Fujifilm 18–55mm f/2.8–4 Review: What a Reluctant Prime Shooter Learned in the Scottish Highlands

I own some of Fujifilm’s sharpest primes. For years I’ve been a prime-only shooter with Fuji. I only ended up with the 18–55mm because it was the kit option available when I needed an X-T5. I didn’t buy it on purpose — yet on a family walk in the Scottish Highlands, it quietly proved its worth.

I’ve been in Scotland for a couple of weeks now. We’re starting to find our feet, and I’m starting to feel comfortable with my cameras in this wild landscape again after a few shorter trips out to local parks.

Today was my first trip to a more rugged landscape — still not far away from our new home, but with a bit more elevation and real potential for the weather to suddenly turn.

As we drove towards our starting point, winding our way up single-track roads, the cloud descended, cutting visibility to less than 80 metres. Sofia became quieter in the back of the car as her nerves were tested on the narrow road winding its way up, with precarious drops on either side.

In my time in the Philippines, I predominantly shot primes on my X-T5. I preferred the image quality and the way of working — but Scotland is different. The weather here can change in a second; wind-driven rain is not the place to be swapping lenses, and one fixed focal length felt too limiting given the varied scenery I thought I might find in this location.

So, for the first time in a long time, I mounted a zoom lens on my X-T5: the diminutive and non–weather-sealed XF 18–55mm f/2.8–4. Not a lens that would normally inspire me, if I’m honest, but it was the only one for the job today. I would have preferred it to be weather sealed as I clipped it onto my Peak Design camera clip and strode off towards the loch, immersed in low-lying cloud and drizzle.

The combination of the weather and using the 18–55mm lens, along with the fact that I normally shoot better photos when I’m alone, led me to treating this walk as a recce for the area.

The first thing that struck me about the X-T5 and 18–55mm setup is just how compact it feels. It was a great balance between size and flexibility and, when mounted on my Peak Design capture clip, I didn’t even notice the weight. Secondly, it didn’t move around on the clip or feel as if it was putting undue stress on it. The 18–55mm is pretty well built, being mostly metal, but it is not weather sealed and it has an external zoom so it is exposed to the elements a little. The rain came down steadily and within a few minutes, both my X-T5 and the lens were covered in raindrops. I occasionally wiped them away with my gloves, but the camera and lens were not babied — instead I just left them open to the elements to see how they coped.

As a Red Kite swooped overhead, I rued the fact that I don’t have any wildlife lenses in my kit yet; the long end of 55mm (82.5mm equivalent) is enough to shoot portraits with a flattering perspective, but for now I’d have to be content just to see these beautiful birds in their habitat.

We walked along a winding, muddy, rough track down the eastern side of the loch, the deep rust-coloured heather adding some life to otherwise monotone scenery. I could still barely see the loch, let alone the distant Munro (a Scottish mountain over 3,000 feet) to the north. I enjoyed isolating and framing different elements, taking full advantage of the relatively wide 18mm focal length and equally zooming freely to frame shots as I saw fit. I have to admit that the 18–55mm simply made composing so easy that I came to appreciate it. In this kind of environment, one minute you’re trying to capture a vast expanse of landscape in front of you and seconds later, a beautiful patch of lichen on a rock will catch your eye and demand a totally different focal length. And that’s the beauty of zooms — and, combined with the Scottish weather, the necessity too.

I shot off some frames of Sofia as she strode ahead of me but hadn’t found anything that really caught my eye until, upon mounting a small hill, our path was blocked by a raging torrent of water gushing down from the mountainside into the loch. We’d only been going for about 15 minutes and it looked as if our route would be blocked, the water too deep and too fast-flowing to risk Sofia attempting to cross it. I veered off the path and climbed upstream to look for a crossing with Sofia in tow. The ground was sodden, the river raging, and every potential crossing point was just that little bit too wide for a nine-year-old’s legs.

Image Quality

As I paused to admire the river raging, a particular section caught my eye — the flow creating a beautiful S-curve as it wound down towards us. This is the real Scotland I want to photograph: not perfect, not the honeypot locations, but the cold, harsh, wet reality of a country where nature can still dominate — still beautiful, still magnificent, but not idealised.

I shot a couple of frames of the water, one wider and one more intimate — a good test of how the lens performs throughout its focal range. At 18mm the lens is sharp enough in the centre, with only slight softening into the corners wide open. Stopped down, the corners improve, and that’s where I find myself shooting a lot these days anyway. On APS-C I find I start around f/4–5.6 and only move from those apertures if I have a reason to. At 55mm the performance is a little weaker. It’s still capable of producing nice images but the sharpness is a little disappointing, particularly when shooting portraits. fine for record shots but combined with the relatively slow aperture (which climbs fast when zooming through the focal range) I would definitely look to other options for family photography, for example.

When stopped down, the 18–55mm is more than capable of producing sharp photos at wide and mid focal ranges, upto around 23mm seems to be where it works best. However, they lack that final bite and microcontrast that my primes give me — which admittedly is pleasing mainly to us photographers — even so, I’d happily print some of the better photos that I took on this walk. If I pixel peep, yes, I could pick fault with them: they’re not as bitingly sharp as more expensive lenses and the microcontrast lacks a little punch, but overall the image quality from the 18–55mm is surprisingly good for a “kit lens.”

I should also point out that the 18–55mm f/2.8–4 lens has image stabilisation, so for any Fuji shooters with cameras lacking IBIS, the lens IS does help a little — although I struggled to handhold it and get sharp images at 18mm below 1/4 second consistantly.

The lens itself is billed as a kit lens, but it definitely errs on the side of a more premium kit lens. The build quality in particular is reassuringly solid, and it features an aperture ring (although unmarked due to the variable aperture of the lens). Still, it works well enough in practice. The bottom line is that it doesn’t feel cheap or fragile.

Autofocus

The 18–55mm features a linear motor, which makes it relatively quick to focus. However, I did notice a lack of consistency in acquiring focus sometimes, and there seemed to be a bit of hesitation just before the camera locked on. This was most noticeable in low-contrast scenes and when using eye detect to photograph Sofia. It was a minor issue though and quite easy to work around, either by finding an area of high contrast or simply releasing the shutter button and then refocusing.

While the lens does reach into portrait focal lengths, in my opinion it’s fine for record shots or outings such as this hike, but it definitely shouldn’t be thought of as a portrait lens in any shape or form, as the aperture is too small to really isolate subjects and the lens lacks a little sharpness further into its focal range.

As we turned around and headed back towards the dam, I left the camera and lens attached to my Peak Design Capture Clip, exposed to the elements. The rain was steady but not heavy, yet still the camera was covered in rain and it left me wondering at what point I should really start to think about offering it a little more protection. In total, we were out for a couple of hours and it never stopped raining, yet I had no issues at all.

Now I’m not saying that you should treat your 18–55mm lens as weather sealed, as clearly it isn’t, but in this downward-facing position, along with being used regularly, it coped just fine. In harder rain, I’d cover it with a shower cap or some form of protection, but then in Scottish rain I’d likely do that with any lens on the X-T5.

We decided to head around the west side of the loch, as I hoped it wouldn’t be blocked and we could get further north and see more of the landscape. As we crossed the dam wall, several scenes caught my eye and, thanks to the flexibility of the 18–55mm’s focal range, I was able to compose the shots freely and as I saw fit.

For scenes like the one above, the flexibility of the zoom outweighs the image quality benefits of a prime because I simply did not have the choice to move closer or further away. It also allowed me to frame the image as I wanted, lining up various elements to my liking. This kind of flexibility is what zoom lenses are all about and, in such vast landscapes as you find in Scotland, moving with a prime lens to line all the elements in a scene up could mean walking many extra miles over the course of a day.

Conclusion

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised with the photos I got from the 18–55mm lens on this trip out. I didn’t have high hopes, but in the end I came away with a few photos that I was happy with. Could they have been better if I’d used sharper, more expensive prime lenses? Sure — but then I probably wouldn’t have got most of the shots I got with the 18–55mm, and that’s where its value lies.

Is it the sharpest lens? No — but it’s sharp enough for most things. Does it offer the best zoom range? No — but it covers most everyday focal lengths well enough. Is it the most rugged? No — but it survived two hours of constant drizzle without protection. Are there better options? Yes. I think a lot of people would prefer the constant aperture, weather sealing, and wider focal range of the 16–80mm f/4, but if you get the 18–55mm as part of a kit with your camera it becomes very good value.

So who should buy the 18–55mm f/2.8–4? I’d struggle to recommend anyone go out and buy this lens at full retail price because the 16–80mm f/4 exists. But if you can get a copy used at a good price, or as part of a kit with your next camera, it is a really flexible, well-built, lightweight option as a walk-around lens.

Frequently Asked Questions