Fujifilm XF55-200 mm F3.5-4.8 R LM Optical Image Stabiliser Lens

Product Information

At 55mm, sharpness in the centre of the frame at maximum aperture is already outstanding, with the clarity towards the edges falling just short of excellent. Stopping down to between f/4 and f/8 raises sharpness towards the edges to excellent levels, whilst maintaining outstanding clarity in the centre of the frame. I keep an assortment of UV, ND and CPL filters in my kit. This covers me for added protection, capturing motion and adding a special touch to my shots of water/skies. Do I love this lens? Yes It’s perfect in all but the darkest environments for portraits. With my 60mm f/2.4 lens I need to use 1/250th second to get a sharp shot. Gone are the days where we can use the reciprocal of the focal length to capture sharp shots hand held. With the circles of confusion getting ever smaller with reducing pixel sizes and the crop factor to consider image stabilisation is more important than ever before. I use a shutter speed of 2 (1/1.5F) for non stabilised lenses. This new zoom is just one stop down at the 60mm setting but will allow me to use 1/125th second setting to freeze subject movement so the low light capability for static portraits is about the same as the 60mm lens. Flare isn't much of an issue with this lens and contrast is retained well when shooting into the light, with or without a hood attached. Here is what I am hoping will be able to happen. In normal shooting situations and for my travel trips to Asia, I am hoping to have the 16-55 glued on to one of my X-T2’s and the 55-200 glued onto the other. Though the 16-55 has no stabilisation, I am envisaging this to not be a problem. I used the 35mm F2 lens extensively in Myanmar and never had a problem with camera shake or wished that it had stabilisation. For the 55mm end, if stabilisation is needed, then of course I can pull out the 55-200 and use the 55 end for stabilisation. I am hoping the 16-55 will be just as sharp at 35mm as my 35mm F2 lens. I only lose one stop (F2-F2.8), so if this is the case then this small lens may have become obsolete and will end up with the 18-55 on ‘fleabay’.

I have a 50-230mm as well which is very nearly the same optical formula as the 55-200 bar a single additional element in the 55-200 which probably mainly corrects edge aberrations to allow a wider aperture. As others have said, the difference with the 55-200 wasn't compelling - the 70-300 definitely is. Even if it ends up around the same ballpark as the 16-80 or 50-140. I am, of course, assuming its optical quality will be up to scratch and it features comparable levels of OIS to the 16-80 but WR plus TC compatibilty plus the size as demonstrated are nice. Lens choice is all about tradeoffs and it always comes down to a compromise between speed, weight, performance, and price. If you don’t want to carry a big heavy lens, and you don’t regularly shoot fast action, the 55-200 is an excellent telephoto for general photography, landscapes and travel. When used on the X-mount cameras with their 1.52x crop factor, it sees the same angle of view as a 80-300mm lens sees when used on a 35mm camera. The aperture ring is only half an aperture ring; it's only an encoder to a computer and works like a generic command dial. It's not actually marked with apertures; you have to move the switch away from A to set an aperture manually.The Fujifilm 55-200mm f3.5-4.8 R LM OIS XF Fujinon Lens has been designed to provide pin sharp images across its entire focal range, as well as having a large aperture from f3.5-4.8. The lens is capable of high-speed autofocus acquisition thanks to two linear motors and has an in-built image stabilisation system that allows for shutter speeds 4.5 stop slower. The lens has been designed for use on Fujifilm's compact system cameras that have an X lens mount, such as the Fujifilm X-E3. I’m usually a 3-lens guy, with an occasionally 4th, and these days, I’m often heading out with the wide angle 14mm, the sweet little 35mm f/2 for the middle range, and the newly 55-200 for the long end. If you’re looking for a versatile telephoto lens with a nice long range that’s easy to carry and that doesn’t have an enormous price tag, then look no further. A very slight amount of pincushion distortion is present throughout the zoom range. With only 0.2% pincushion distortion, this shouldn't be noticeable in normal picture taking. If absolutely straight lines are necessary, the distortion is quite simple to correct in image editing software afterwards as the distortion pattern is uniform across the frame. When I first got the X-T1 in February, 2014 and took it to Iceland for a week, the 55-200 went with me. I’ve always loved the photos I shot with it over there, and I remember being very impressed with how well it performed. I shot a bunch of photos of this frozen waterfall below, handheld at speeds between 1/25-1/60 sec., zoomed all the way out to 300mm, and they were all dead sharp. That’s how good Fuji’s OIS is. The Fujifilm Fujinon XF 55-200mm f/3.5-4.8 R LM OIS lens has very effective optical stabilisation and excellent performance at 55mm.

The Fuji XF 55-200mm OIS is optically superb, has fantastic image stabilization and is faster and better made than other brands of APS-C zooms.

The only gotcha with this Fuji lens is that there is no instant manual-focus override. You have to move a switch on your camera to get to or from manual focus mode. Have a look at the full-resolution file if you've got any doubts. It usually takes LEICA lenses shot on LEICA cameras to look this good. This Fuji lens on the X-T1 is at least as sharp as my LEICA lenses shot on my M9 or M 240. (Using LEICA lenses on adapters rarely works as well as the native Fuji lenses on Fuji cameras.) To wrap things up, I will say this lens is one of my favorites within the Fujifilm lineup. It fits my style perfectly and gives me a ton of versatility in the field. Below is a simplified summary of the formal findings. The chart shows line widths per picture height (LW/PH) which can be taken as a measure for sharpness.

This combination would provide a complete shooting kit to cover a broad range of focal distances and genres. For my landscape work, I use the 16-55 lens the most often. That focal range is simply the most useful for the scenes I normally shoot. It allows me to go wide angle and provides enough zoom to get closer to subjects. Landscape photography is more than wide angle shots though. Telephoto lenses can also be used very effectively to get landscape shots. Especially in the mountains. The Fuji X-Mount Lenses are all extraordinary. What most photographers don't realize is that Fuji has for many decades, just like Canon and Nikon, also made far more advanced optics, like binoculars for the military and for use in space, as well as lenses for motion pictures and television with six-figure price tags at discount. Unlike mud brands like Sigma and Tamron (or even LEICA), Fujinon has loads of experience actually supplying optics that cost more than some people's houses, and puts that same know-how into these lenses.

Focal Range

OIS is the image stabilizer. Leave it on as shown here, except if you're on a tripod for long exposures.