XF100-400 lens | Dan Bailey's Adventure Photography Blog

More Photos From The Palouse

Posted on June 11, 2017 by DanJune 13, 2017

As I mentioned in my last post, I spent a few days this week in The Palouse region of eastern Washington State. A dreamy myriad of buttery soft hills, this veritable patchwork of farm fields and aging Americana makes this area is a wonderful place for landscape photography.

We had an amazing sunrise on the last morning. Leaving the hotel at 3:45AM, we drove to Steptoe Butte and waited for the light, while bundling up in layers to ward off the chilly wind. When the sunlight finally hit all those distant hills, it did not disappoint.

This area is tailor made for using long lenses. Although we often think of wide angle lenses as being the most suitable for shooting landscapes, telephoto lenses give you strong compression effects, and this works great when shooting across wide expanses of similar terrain such as this.

Zooming in way in lets you create tight images that focus on strong, dynamic elements of light, shadow, pattern and repetition. They also create interesting interplay between colors.

As you can see in the photo above, the fields aren’t quite fully green yet, but the compression effects across the horizontal areas along the ridges and the tops of the hills accentuates the green. This saturates those colors even more and helps create an even stronger contrast between the greens and the browns.

My camera gear choice for this scene was my X-T2 and the Fujifilm XF100-400 f/4.5-5.6 OIS WR lens. The 100-400 is an incredibly sharp long telephoto that lets you zoom very far in and isolate distant subject matter, and it has incredible image stabilization.

I started with a tripod here, but since the morning light was coming up so quickly, and since there was just so much amazing subject matter to shoot, I soon took if off and shot handheld. Combined with the high resolution of the X-T2’s 24MP X-Trans sensor, the 100-400 always gives me impressively sharp photos, even when handheld at surprisingly low shutter speeds.

I’ll confidently hand-hold it down to 1/60 second, even at 400mm, and with no wind and an extra steady hand, I can even go town to 1/30 and below with sharp results.

I encourage you to try shooting landscapes with long lenses, and if you’re a Fuji shooter, definitely check out the XF100-400 lens. Fujifilm has a rebate on this lens right now; if you buy the 100-400, you can get either the 1.4X or 2X Teleconverter for free. That’s an instant $450 savings.

You can also find this deal with the 1.4X TC on Amazon. That’s actually the one I’d recommend- the 1.4TC works extremely well on the 100-400, with only one stop light loss. You can see my mini review of the 100-400 lens here.

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5 Reasons Why I Love the Fujifilm XF100-400mm Lens

Posted on September 23, 2016 by DanDecember 18, 2016

In all my years as a photography, I’ve never owned a lens longer than 200mm. Until now. I rented a 300 f/2.8 for an assignment once and borrowed a 300 f/4 a couple of times, but for my fast and light style of outdoor photography, I just didn’t relish the idea of carrying really big glass.

Earlier this year, Fujifilm released their new XF100-400 f/4.5-5.6 OIS WR lens, and I have to admit, I was wasn’t super warm to the idea of getting it. I make it a point to not own any camera gear I can’t run with, and I didn’t think this would fit that criteria. And, I wasn’t sure I’d really get much use out of it.

How wrong I was.

Turns out, I love the Fuji 100-400. I can’t get enough of it! This lens is serious fun, and during the past few months it’s seen more use than many of my XF lenses, including the 50-140, which is THE go-to long lens in my bag.

I plan on writing up a full review of this lens, but for now, here are five reasons why I think it’s awesome.

1. It’s Razor Sharp!!

The XF100-400 has excellent optics. Built with 21 elements in 14 groups, 5 extra-low dispersion elements and one Super extra-low dispersion element, this lens is ridiculously sharp. Fuji has a reputation for producing great glass, and this is no exception.

I’m really impressed at well it’s able to render crips, fine details, even at relative distance. One thing I learned when using long lenses is that when shooting subjects that are very far away, you’re looking through a lot of air. You can lose a lot of sharpness from heat shimmers, but if the air is cool and you’re not shooting at extreme distances, the 100-400 can hold an incredible level of detail.

2. It Has an Extremely Fast Autofocus Motor

Before I got this lens, someone told me that the 100-400 actually has a faster AF motor than the XF50-140. I didn’t believe it, because the 50-140 is pretty darn fast, but when I got it in hand, I was blown away.

This thing locks and tracks like a champ. With AF technology that’s a year ahead of what went into the 50-140, and twin linear motors, it’s probably the fastest Fuji Zoom lens in terms of AF performance. Paired with the X-T2, it’s a highly capable, incredible quick sports and wildlife lens, hands down.

Having shot bike racing, flying birds, airplanes, moose, bears and a variety of other outdoor subjects with the 100-400, I’ve been impressed every singe time.

3. It has 5 Stops of OIS Image Stabilization

This is perhaps one of the most impressive features of the XF100-400 lens. The image stabilization allows for hand holding this lens down to ridiculously low shutters speeds- speeds that you wouldn’t even think of thing to shoot with this focal length.

I’ve managed to hold it down to 1/80 sec when zoomed to 300mm, 1/100 sec at 400mm and 1/30 sec at 100mm. Seriously, I rarely use a tripod with this lens. How bad am I?

Hand held 1/80 sec @ 300mm, 100% crop

Hand held 1/100 sec @ 400mm, 100% crop

4. It’s a Reasonable Size and Weight, and Weather Sealed

Yes, for the record, I can run with this lens. It fits in my regular lightweight hiking and trail running pack, the Lowepro Flipside Sport 10L AW. Sure, I have to turn the hood around (I usually like to keep all my lens hood on all the time for quick access), but that’s a small tradeoff for being able to hike with a lens that, in full frame size, would be a 150-600.

Add the Fuji 1.4X Teleconverter and you’ve got an 800mm lens. Actually, with the current Fujifilm rebates, if you buy the 100-400 and the 1.4X TC together, you save $350.

Anyway, the very first thing I did with the 100-400 this past spring was stuff it into my Flipside pack and take it hiking. Not flat trail hiking, this was lots of steep uphill and big screefields on the way down. I didn’t feel like I was carrying a huge lens, in fact, it didn’t feel much heavier than if I were carrying the 50-140. The weight difference on my back was almost imperceptible. It’s even lighter when you remove the tripod collar.

Plus it’s weather sealed, so there’s that. Nice when you’re shooting in bad conditions. Like when the animals are out, or when the landscape has that… you know… special charm. Weather sealing is not a deal breaker for me, but for a wide range of outdoor photography, having it is nice.

5. It’s Serious Fun!!!!!

I said this above, and I mean it. The Fujifilm XF100-400 lens is a blast. Really fun to use for shooting just about everything. The long focal length applies an extreme level of compression to your scenes, which makes your backgrounds loom large, with tons of separation.

You can really bring in the details and show things super close, whether it’s a nature detail, a portrait, oh… I don’t know… The Moon. How fun is it to shoot the moon, zoom in and see all the craters. Pretty amazing, considering that the moon is 238,800 miles away. I can’t wait to photograph the moon the winter so that I totally minimize heat shimmers. I’ll use a tripod then.

Anyway, if you’re looking for a really fun, relatively compact, highly versatile long lens to add to your X Series tool bag, you can feel good about the XF100-400. It’s a solid performer and like I said, it’s super fun!