So I finally bought a native Fuji lens for my X-E1, a used 16-50mm XC kit lens.  Probably the cheapest lens that Fuji makes, and you know, it’s not that bad.  Especially not for the price on the used market.  I think it’s great because its so light and the footprint in the inventory slot (camera included) is way smaller than a 24-70 2.8 or perhaps even a Nikon 24-85mm kit lens.  For many years, when this body wasn’t sitting collecting dust on my shelf, it either had a Nikon or M42 adapter and odd manual focus lenses for random outings.  So this combo is now a super easy and brainless travel setup for me.  24mm equivalent, decent autofocus, and a tiny pop up flash has a lot of advantages.

Here are some photos in situations where I think this kit did a good job.  Spots where you can treat it like a point shoot, but also get a raw file that you can tweak to get the tones and “mood” that Fujifilm is quite popular for these days.

The X-E1 was probably 3rd or 4th in the bag, along with main cameras of course, so you can see these are side photos from the other recent posts on my journal here.

On the top floor of Salesforce Tower in Atlanta is like a mini botanical garden!  The light coming through the open windows made for a pretty corner.  Having a zoom is quite convenient for finding interesting crops in real life in real time.

The 16-50mm is a pretty great food camera lens because it has image stabilization and it can get really close to the subject.  I still give the title to Nikons for bright and colorful food cameras, and that runs the gamut from 1″ J1 sensors all the way up to the Df.

Since this lens does not have an aperture lens like the more expensive (overpriced?) kit lenses in the Fuji lineup, when you mount it on the X-E1 it defaults to P mode if you have the shutter speed dial set to Auto.  However the back wheel is super sensitive on the X-E1 and you will knock it inadvertently, causing the camera to hop on over to Aperture priority mode with f/22 as the starting point.  That of course will cause some crazy slow shutter speeds, diffraction softening of the image, and other issues if one doesn’t pay attention to the letter in the corner of the LCD.  I know it’s minor, but simple situations would be like handing off the camera to someone to take your picture and the wheel gets nudged a bit, going into f/22 3 second mode.

 

Since this camera has an easy pop up flash, I’ve actually used it for many shots.  Even landscapes where the subjects are a bit far off.  While some would say on camera flash is not professional, I ask anyone to take a look at what an instax film photo looks like.  The harsh direct flash on those instant cameras always has a surprisingly nice look every time.  Having a pop up flash on digital is an easy entry to simple fill flash and also experimentation.  One of these days I will remember to lug some big strobes to light up a tree.

This X-E1 has the first gen X-Trans sensor like the X-Pro 1.  I would have to say with the bluish green leanings it does look a bit more like film than other bayer layer digital cameras.

Fall Photos + Fujifilm X-E1 + 16-50mm