Having just returned from a photography trip to the Grand Teton National Park, I wanted to share a couple of thoughts about one of the lens systems I used while there.
if you’ve ever been to the Tetons, you know that there are a lot of grand landscapes and wide open spaces, as well as an abundance of wildlife to photograph. Sometimes access is limited, especially in winter when we were there, so that means having a lens with a long reach in order to capture the animals in their habitat.
When I transitioned to the Fuji X system, they didn’t yet have a long lens for sale, however, the Fujifilm 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 it was on the roadmap and I anxiously awaited its release. Several months ago they finally released this wonderful lens along with the Fujifilm 1.4x teleconverter and I immediately added them both to my arsenal.
Over the course of the summer and fall I managed to shoot with one or the other a bit, enough to get comfortable with their performance. I hadn’t yet had the chance to really give them a workout. it wasn’t until I went to the Tetons that I put them both to the test.
I have to say, I am majorly impressed with both items. The image quality on the 100-400mm is outstanding and it is natural and easy to use, it’s solidly built and performed in temperatures down to 2 degrees without fault. Needing extra reach to capture the wildlife, I slapped on the 1.4x TC and was equally impressed with the image quality. You do lose one stop of light with it, as you do with any TC, however that never became an issue. As I reviewed the images after the first and second days, I could not tell ANY loss of image quality with the teleconverter installed. That is amazing!!!! I was so impressed with the outstanding image quality that I left the teleconverter on the 100-400mm the entire remainder of the trip (except when I used it on the 50-140mm)
I shot both on the tripod as well as handheld, which I don’t like to do all that often. I felt so confident handholding this lens! Its weight is manageable and the lens is well balanced and the Image Stabilization works fantastically.
Combining the long reach of this combination, with the awesome speed of the Burst mode on the new X-T2, I think I can finally sell off the remaining Canon system that I had been keeping around for sports/wildlife/action.
I even started shooting landscapes with the 100-400mm + 1.4x!!!!!!! Working with big distances to the subject, wanting to isolate the subject in the composition, as well as not wanting to lose any IQ by cropping, I shot many images with the long zoom on!
If you are a Fuji X shooter, you NEED to have this lens!
Here are a couple of images and one of it (and me) in the field
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