Like a good mail delivery professional, a rainy day never stopped a true photographer. Of course, those who handle our mail are bound to a vow of “neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow,” while photographers can be forgiven for fretting about the rain getting to their expensive equipment, camera bodies, and lenses. With the FUJI XF 18-135 F/3.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR LENS, however, all of that fretting can finally be put to rest: this is the first weather-sealed lens in the X-series, providing a level of durability that goes above and beyond the normal call of duty. Heck, we’d give it the Fuji 18-135 Adorama Medal if it existed.

But let’s go beyond the weather-sealed protection to ask exactly how a lens of this quality works—and what kind of pictures it can be expected to deliver, no matter what the weather.

• Glass. Yes, glass. Perhaps the most overlooked part of the lens because, well, every lens has glass. Yet it’s rare that you’ll come across a lens with quite the level of glass as you see in this Fuji 18-135 XF lens. Why so? Because the glass that Fujifilm chose to install is interesting, featuring 4 aspherical glass lenses, 2 ED glass elements, and multi-layer HT-EBC coating. The high permeability—some 99.8%--and low reflectance here will reduce your lens flare and any potential ghosting, which means that your lens will take crisp shots every time.
• Silence. Another underrated aspect of a quality lens: the electronics. More specifically, the electronics that don’t make your lens so gosh dang loud when you’re trying to take a picture. The inner linear focusing mechanism and autofocus speed—perhaps as fast as 0.08 seconds when shooting in Performance Mode—make for quick, stealthy adjustments on the fly, with minimal interruption.
• Weather protection. We can’t skip past the protection element here—it’s just too impressive not to mention. The lens is weather-sealed in twenty different spots on the lens. Rain, dust, water splashes—they shouldn’t get in the way of either optics or the operation of the lens itself. And should you think that all this weather sealing would make a lens clumsy, consider the ventilator placed inside the lens barrel. This Fuji XF lens is more than just a lens—it’s something of a mobile anti-weather station for taking pictures.
• Stabilization. Fujifilm is particularly proud of the image stabilization in its Fuji XF lens, and we at Adorama think that’s for good reason. The 5-stop range of the stabilization methods is thanks to a gyro sensor that detects movement of all types. Sure, you can use a tripod if you want—but if you don’t have to, why would you?
• Weatherproof compatibility. If this lens were only compatible with non-weather-proofed cameras, it would defeat its own purpose. Luckily, the Fuji XF lens is compatible with Fujifilm X-T1 cameras, allowing you more mobility and flexibility in bad weather than you had anywhere else.

Truth be told, the FUJI XF 18-135 F/3.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR LENS isn’t just a weatherproof lens, but it’s a lens that’s built to take beautiful pictures no matter what the clouds look like. Between the high-quality glass, the sensitive image stabilization, and the quiet autofocus, you’ll have everything you need to take high-quality pictures with crisp clarity at a moment’s notice. Now, if only the mail was as effective.