My Search For A Walkin’ Around Lens Continues

As you may know, I’ve been on the hunt for the perfect “walkin’ around” lens for my Fujifilm X-T4 for almost as long as I’ve had the thing. I’m torn between the optics of lightweight, compact primes and the convenience of fast zooms.

A few months ago I picked up the Fujifilm XC 15-45mm f/3.5-5.6 OIS PZ Lens in silver from Adorama, thinking that it might make a decent “compromise” lens.

I was wrong. Here’s why.

• The zoom operates electrically rather than manually so it is veeeeeeeery sloooooooow to zoom in or out.
• The barrel of the lens extends when it’s powered on, which takes time. Okay, fine, but whenever you want to review a frame by pushing the ▶️ button it powers off the lens and retracts the barrel. This is torturous.
• Although the spec says the maximum aperture if f/3.5, I found that in practice it never seemed to go larger than f/5. Now maybe that’s down to me and something I’m doing wrong, but in the field this should be a no-brainer. Update: I don’t know what the heck I was doing, but it works fine now. User error I guess.
• While we’re on the topic, NO APERTURE RING! Update: This is not that uncommon, but I’ve been spoiled by primes with dedicated aperture rings.
• Since both front and rear control wheels are used to set the aperture with this lens mounted, there is no way (that I’ve been able to find) to set a shutter speed longer other than the values available on the physical dial. Update: This was, in fact, user error and I’ve since figured out that both control dials were set for aperture and none for shutter speed. Fixed.
• Finally, if I’m going to have a zoom it needs to cover a useful range of focal lengths. 15–45mm isn’t bad, but it could be better.

I’m thinking that the Tamron 17–70mm f/2.8 ($700) is the way to go. The Sigma 18–50mm f/2.8 ($550) is a bit lighter and cheaper, so it’s also a contender.

Tell me what you think.