A Case For a Weather Sealed 10-24mm f/4

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Fuji Fujifilm 10-24mm f/4 weather sealed.jpg

This morning I woke up early to do some shooting with my new 50-140mm f/2.8. I figured I might as well throw the 10-24mm f/4 in my bag as well to round out my focal range. It occurred to me right then how great a combo the 10-24mm and 50-140mm is. Add in the fantastic 35mm f/1.4, and all your focal length bases would be very well covered.

This might be the most ideal kit available from Fuji, and would probably remain that way even after the 16-55mm f/2.8 comes out if it weren’t for one thing.

Weather Sealing

I’ve griped about this before, but this morning was another reminder of how much I wish Fuji had made this weather resistant. I packed my bag, jumped in the car, and upon exiting the garage, discovered it was drizzling quite heavily. I was undeterred thanks to the 50-140mm, but I thought to myself “Whelp, guess I won’t be using the 10-24mm.”

That sucks. Especially since as the 16-55mm f/2.8 approaches, I find myself thinking more and more that I’m going to prefer having the 10-24mm f/4. It zooms internally like the 50-140mm f/2.8, it shares the same 72mm filter thread,1 and it goes quite a bit wider than the 16-55mm f/2.8.

FUJINON XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS II WR

Rumours of Fuji releasing a Mark II version of their 35mm f/1.4 abound,2 but just last week they’ve shown their willingness to re-issue lenses with Mark II versions of their XC lenses. I also asked one of Fuji’s engineers about the possibility of re-issuing a weather sealed version of the 10-24mm f/4 with weather sealing, to which he replied it was possible, but the lens mmight be slighty larger. I’d take a slight bump in size on a lens like that if it I could use it unfavourable weather any day. Here’s hoping.

  1. The 16-55mm f/2.8 is 77mm. Yes, I could add a step up ring to the 50-140mm f/2.8, but the hood will either be unusable or a pain to use. Not an option for me.↩
  2. Rumours that have since been squashed, it would seem.