Verdict
The Fujinon XC 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 OIS is a fairly good standard zoom lens but it doesn’t really stand out due to a number of weaknesses. In terms of resolution, the quality is generally high in the image center and decent in the outer image field. The lens relies heavily on auto-correction with respect to its native distortion characteristic which is nothing short of extreme at 16mm. Since most users will never notice this, this is probably an acceptable compromise (albeit a lossy one). The original vignetting is rather heavy at large apertures but also corrected behind the scenes. Lateral CAs are an issue at 16mm at large aperture settings especially in the image corners. Technically there isn’t really much to complain about the build quality but you have to live with an all-plastic construction. On the up side, this means a very low weight. Size-wise it is a comparatively big lens though. The AF is reasonably fast and near-silent. We are not yet sure what to think of Fuji’s optical image stabilizer. While it surely gives some extra potential, we aren’t overly convinced whether Fuji has already mastered all the associated complexities. The field images felt somewhat more consistent with deactivated IS – which reminds us of the other two OIS lenses that we handled so far. If we had to choose between the Fujinon XC 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 OIS and it’s in-house cousin, we would place our bets on the the XR 18-55mm f/2.8-4 OIS. Regarding the sum of its qualities, the XC 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 OIS is just too expensive in comparison – at least when purchased separately. These extra 2mm at the wide end are an interesting value prop for landscape photographers though and when relying on the provided image auto-correction the results can be quite attractive.

Optical Quality: 2.5 / 5
Mechanical Quality: 2.5 / 5
Price / Performance: 2.5 / 5

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