I’ve always seen wide angle lenses as a necessary evil. You sometimes just can’t back up far enough to get the subject in the frame with a 35mm lens. I’ve had many nice wide angle lenses in my career but I’ve never really enjoyed shooting with them. But after a month of testing the Fujinon 16mm R WR F1.4, I’ve changed my mind.

Until now, I mainly used the wide end of my XF16-55 the few times the situation dictated a wide angle lens. The 16-55 is an amazing lens but to me it’s a professional tool for when I need flexibility and speed, not what I shoot with for fun. When the XF16mm F1.4 was announced a couple of years ago, I wasn’t interested. I didn’t even asked to loan it for a review/test. But I’ve heard so many of my friends rave about this lens AND I just needed something to challenge my photography during this boring lockdown. So I decided to ask Fuji to borrow me a copy to test it out.

My first observation is that this is a beefy prime lens but not too big or heavy to nicely pair up with my X-Pro3. It has that no-nonsense, almost old-skool, look and feel of the other “classic” Fujinon primes. I don’t baby my gear and this lens seems to have everything to stand up to many years of professional use. But the supplied lens hood ... man, that is an hideous, obtrusive thing. I’m sure it does the job but it just doesn’t fit the look and purpose of this lens. It’s so big that it’s going to attract attention. I’m not the hipster that uses camera gear as a fashion accessory, but I wouldn’t want to be seen with this lens hood on my camera. Luckily there’s also an optional square hood available from Fuji and some third party suppliers. But honestly Fuji, I think you should include a cool square lens hood with your premium prime lenses.

When it comes to image quality, I’ve come to expect nothing but excellence from Fuji. I hardly even look at sharpness, contrast and colour anymore, it’s always great or at least very good value for money. And the 16mm is definitely another amazing lens. What I look for instead when testing a Fujinon lens is character. Some lenses are just very good and neutral, but my favourite lenses add personality to that. I’m happy to report that the XF16mm F1.4 definitely has a very pleasing character. It’s subjective, I know, but there are other websites for more objective views on gear.

I figured, shooting with the 16mm would be a challenge. I figured I would have been constantly tempted to put my favoriete XF35mm F1.4 back on my camera. I’m not a wide angle shooter, remember. Much to my surprise I immediately liked shooting with the 16mm. It was (and is) still a challenge because I’m not used to see in 16mm, but it was (and is) a lot of fun.

Wide angle pictures often don’t feel real to me. At best it’s distorted reality. But the 16mm, stays right on the edge of that. The distortion is well controlled and when looking at the pictures you feel close to the action but just not TOO close. The lens invites the photographer to work with careful, layered compositions. You can’t get sloppy in the composition department with such a wide lens. Because of the maximum aperture of F1.4 you can even get separation, which is something I can not achieve with the slower wide angle zooms in my bag. The minimum focus distance of just 15cm allows you to make these strangely pleasing wide angle (pseudo) macro shots.

These wide compositions don’t come easy to me. They are not part of my photographic vocabulary yet. But I’m looking forward to learn that new language, so I bit the bullet and bought my own copy of the XF16mm F1.4 ... with the optional square hood of course.

I even used my brand new lens during my first portrait shoot since the lockdown. Much to my surprise I was able to get some wide angle portraits that I really like.

You are definitely going to see many more pictures with the Sweet 16 in the future.