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- Welcome to Pal2tech.

Today we are going to review the brand new

Fujifilm 16 to 80 millimeter zoom lens.

I've had this lens with me nonstop for 11 days now

in a variety of shooting situations and locations.

I'm gonna tell you what I think about it,

the things I like and the things I don't like.

Before we get into it, I wanna let you know

that this video is not sponsored.

I didn't get a prereleased version of this lens

sent to me for free.

This is the final version of the lens,

the one that's released to you and I and everyone else.

Fujifilm has no idea I'm making this video.

I paid for this lens myself.

I ordered it from Samy's Camera in Los Angeles,

and I paid $887.54 for this lens.

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There's been a lot of anticipation building up

to the release of this lens.

Its official name is Fujinon XF 16 to 80 millimeter

f/4 R OIS WR.

And I think it it sort of fills the gap

between the 18 to 55 millimeter

and the 16 to 55 millimeter.

What you have here is a 16 to 80 millimeter zoom

with a constant f/4 aperture

throughout the entire focal range.

The glass itself contains 16 elements in 12 groups,

and man, looking at it,

(chuckles) you could really see that beautiful glass.

You're getting the equivalent of a 24 to 120 millimeter

range in full frame format.

The aperture range on this lens is f/4 to f/22

in 1/3 stops.

The front thread on the lens is 72 millimeters.

Now that's really cool.

So if you have already filters on the 50 to 140

that are already 72 millimeters,

you can share them with this new lens,

it's awesome for that.

Like other Fujinon lenses, it comes with a standard

plastic lens hood, but here's the thing that's interesting:

this lens hood right here is actually different,

almost a redesign and it's much better

than the prior lens hoods that Fujifilm released.

With other lens hoods, plastic ones,

sometimes you have to, you know,

turn 'em like that, they're a little bit rough.

This one is loose, it's like really loose

when you put it on.

Once you turn it and you get it all the way over,

it clicks into place.

It's a really nice, smooth click, and it's firm.

I like the lens hood.

I still wish it were made out of metal though,

but that's another story.

I did notice that the aperture ring is pretty tight,

maybe a bit too tight for my liking.

But, you know what, I'd rather have than

a very loose aperture ring.

Same with the zoom ring.

This thing is secure.

It is not one of those zoom lenses

that you turn it upside and it, you know,

doing, comes falling out.

It's not gonna happen with this lens, it's pretty tight.

It's weather resistant, and it's sealed in 10 locations,

and you can go shooting outside in temperatures

as low as 14 degrees Fahrenheit,

or minus 10 Celsius.

Interesting, there's this weird little drawer-looking thing

right here that says Weather Resistant.

I don't know if you can see that.

It's funny because I didn't see that

on any other Fuji lens, and it looks like something

where you put your fingernail in it

and pull out a drawer where you put a gel

or, like, (chuckles) a filter or something.

It's kinda cool.

This lens features six stops of image stabilization,

and this makes it great in low light

despite its f/4 aperture.

Image stabilization was incredible on this lens

for both stills and video.

Check this out, okay, the video on the left

is shot without OIS, and the video on the right

is shot with OIS.

Have a look at that, look at that!

That's incredible, it almost looks like the camera

is bolted to a tripod, but I was holding it like this.

Unbelievable, really nicely done.

Ah, I love it.

Let's look at a still photo now.

Okay, so I shot this one, handholding the camera,

at f/4, zoomed all the way in to 80 millimeters.

And as you can see, at 1/30 of a second,

you can see the fabric; it's nice, it's clean,

no problems there.

Here is 1/15 of a second, and you can still see

kinda the details in the fabric.

It's sharp, it's reasonably sharp for 1/15 of a second,

handheld, and I'm not the best hand-holder.

I'm, ah, I'm not that good,

so I'm a really good test for this.

And now moving down, you've got 1/8 of a second.

And okay, so it starts to get a little bit fuzzy here at,

but this is 1/8 of a second,

and it's still a nice, usable picture, you know,

if you were forced to use 1/8 of a second handheld.

So again, wow!

Now there's one interesting thing about OIS:

there's no OIS on or off switch anywhere on the lens.

It's very minimalist.

When the lens is attached to the camera

and the camera's on the tripod,

the lens adjusts OIS automatically.

Now you can turn off OIS, but you need to go

into the camera's menu to do so.

This lens weighs just about one pound, or 440 grams.

And it feels great on the camera.

Size and weight-wise, this lens is incredible.

You're getting f/4 all the way from 16 to 80 millimeters

in a lens that's just a bit heavier and bulkier

than the kit 18 to 55 millimeter.

And compared to the 16 to 55 millimeter,

this lens is as light as a feather.

It is a great travel lens.

In fact, a few days ago, I flew to Maryland with it,

right on Southwest Airlines.

This lens went through security and in those bins

and on and off the plane, and you know,

bumping up against the aircraft windows taking pictures.

Now I wanted to kind of have this lens

in a real on-the-go travel-type of environment

to see how it handled.

And my conclusion is that, in traveling with this lens,

it nails everything that I'd ever want

in a single lens for get-up-and-go one-lens-only photography

with a minimum of hassle.

You know what?

I can get some glue and glue this on, right?

And just (grunts) glue it on the camera,

throw it in the backpack and go around the world

and pretty much get most of the shots I'd want

with the focal range offered by this lens

and the beautiful background isolation.

For sheer versatility balanced with autofocus speed

for lightweight travel zoom shots,

this is a really good lens for that.

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Now let's talk about focus and zoom.

It utilizes an external telescopic zoom design.

That's unlike the 50 to 140 where the--

(camera clicking) everything's inside.

With this lens, if you're doing street photography

and you need to be kinda discreet,

well (chuckles) this just screams out,

I have a lens, I have a lens!

It's a little bit, whoa okay.

But that's exactly the extra range you get

on this lens versus the 18 to 55

that makes such a major difference when out traveling

or doing street photography.

You really notice it when you're trying to take shots

of things that you can't quite walk up and get to.

One thing I didn't care for was the zoom ring's

ergonomics with shooting video.

I found it to be a little rough and jerky like

when zooming in for video shots;

a little tight for my taste.

This lens has a minimum, are you sitting down?

Has a minimum focusing distance of 1.4 inches,

that's 35 centimeters,

over the entire zoom range.

This was so nice, and I was very impressed

with the background and the results

I was able to get with it at such a close range.

Autofocus: fast, fast, fast;

very fast and quiet.

I give it a great score on that.

It works very well in AF-C Zone mode,

quickly switching with a minimum of lag time.

Now if you don't know what AF-C Zone is,

then please be sure to watch my focus modes

of the X-T3 video and I'll have a link below.

But let's get through the remainder of this video first.

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A zoom lens is always about compromise,

and I try to keep that in mind when testing this lens,

particularly because I also happened to own

the incredible 16 to 55.

Here's what I found in a nutshell.

Starting wide open at 16 millimeter f/4,

we have nice contrast and sharpness in the center,

no problems there.

As you move toward 80 millimeter, keeping f/4,

the corners start to improve a bit

until you hit 50 millimeters,

at which point there's really kind of a nice

sharpness across the entire frame.

However, once you hit 80 millimeter at f/4,

the corners, I think, are blurry and weak.

Have a look, here it is at f/4,

there's the center at f/4, not bad.

Look at the corner, not so good, not so good there.

Just for the heck of it, I compared f/4 on this lens

with f/4 on the on the kit 18 to 55 millimeter lens,

both fully zoomed in; let's take a look at that.

So the photo on the left is the 16 to 80 millimeter,

and the photo on the right is the 18 to 55 millimeter.

And as I zoom all the way in, I do like the center for sure.

The center is much nicer at the maximum focal length

on the 16 to 80.

However, the corner, interestingly enough,

not so good, not so good.

I prefer the kit lens, quite honestly.

The best and sharpest place for this lens

is at 50 millimeter, f/5.6.

No surprise, no doubt there,

where you pretty much have sharpness everywhere.

I also compared center sharpness with both

this lens and the 18 to 55 fully extended at f/4,

and the 16 to 80 is definitely shaper at the center

at the focal range.

So here you can see the picture on the left

is the 16 to 80, and the picture on the right

is the 18 to 55.

Clearly, clearly, the center, fully zoomed in

on the 16 to 80 is sharper.

And I actually prefer the background

of the 18 to 55 millimeter kit lens,

but they're so similar, and the color rendering

is a little bit, in my opinion, more noticeable

on the 18 to 55.

Here's the background here fully zoomed in

at 80 millimeter f/4.

Here we are at f/8,

and here we are at f/16.

And as you can see, they change, look at that.

And so here, on f/4,

you have these really nice, pleasing,

fadey-type of dreamy swirls.

As we go here, they become more defined at f/8.

And all the way at f/16, I still found them

to be very pleasing.

I like the background on this lens a lot.

Here's a shot kinda taken at mid focal range

at about 42, maybe 43 millimeters.

And as you can see, the background is very, very pleasant.