Is Fuji preparing a far-reaching X-mount travel zoom?

 

 

The folks over at Mirrorless Rumors today picked up news of an interesting development from Fujifilm, courtesy of a recently-published patent application. Filed last December and published a little less than a fortnight ago, the patent application shows the design for an 18-250mm f/3.6-6.5 zoom lens for X-mount cameras, says Mirrorless Rumors administrator Ale.

The full US patent application, number 2014/0098426, is available for viewing online if you're in the mood for lots of arcane detail. The basic optical formula of the lens can be seen in the patent application.

 

 

The application also gives an idea of how much the lens will extend as you span the zoom range from wide angle (top) to telephoto (bottom):

 

 

There is, of course, no guarantee that this will actually see the light of day as a product, or even be granted a patent. This is, for now, just an application -- but it does hint at the direction of Fujifilm's thinking. What say you -- would an 18-250mm f/3.6-6.5 zoom lens make a nice travel companion for your X-mount camera, or would the likely size, rather dim maximum aperture across the zoom range, and the compromises of an almost 14x optical zoom reach keep you away? Sound off in the comments below!