The Fuji­film XF 16–55mm F2.8 R LM WR aspires to com­pete with full-frame 24–70mm ƒ/2.8 stan­dard zooms by offer­ing a fast, no-com­pro­mise option for Fuji­film shoot­ers. On the sur­face, its full-frame equiv­a­lent focal length of 24–84mm might seem like an advantage—offering more reach than a con­ven­tion­al 24–70mm. How­ev­er, that promise is mis­lead­ing.

As I point­ed out in my review of the XF 50–140mm F2.8, Fuji­film con­sis­tent­ly mar­kets their pro-grade zooms around full-frame focal length equiv­a­lence while con­ve­nient­ly ignor­ing aper­ture equiv­a­lence (in terms of how it affects depth of field), bank­ing on buy­ers tak­ing F‑numbers at face val­ue. Apply the cor­rect crop fac­tor (1.52×) to both focal length and aper­ture, and the XF 16–55mm F2.8 effec­tive­ly behaves like a 24–84mm F4.3 in full-frame terms. Sud­den­ly, what seemed like an excep­tion­al offer­ing is just anoth­er stan­dard zoom—unremarkable in both range and depth-of-field con­trol. Mean­while, full-frame 24–105mm F4 lens­es offer more reach and bet­ter selec­tive focus, mak­ing the XF 16–55mm’s appeal more about APS‑C exclu­siv­i­ty.

Released in Jan­u­ary 2015, the XF 16–55mm F2.8 R LM WR is a rel­a­tive­ly old lens in Fujifilm’s sys­tem. Its long-spec­u­lat­ed suc­ces­sor, the XF 16–55mm F2.8 R LM WR Mark II, final­ly arrived in Decem­ber 2024 and addressed two of the biggest crit­i­cisms of the orig­i­nal: it’s size (and weight) and bokeh. The new ver­sion is one-third lighter, one-third short­er, and opti­cal­ly improved—but at a high­er price. Mean­while, the orig­i­nal has dropped in price, par­tic­u­lar­ly on the used mar­ket, mak­ing it a (very) tempt­ing alter­na­tive.

So, in 2025, what does the XF 16–55mm F2.8 R LM WR still offer? Is its pre­mi­um sta­tus jus­ti­fied, or has the Mark II—and a grow­ing field of third-par­ty alternatives—rendered it obso­lete? More impor­tant­ly, is the used mar­ket dis­count enough to jus­ti­fy its com­pro­mis­es?

FEATURES

Specifications

• Focal length: 16–55mm (Full-frame equiv­a­lent: 24–84mm)
• Angle of view:
  • At 16mm: Hor­i­zon­tal: 72.6° | Ver­ti­cal: 52.0° | Diag­o­nal: 82.8°
  • At 55mm: Hor­i­zon­tal: 24.1° | Ver­ti­cal: 16.1° | Diag­o­nal: 28.8°
• Aper­ture: ƒ/2.8 to ƒ/22 (9‑blade diaphragm)
• Opti­cal con­struc­tion: 17 ele­ments in 12 groups, includ­ing 3 aspher­i­cal and 3 ED ele­ments
• Min­i­mum focus­ing dis­tance: 30 cm (11.8 in) at 16mm, 40 cm (15.7 in) at 55mm, max mag­ni­fi­ca­tion 0.16×
• Fil­ter thread: 77mm
• Aut­o­fo­cus motor: Lin­ear Motor (LM)
• Weath­er resis­tance: Yes (dust, mois­ture, and freeze-resis­tant)
• Size & weight: 83.3 × 106mm (3.28 × 4.17 in), 655g (1.44 lbs)
• Lens hood: Includ­ed (petal-shaped, plas­tic)
• Man­u­fac­turing ori­gin: Japan

As always, Fujifilm’s nam­ing con­ven­tions des­ig­nate the core fea­tures:

• XF des­ig­nates this as part of Fujifilm’s high­er-end lens line­up (com­pared to the bud­get XC lens­es).
• 16–55mm describes it focal range.
• R means it has an aper­ture ring.
• LM (Lin­ear Motor) sig­ni­fies a high-speed aut­o­fo­cus sys­tem.
• WR (Weath­er-Resis­tant) means the lens is sealed against dust and mois­ture.

The XF 16–55mm F2.8 R LM WR cov­ers a ver­sa­tile 16–55mm zoom range. At the wide end, it pro­vides a prac­ti­cal field of view for land­scapes and envi­ron­men­tal por­traits, while at 55mm, it allows for mod­er­ate sub­ject com­pres­sion. The lens deliv­ers con­sis­tent expo­sure through­out the zoom range thanks to its con­stant ƒ/2.8 aper­ture. A round­ed, 9‑blade diaphragm is pro­duces cir­cu­lar bokeh and 18-point sun­stars.

The lens fea­tures a 77mm fil­ter thread, which is large for an APS‑C stan­dard zoom and even exceeds the 72mm thread of the XF 50–140mm F2.8. This con­tributes to its over­all girth and means fil­ters will be more expen­sive. Notably, the Mark II reduces the fil­ter size to 72mm, mak­ing it more prac­ti­cal for those who fre­quent­ly use ND or polar­iz­ing fil­ters.

To min­i­mize flare and ghost­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly when shoot­ing into bright light sources, Fuji­film applied HT-EBC and Nano-GI coat­ings—Just Another Reflec­tion & Glare Oblit­er­at­ing Nanocoat­ing. The opti­cal for­mu­la includes some spec-sheet padding via three aspher­i­cal ele­ments to reduce dis­tor­tion and field cur­va­ture, while three extra-low dis­per­sion (ED) ele­ments help sup­press chro­mat­ic aber­ra­tions.

The lin­ear motor (LM) aut­o­fo­cus sys­tem enables fast and near-silent focus­ing. Com­pared to step­ping motor (STM) designs, lin­ear motors pro­vide quick­er accel­er­a­tion, which improves con­tin­u­ous aut­o­fo­cus track­ing. While the lens isn’t water­proof, weath­er resis­tance (WR) gives peace of mind to pho­tog­ra­phers oper­at­ing in extreme envi­ron­ments, pro­tect­ing against dust and mois­ture ingress.

Designed as Fujifilm’s no-com­pro­mise pro­fes­sion­al stan­dard zoom, the XF 16–55mm F2.8 R LM WR offers a fast aper­ture, sharp optics, and stur­dy con­struc­tion. How­ev­er, in 2025, the absence of sta­bi­liza­tion, its large size, and new­er com­pe­ti­tion make it a more sit­u­a­tion­al purchase—especially with the Mark II mod­el address­ing its most sig­nif­i­cant draw­backs.

DESIGN & HANDLING

Made in Japan, the Fuji­film XF 16–55mm F2.8 R LM WR is a well-built, work­horse lens aimed at uncom­pro­mis­ing enthu­si­asts and pro­fes­sion­al pho­tog­ra­phers. In terms of mate­ri­als, its con­struc­tion deploys met­al, rub­ber, and plas­tic in a way that feels reas­sur­ing­ly rugged. The fil­ter thread, hood mount, focus and aper­ture rings, and lens mount are met­al. The iden­ti­fi­ca­tion ring, extend­ing inner bar­rel, and the pan­el just aft of the aper­ture ring are plas­tic. The zoom ring is a durable ribbed rub­ber grip over a plas­tic base.

Com­pared to its successor—the XF 16–55mm F2.8 R LM WR II—the orig­i­nal lens feels stur­dier and bet­ter assem­bled. The only vis­i­ble evi­dence of weath­er seal­ing is the rub­ber gas­ket around the met­al lens mount. Based on sev­en years of real use, I’m glad to declare the lens has held up well in rain, snow, and below-freez­ing tem­per­a­tures. How­ev­er, using an exter­nal­ly zoom­ing lens in poor con­di­tions always comes with some risk, since the inner bar­rel is exposed when extend­ed. Dust ingress is inevitable over time and the dread­ed “flash­light test” will con­firm this, but it’s impor­tant to remem­ber that it’s unlike­ly to affect your pic­ture qual­i­ty.

At 655g, it’s heavy and cum­ber­some. The shal­low­er grips on their small­er cam­eras don’t help the sit­u­a­tion, as they pro­vide lit­tle sup­port for a lens of this size, result­ing in an incred­i­bly front-heavy com­bo. Despite my fre­quent com­plaints about its pro­por­tions, it was my most-used Fuji­non lens, hav­ing cap­tured the plu­ral­i­ty of my pho­tos since I start­ed using Fuji­film cam­eras in 2016. This under­scores how the con­ve­nience and ver­sa­til­i­ty of a sin­gle, albeit heavy, lens out­weigh the light­ness and qual­i­ty of mul­ti­ple primes. At least for me.

The zoom ring is one of Fujifilm’s bet­ter imple­men­ta­tions, offer­ing smooth, con­sis­tent resis­tance. The weath­er seals intro­duce mild fric­tion that cre­ates a sub­tle swoosh­ing sound as the inner bar­rel extends and retracts. By con­trast, the Mark II’s zoom ring suf­fers from stic­tion, where slow, delib­er­ate zoom­ing meets resis­tance that sud­den­ly gives way in a stut­ter­ing motion. Quick zoom adjust­ments are unaf­fect­ed, but the expe­ri­ence of grad­ual zoom­ing is notice­ably worse than on the orig­i­nal. The focus ring, mean­while, turns smooth­ly with mod­er­ate resis­tance, reduc­ing acci­den­tal shifts and mak­ing man­u­al focus­ing more pre­dictable.

The aper­ture ring is superbly tac­tile, fea­tur­ing strong detents at 1/3‑stop inter­vals and clear­ly engraved mark­ings from ƒ/2.8 to ƒ/22 in full-stop incre­ments. Unlike the Mark II and Fujifilm’s new­er lens­es, the “A” posi­tion doesn’t lock, which I pre­fer for quick adjustments—especially when the detents are firm enough to pre­vent acci­den­tal turns.

As expect­ed, the XF 16–55mm F2.8’s lin­ear motor rat­tles when the cam­era is pow­ered off, a com­mon trait of LM-dri­ven lens­es. The rat­tling stops once the cam­era is pow­ered on and the motors engage. How­ev­er, tilt­ing the lens for­ward or back­ward while pow­ered on pro­duces a faint elec­tron­ic noise—likely the sys­tem mak­ing micro-adjust­ments to coun­ter­act grav­i­ty-induced shifts in the focus­ing group. Among Fujifilm’s LM-equipped lens­es, this is actu­al­ly one of the qui­eter exam­ples.

OPTICAL PERFORMANCE

Sharpness

The XF 16–55mm F2.8 R LM WR is a high-per­form­ing stan­dard zoom, and its opti­cal sharp­ness holds up well, even in 2025.

At 16mm, cen­tre sharp­ness is excel­lent wide open at ƒ/2.8, with strong con­trast and detail. Stop­ping down to ƒ/5.6–ƒ/8 max­i­mizes sharp­ness across the frame, while dif­frac­tion soft­ens detail beyond ƒ/11.

At 23mm, the cen­tre remains very sharp at ƒ/2.8, but mid­frame and cor­ners don’t ful­ly resolve fin­er details until ƒ/5.6 or ƒ/8. The same dif­frac­tion trend applies.

At 35mm, sharp­ness char­ac­ter­is­tics remain sim­i­lar. The cen­tre is excel­lent at ƒ/2.8, though the cor­ners lag behind more notice­ably than at 23mm. Stop­ping down to ƒ/5.6 — f/8 brings strong uni­for­mi­ty. There’s lit­tle improve­ment beyond ƒ/8, and dif­frac­tion reduces clar­i­ty at ƒ/11 and beyond.

The lens reach­es its weak­est point at 55mm. Cen­tre sharp­ness is still good at ƒ/2.8, but mid­frame and cor­ners are rel­a­tive­ly soft. Stop­ping down to ƒ/5.6 improves over­all res­o­lu­tion, but the cor­ners nev­er quite match the short­er focal lengths. ƒ/8 is the sweet spot for max­i­miz­ing sharp­ness, while ƒ/11 and beyond see dimin­ish­ing returns due to dif­frac­tion.

A Note on Sharp­ness

As with most zoom lens­es, edge-to-edge sharp­ness isn’t the pri­ma­ry con­cern in real-world use. The XF 16–55mm F2.8’s strengths lie in its ver­sa­til­i­ty and excel­lent cen­tre sharp­ness at ƒ/2.8 across the zoom range. For sub­jects where cor­ner sharp­ness is critical—such as land­scapes or architecture—stopping down to ƒ/5.6 or ƒ/8 is ide­al. For gen­er­al use, stick­ing to ƒ/2.8 to ƒ/8 will pro­duce good results at nor­mal view­ing dis­tances.

Aberrations

The XF 16–55mm F2.8 R LM WR is impres­sive­ly well-cor­rect­ed for most opti­cal aber­ra­tions. In review­ing thou­sands of images, I’ve found no prac­ti­cal evi­dence of coma, astig­ma­tism, or spher­i­cal aber­ra­tion at the focus plane.

Sim­i­lar­ly, axi­al chro­mat­ic aber­ra­tion (Axi­al CA)—which typ­i­cal­ly appears as green fring­ing beyond the focus plane and magen­ta fring­ing in front—is well-con­trolled in this lens, but there is a sub­tle blue-tinged fring­ing behind the focus plane in extreme cas­es. The fol­low­ing image demon­strates the min­i­mal pres­ence of Axi­al CA in this lens at ƒ/2.8.

The lens has excel­lent con­trol over trans­verse chro­mat­ic aber­ra­tion (Trans­verse CA), show­ing only a very mild amount across its focal range, appear­ing as colour sep­a­ra­tion along high-con­trast edges. While Trans­verse CA is min­i­mal in the cen­tre, it becomes more notice­able toward the edges of the frame. Unlike Axi­al CA, Trans­verse CA is unaf­fect­ed by aper­ture size. How­ev­er, it’s tru­ly a non-issue in real-world pho­tog­ra­phy, whether cor­rec­tions are on or off, because there is so lit­tle of it.

The fol­low­ing pair of images illus­trate the extent of raw, uncor­rect­ed Trans­verse CA, with the first image tak­en at 16mm and the sec­ond at 55mm. Hov­er over each crop to com­pare against cor­rect­ed versions—keeping in mind that these are extreme enlarge­ments.

16mm:

55mm:

Bokeh

Bokeh refers to the aes­thet­ic qual­i­ty of out-of-focus areas in a photograph—not just how much blur there is, but how pleas­ing it looks. Learn more about bokeh in pho­tog­ra­phy.

Bokeh is my sec­ond biggest point of dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the XF 16–55mm F2.8 R LM WR. The most egre­gious issue is the hazy, ner­vous appear­ance of the tran­si­tion from sharp focus to defo­cus, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the back­ground blur, where over­cor­rec­tion for spher­i­cal aber­ra­tions pro­duces a harsh, jit­tery look when sub­ject-back­ground sep­a­ra­tion is lim­it­ed. As seen above, fore­ground blur pro­duces notice­ably smoother bokeh. Inter­est­ing­ly, the back­ground bokeh issue is more pro­nounced at the tele­pho­to end of the zoom range than at the wide end. For exam­ple, the tran­si­tion from sharp to blurred grass in the fol­low­ing two pho­tos of my dog—one at 16mm ƒ/2.8 and the oth­er at 55mm ƒ/2.8—is much smoother at 16mm. The back­ground bokeh at 55mm looks more ner­vous and chaot­ic by com­par­i­son. I can’t say whether this is due to focal length, the change in focus dis­tance, or a com­bi­na­tion of both—but the effect is real and repeat­able.

Spec­u­lar high­lights dis­play notice­able onion-ring arti­facts, which con­tribute to the lens’s strug­gles in ren­der­ing smooth blur. Bokeh balls remain large­ly cir­cu­lar, avoid­ing a strong cat’s‑eye shape, but they become slight­ly flat­tened on one side as they approach the periph­ery. Bokeh remains rel­a­tive­ly smooth in high­ly blurred areas, but strong spec­u­lar high­lights empha­size the onion-ring effect, and min­i­mal defo­cus increas­es vis­i­ble struc­ture with­in the discs.

One pos­i­tive note is that stop­ping down main­tains rel­a­tive­ly cir­cu­lar high­lights, thanks to the round­ed aper­ture blades. This ensures that bokeh remains nat­ur­al-look­ing even when using small­er aper­tures. Since bokeh is sub­jec­tive, I’ve includ­ed a bokeh gallery so you can judge for your­self. Some images include a crop enlarg­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly offen­sive bokeh. (Click to enlarge pho­tos.)

Distortion

Opti­cal dis­tor­tions, such as bar­rel and pin­cush­ion dis­tor­tion, cause straight lines in real­i­ty to appear curved in an image. This is gen­er­al­ly unde­sir­able unless inten­tion­al­ly used for effect, like in a fish­eye lens. Like many Fuji­film lens­es, the XF 16–55mm F2.8 R LM WR relies heav­i­ly on dig­i­tal cor­rec­tion to ren­der dis­tor­tion-free images. With in-cam­era or soft­ware cor­rec­tions enabled, dis­tor­tion is min­i­mal and well-con­trolled. How­ev­er, dis­abling cor­rec­tions in raw files tells a dif­fer­ent sto­ry.

At 16mm, uncor­rect­ed raw files show bar­rel dis­tor­tion so severe it flirts with the look of a mild fish­eye effect. Bar­rel dis­tor­tion improves sig­nif­i­cant­ly by 23mm. The lens tran­si­tions into pin­cush­ion dis­tor­tion some­where between 23mm and 35mm. At 35mm, the effect is mild, but by 55mm, pin­cush­ion dis­tor­tion becomes more pronounced—though still not as extreme as the bar­rel dis­tor­tion at the wide end.

In-cam­era and soft­ware cor­rec­tions neu­tral­ize dis­tor­tion. How­ev­er, stronger cor­rec­tions come with trade-offs—greater dis­tor­tion requires more aggres­sive stretch­ing, sub­tly reduc­ing sharp­ness. Below are three images demon­strat­ing the extent of soft­ware cor­rec­tion applied at dif­fer­ent focal lengths.

Vignetting

Vignetting—also known as periph­er­al shading—is well-con­trolled in Fujifilm’s in-cam­era pro­cess­ing. But if you open a raw file in soft­ware that doesn’t auto-apply Fujifilm’s lens pro­files (such as Apple Pho­tos) or allows you to dis­able them (such as Light­room and RawTher­a­pee), vignetting becomes much more appar­ent. With­out cor­rec­tions, the lens exhibits sig­nif­i­cant vignetting at ƒ/2.8 across the focal range, most pro­nounced at 16mm and 55mm. Stop down to ƒ/5.6 and uncor­rect­ed vignetting is almost entire­ly resolved.

Below are two sets of pho­tos com­par­ing cor­rect­ed vs. uncor­rect­ed vignetting at dif­fer­ent focal lengths at ƒ/2.8 and ƒ/5.6 in nor­mal pho­tos (i.e., not grey walls):

Flare & Ghosting

Every lens will flare under the right con­di­tions. Flare occurs when stray light enters the lens and bounces off inter­nal ele­ments, cre­at­ing low-con­trast areas or streaks of light. Ghosts, how­ev­er, are distinct—they appear as faint, mir­ror-image reflec­tions of bright objects, like the sun or lamps, flipped both ver­ti­cal­ly and hor­i­zon­tal­ly on the oppo­site side of the frame. Lens mak­ers con­trol both effects with anti-reflec­tive coat­ings and lens hoods.

The XF 16–55mm F2.8 R LM WR han­dles direct light sources well, with min­i­mal veil­ing flare when a bright light source is inside the frame. How­ev­er, plac­ing a strong light just out­side the frame can intro­duce a notice­able spike in flare, a com­mon trait among many lens­es.

Flare is dif­fi­cult to induce under nor­mal con­di­tions, sug­gest­ing Fuji’s coat­ings are effec­tive. Even in back­lit scenes, the lens resists flare well enough that it’s a non-issue in real-world use.

The gallery below shows real-world and con­trived exam­ples of flare.

Sunstars

The XF 16–55mm F2.8 R LM WR fea­tures a nine-blade aper­ture, pro­duc­ing 18-point sun­stars when stopped down. Well-defined sun­stars appear at ƒ/22, with decent results at ƒ/16—but dif­frac­tion degrades sharp­ness at both.

Unlike the XF 50–140mm, which pro­duces sun­stars at low­er aper­tures with­out dif­frac­tion, the 16–55mm lacks this ben­e­fit. Your choic­es are either well-defined sun­stars at ƒ/22 or ƒ/16, both with notice­able dif­frac­tion, or no sun­stars and no dif­frac­tion at all. Per­son­al­ly, I’ll always choose the lat­ter because sun­stars aren’t worth the loss of clar­i­ty.

AUTOFOCUS, MANUAL FOCUS, AND FOCUS BREATHING

The XF 16–55mm F2.8 R LM WR is equipped with Fujifilm’s LM sys­tem. It was their fifth lens to fea­ture LM, and it’s aged mag­nif­i­cent­ly, deliv­er­ing fast, accu­rate, and near silent aut­o­fo­cus. In good light­ing, the lens can rack focus from infin­i­ty to its min­i­mum focus dis­tance, and vice ver­sa, in just 0.5 seconds—on par with the Mark II.

Low-light aut­o­fo­cus per­for­mance is large­ly deter­mined by the lens max­i­mum aper­ture and camera’s focus algo­rithms, mak­ing AF dis­cus­sions mis­lead­ing. That said, the sys­tem occa­sion­al­ly hunts and gives up in dim and low-con­trast conditions—but the LM ensures the hunt­ing puls­es are quick.

Like all Fuji­non X‑series lens­es, the XF 16–55mm F2.8 uses a focus-by-wire sys­tem, and—as is becom­ing a theme in my reviews—manual focus­ing is a mess. Adjust­ments feel incon­sis­tent­ly cal­i­brat­ed, swing­ing between ago­niz­ing­ly slow or wild­ly impre­cise. Fuji­film offers two focus ring response curves: Lin­ear and Non-Lin­ear. The lat­ter is less frus­trat­ing but still lacks the finesse need­ed for pre­cise adjust­ments, espe­cial­ly near infin­i­ty. On the plus side, at least there’s no per­cep­ti­ble input lag.

This lens isn’t a par­fo­cal design, mean­ing focus doesn’t stay locked at a set dis­tance when zoom­ing. How­ev­er, the XF 16–55mm F2.8 attempts to sim­u­late par­fo­cal behav­iour by mak­ing small, auto­mat­ic focus cor­rec­tions while zoom­ing. The exe­cu­tion is reli­able when you achieve focus at 55mm and zoom out, but fails when you focus at 16mm and zoom in.
In con­trast, the Mark II refines this behav­iour and main­tains par­fo­cal sim­u­la­tion con­sis­tent­ly, regard­less of zoom direc­tion.

Last­ly, the XF 16–55mm F2.8 shows no dis­cernible focus breath­ing across its focal range. Check out the pho­tos below for exam­ples tak­en at dif­fer­ent focal lengths and hov­er your cur­sor over the image to see the dif­fer­ence.

CONCLUSION

The XF 16–55mm F2.8 R LM WR remains rel­e­vant in 2025, espe­cial­ly as used prices have dropped sig­nif­i­cant­ly fol­low­ing the release of the Mark II. Though large and heavy for APS‑C, it com­pen­sates with sol­id build, smooth zoom, crisp aper­ture detents, fast AF, and great sharp­ness.

Weight remains its biggest draw­back, but for those who can han­dle it, it deliv­ers a pre­mi­um expe­ri­ence. Its main opti­cal weak­ness­es are poor bokeh—especially in tran­si­tion­al zones at the tele­pho­to end—and reliance on dig­i­tal dis­tor­tion cor­rec­tions, though nei­ther is a deal­break­er.

How­ev­er, I strong­ly rec­om­mend against buy­ing this lens at full retail price—it’s sim­ply not worth it when used copies offer far bet­ter val­ue. Con­cur­rent­ly, the Mark II brings only two note­wor­thy refine­ments: a small­er, lighter build and slight­ly improved bokeh. Whether that’s worth the price pre­mi­um depends on your tol­er­ance for bulk, blur, and part­ing with mon­ey. If you’re young, or strong, or young and strong, the Mark I is arguably the bet­ter buy—you get nicer Japan­ese build qual­i­ty, a smoother zoom ring, and a tac­tile aper­ture ring with prop­er detents, all for a price hov­er­ing around 55–60% of a new Mark II. If you’re buy­ing a used copy in per­son, check out my guide on how to eval­u­ate a used lens to ensure you’re get­ting a qual­i­ty copy.

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SAMPLE PHOTOS