I jumped on the X-Pro 1 early after release, and wasn't able to get a hold of the 35/1.4 straight away, so I grabbed the 18 and 60. Because I'm more of a wide or normal shooter than tele, I used the 18 as my primary lens for quite some time. I'm really glad I did, as it forced me to get to know the lens well, and form my own opinion. I'm convinced this lens is severely underrated.
Tack sharp in a wide central sweet spot wide open, excellent macro and microcontrast, fantastic color reproduction, small and light, with a wonderful manner of drawing... Every bit as good as some of the Leicas I own. What's the negative? Reviews are right about one thing--the corners are never as superlative as the center. The lens is clearly optimized for shooting people, not landscape. I imagine the forthcoming 14mm will suffice for the latter, and have edge to edge sharpness and a perfectly flat field.
Flatness of field, really, is the bugaboo of this lens. If you use center point AF and shoot wide open using a focus-and-recompose technique, I guarantee you will be disappointed. The XF 18/2 exhibits fairly pronounced field curvature, so much so that your subject will now be well out of focus. It's critical when shooting the 18 wide open to choose the focus point manually or use the "multi AF" mode which chooses the focus point for you.
With that in mind, get close to your subjects, open the aperture, mind the focus point, and enjoy the wonderful manner of drawing this lens provides. A real winner in capable hands!
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