#heavycamera

While this type of lens is not new to the market, I think this lens would be

interesting for my bird/wildlife photography work when used with a FUJIFILM X-T1 (or similar type of) mirrorless camera.

In the past year, I have been shooting non-birds/wildlife photography (such as street, travel, and landscape) with the FUJIFILM X100T with its conversion lenses after hearing many rave reviews from X100 and X100S owners. So far, I thoroughly enjoy all the analog-like features and I am very impressed with the image quality produced by its X-Trans APS-C sensor. The camera is also compact and light-weight for my travels, resulting to less use of my Canon EOS 5D Mark II and my Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM, which have always been my travel camera. I will be bringing just my X100T and its conversion lenses and the EF-X20 flash on my 1-month trip to Hong Kong in March this year. After yesterday’s FUJIFILM product announcement (on January 15, 2016), I felt that FUJIFILM is continued to be on the right track, producing photographic equipment after listening and consulting with Fuji owners. It also got me thinking whether to get the 100-400 lens (for my birds/wildlife work) or the X-Pro2 (for all other photography) or both ☺.

Currently, I am using the Canon EOS 7D Mark II with either the Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM, the Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L USM (a fairly compact supertelephoto lens), or the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM for my birds/wildlife photography. The weight of the camera body with any of these lenses attached can be unbearable and clumsy when maneuvering around to work with skittish subjects (i.e., birds). Aside from 7D2′s focusing system, I felt that all other features are not any different from other camera manufacturers, including the mirrorless camera makers.

I hope this coming year, I can test out this new FUJINON LENS XF100-400mmF4.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR (with and without a 1.4x teleconverter) in a X-T1 camera body (perhaps FUJIFILM Canada can lend me the camera and the lens for field tests 😁). The zoom lens would allow me to shoot bird-/wildlife-scape at the wide end to closeup and intimate portraits at the telephoto end [either at 400mm (600mm equivalent) or 400mm + 1.4x (840mm equivalent)]. So far, I have heard good things about the X-T1′s tracking capability after its latest firmware update, but unfortunately, most of the tracking test is done on larger fast moving subjects such as motorsports, athletes, larger animals, etc. I would be interested if the combination of X-T1 (or perhaps its beta replacement) and the XF100-400 lens allow me track and photograph very fast and unpredictable smaller subjects as seen in the following images:

Not only will the Fuji camera/lens can track a variety speedy subjects of different sizes, it must also be able to withstand various weather conditions if the the XF100-400 is to aim for the sports and wildlife crowd. With my birds/wildlife work, I constantly put my equipment to a wide range of weather conditions (from sunny to rain/snow, and from temperature of -30°C or colder to to 30°C or hotter).