Ever since I bought my X-T1, this is the lens that I’ve been most excited about.

The XF 16mm F1.4 R WR is Fuji’s first weather-sealed prime lens with a field of view equivalent to a 24mm lens on a full-frame body, which arrives just in time because I’m looking at it to replace an actual 24mm weather sealed lens on an actual full frame body.

I’ve done food photography for several publications and restaurants around Vancouver and the lens I usually have on the front of my 5D Mark III is a 24mm F1.4L. The wide angle and close minimum focusing distance contribute a lot to the look of many of my photos but a camera the size of a 5D3 takes up too much room at the dinner table so if the Fuji can match the performance and look of my 24L, it will probably find a permanent place in my bag.

The 16mm F1.4, like most other Fuji X-series lenses, is very well built. It feels like one solid piece of metal and glass but still seems quite light at 375 grams. Pulling the focus ring back sets the lens for manual focus and reveals a distance scale. It’s roughly the same size and balance on the X-T1 as the XF 23mm F1.4.

Like other Fuji lenses, correction profiles are built-in so distortion is corrected automatically. Just eyeballing it here but lines look quite straight and distortion is kept to a minimum.

Even though it’s a wide angle, you can get some pretty shallow depth-of-field if you take advantage of the minimum focusing distance of 15cm (6 inches). With 9 rounded aperture blades, that bokeh is soft-serve ice cream smooth.

The lens is also very sharp. This is an unsharpened 100% crop at F1.4 (focus is on the “2”). There is some slight purple fringing but only noticeable when you’re seriously zoomed in.

At F4, the image is tack sharp and all traces of purple are gone.

Autofocus is  fast and nearly silent. After a few weeks of shooting with the loud, clattery XF 35mm F1.4, you really notice how quick and quiet newer Fuji lenses are.

Even though I only have it for a couple hours, I can’t really find much to criticize on the 16mm F1.4. It’s well-built, fast, quiet and produces sharp, contrasty images when paired with the Fuji X-Trans sensor. I wouldn’t mind if it was smaller since I want to carry a much smaller kit around with me but otherwise, it’s hard to complain. At $1149, it’s also the most expensive of the Fuji primes but it’s also the only one you can safely walk around with in the rain (as of May 2015). If you’re looking for a wide angle lens for your Fuji X camera, this might just be the one.