the Fuji 14mm, Fuji 16mm, or the Zeiss 12mm. I no longer recommend the Rokinon 12mm.
David…thanks for the info….I tried the Rokinon twice and sent back both times as I could not get it to focus properly.
Do you still use LR/PS or have you switched to Capture 1 or another software to edit Fuji files?
I have tried everything and ultimately went back to Lightroom, you can see my full workflow for sharpening in this post https://www.exploringexposure.com/blog/fujifilm/my-fujifilm-sharpening-workflow-in-lightroom/
Thanks for this info…