IIRC, in all the photo shows of 2015, Fujifilm always omitted to show us any aperture markings on the XF 100-400 lens. But this changed now, on the current Digital Show in Melbourne.
A kind FR-reader, who attended the show, shared the following pics with the FR-community… and they show a mock-up of the XF100-400 with an aperture range that goes from 4.5 to 5.6. So it seems Fuji decided to contain its size & weight. And according to the poll we launched earlier, many FR-readers will welcome this decision.
[poll id=”91″]
The XF 100-400 has already been delayed from late 2015 to early 2016. Will there be any further delay, as an anonymous source told us here? According to the latest information I got, no further delay! The XF100-400 should hit the market latest in March, as indicated in this roadmap.
And here is another tidbit: the same FR-reader, who attended the Photo Show in Melbourne, said that the X-PRO2 will be available in…. SUMMER. Don’t worry, Summer in Australia is Winter in the northern hemisphere 🙂 . So the X-PRO2 will be available early 2016.
[UDPATE: NEW IMAGES (thanks Matt)]
XF 140-400 RECAP
- Photokina 2014: Fujifilm showed a mock-up of an XF 140-400 F4-5.6 coming in late 2015
- New Roadmap in February: DELAY: Fujifilm shows an XF 100-400 lens with no aperture marking, with no indication of aperture range. Coming in early 2016.
- CP+, February 2015: a journalist of ValueTechTV says that the XF 100-400 release was delayed, because Fuji decided to change the aperture range at the wide end and make it slower and smaller.
- The latest roadmap shared by FR-reader Stalkdog here, shows that Fuji will release the XF 100-400 in March 2016. The aperture range is marked as 4.5 at the wide and 5.6 at the long end, confirming what the journalist at ValueTech said.
- At the photo show in Melbourne, Fujfilm displayed an XF 100-400 with an aperture range that goes from 4.5 to 5.6.
55 Responses
Greeeat, there goes another $2k from my bank account… 🙂
Would be pretty happy if that ends up being the price. I’m guessing it may push to $2.5K, but hoping you’re right.
I’m thinking they need to keep it under 2k. It’s an APS-C lens, with a 4.5 max aperture. Even if they price it above 2k, I think it will be sub 2k on the street.
Being made for an APS-C body hasn’t stopped the prices of other Fuji lenses being much higher than their 35mm cousins. The 56mm f/1.2 is much more expensive than the common 85mm f/1.8s other companies make for 35mm bodies. The 35mm f/1.4 is much more expensive than many 50mm f/1.8s it works like, and is even more expensive than most 50mm f/1.4 lenses. At best, Fuji’s lenses match their equivalents from other brands; the 50-140mm f/2.8 costs about the same as a 70-200mm f/4 first-party lenses or a 70-200mm f/2.8 from third-parties.
100-400mm zooms are all expensive, even with slower and scaling apertures. The Canon one retails for over $2000, with an additional premium for other countries. So that’s our baseline. Throw in Fuji’s usual premium and I will be really, really surprised to see this launch at less than two and a half grand, street. Of course there’s also the usual dodgy grey imports, but that’s on you if you want to make the saving in place of a warranty.
Now, Fuji usually are pretty quick to throw in cash back deals, and most shops will run trade-in deals. You probably won’t actually be spending the full two and a half grand if you have stuff to trade or can get in while there’s a special offer. But buying it completely straight? This will be Fuji’s most expensive lens by a long way.
Yes more then likely, Fuji’s lenses cost more as they don’t have the market share of Nikon or Canon.
I guessed 1400 and thats likely low but one can hope.
It does not include “WR” on the 100-400 lens. Weather resistance would be essential on this kind of lens.
The roadmap says WR, so they probably just forgot to print it on the mock-up. It also happened with other mock-ups in the past… no WR marking, but at the end they were WR, as written on the roadmap
very hard to say, things might have change to bring the price down. glasses are very expensive.
All my glasses are weather resistant though, even the cheap pairs.
Who was going to use it at 100mm anyway?
From the vote, “F4.5 to F5.6 (slower, smaller & cheaper)”. Will it truly be cheaper? And smaller?
cheaper: probably (i.e., hopefully)
smaller: definitely (physics)
It is what it is a 100-400. It’s nether small or cheep but a lot cheeper then a F4 lens and 1/3 smaller then a F4 all the way thru. My guess a F4 would add $1000+ to its cost. Just a guess but cheep it won’t be and likely $1400. + or – so save your change!
making it 4.5 instead of 4 on the wide end is more of a design choice, it won´t chance the physical size. and constant f4 is out of question i suppose, who wants a zoom with 100mm front diameter and 5kg wheight for the prize of a nice small car?
Yep Fast is costly! 4.5-5.6 works fine. I even take a 5.6 all the way if I had to.
Looks like a nice lens. I won’t need it, but I’m glad it’s there for rent if I ever do.
If they can keep that size, it is a wow lens! You can seriously carry it around for nature work. Canon has 4.5 – 5.6, and it is one of the most used lenses for nature work. Nikon same aperture. It may mean something!
I’m all blue already from holding my breath for the X-Pro2.
That makes two of us….
I am still shooting with my X-Pro 1, but I am definitely looking forward to see what they do with the X-Pro 2.
Heh, from my guessing, Fuji does not seems to use Sony Sensor LOL ><'''
Of cause, I might be wrong hehz
My body is ready!
RIP.
That 120mm macro looks quite tasty too 🙂
120 + the 1.4X.. drooling over it… but whaa, I think the price will bring me back to earth LOL.
I don’t know how one chooses between starting aperture of F4 versus at 4.5 if you can actually see the different sizes and prices
Will this be officially the smallest 100-400 that ever existed? smaller than Tokina 80-400?
If so, this could be an interesting advantage for Fuji in its first wildlife lens!
We’ll have to wait and see the size of Panasonic’s 100-400mm
panasonic is a f/.6.3 lens. :/ :/
So was the Tokina.
Given the price it’ll most likely come in at, the very sketchy Fuji focusing for low-light motion, the low battery life (especially in cold conditions) and the lower resolution, and now knowing it’s not offering a faster aperture than the same sort of lenses other companies have, this’ll be a no-buy for me. Hell, it’s even got a larger filter thread than other companies’ similar lenses, so if you’re one of the rare people using this kind of lens with filters you’re going to have to pay more for the filters and you won’t be sharing filters from any of your other lenses.
If you’re in the market for this kind of thing and you’re really using that 400mm end for the most common purposes (e.g. wildlife, large-scale sports), get yourself a second hand Canon 7D (or 7D II if you budget stretches, or 70D to save more money) and a second hand 400mm f/5.6. It’ll cost you a little under a grand—less than half what this lens is likely to cost—and it will focus and shoot faster, the battery will hold up better and it’ll be higher resolution for further cropping. Leave the zooms alone, you’ll never be using anything less than the 400mm end anyway. IS means nothing since to keep your subjects still and fight haze at this level of magnification you’ll be using shutter speeds in excess of 1/640th, usually aiming to stay about 1/1000th.
I love my Fuji system for the majority of my work, but this is one area they are not good at and this lens needed to pull something really special out of the bag to make it worthwhile; something like a fixed aperture, or a faster variable aperture. Fuji have a lot of ground to cover in terms of these long lenses and how they’re used and they’re already starting off with a weak base thanks to the core mirrorless design not being anywhere near as appropriate for the kind of work longer lenses are used for. The same range, the same aperture and a larger filter thread, mounted on a less-appropriate body, makes this just pointless when you consider how cheap the better options are.
Give it 5-7 years, maybe we’ll get a mark II and by then also have faster bodies with higher resolution and more battery life. Then, okay we’ll see. But as it stands, this is beaten by a 6-year-old body with a 22-year-old lens at half the price. Just flat-out, objectively beaten in every regard.
It must be wonderful to have such incredible inside knowledge of what a Fuji lens will be like, and it’s optical/mechanical performance will be, when all the rest of us have only seen cellphone photos of a preproduction mock up.
It’s very simple when you’ve been around these things for long enough.
More to the point, optical and mechanical performance are irrelevant with this sort of lens. People used the original Canon 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 IS lens for years and that is utterly awful optically, slow to focus and has an IS system so outdated it barely got you one full stop, but people still used it because what mattered was it got them to 400mm. The 400mm f/5.6 prime I mentioned is not weather sealed, has no IS and isn’t as sharp as the new version of their 100-400 zoom—yes, a prime that is less sharp than the zoom version—but it’s still the go-to core wildlife, flight and large-scale action lens because it gets you into that range with minimal fuss and weight.
This Fuji 100-400 could be the sharpest lens ever made and, by Fuji standards, have the fastest AF possible. Does not matter. The fastest-focusing mirrorless still does not match, let alone beat, the standard DSLRs built for sports/action/wildlife shooting. Even the next generation of Fujis with their ~24mp sensors only just match DSLRs for resolution, which is vital for distance shooting because you’ll always be cropping in; everybody using the current generation of Fuji bodies remains at a big disadvantage. The battery life, buffer size, burst speed and write speed of the Fuji bodies is inadequate compared to even the most standard of DSLRs.
So. The Fuji 100-400 could be perfectly sharp. But so is the Canon 100-400, which costs no more—and very likely costs less than this will come in at—and can be natively mounted on a far more suitable body for the kind of shooting which demands this range.
Your casual shooters are not going to be dropping the 2k+ on a lens like this; casual shooters don’t spend that on their entire kit. Your serious hobbiest may be persuaded to part with that kind of money for a lens if it’s something they will be using all the time, but anybody who is that serious about the sort of shooting which demands this kind of lens will either already be invested in another system with no reason to switch to Fuji, or will be aware enough of the options and lower prices of other systems to go to those instead. Professionals aren’t going to touch this outside of a few sponsored X-shooters, because any professional flight/large-scale sports/wildlife/distant action photographer is already packing their more fully-sealed, tougher, longer-lasting, higher-resolution and quicker 7DII, D4S, etc, and no lens, no matter how sharp, is worth downgrading your entire rig for when your job is on the line and you’re already operating at that level.
Like I said, I love my Fujis for a large portion of my work, but when it comes to any kind of shooting that asks for a 300mm+ focal length, this is pointless. If they had crammed in something unique then maybe there could be a case made for it, but they haven’t so there is not. The kit you end up with is a worse-performing and more expensive package. This is not a focal range where sharpness is the priority, this is a focal range where features win out every time. People using these sorts of lenses pick APS-C bodies over 35mm bodies because getting that crop reach is what matters, not the per-pixel accuracy or lowest noise floor. Battery life matters, not the size of the screen on the back of the camera. Reach, maximum aperture, focus speed, weight, size and reliability in tough conditions are the priority for lenses, things which this lens at best can equal and, in some cases, can not even hope to match.
And, ironically, I do have inside knowledge and access to many Fuji products. Having lunch with Fuji marketing personal on a regular basis comes in handy. I’ve not seen this lens specifically, but if there was real confidence in it coming out of Fuji, I’d know about it. Given it’s only been mentioned in passing—and they know I use this sort of lens a lot–it’s pretty safe to say they know it’s not going to impress anybody who actually takes these focal lengths seriously. They sure aren’t hyping this one up to me like they did with the 56mm and 90mm.
Did you shoot film? Then changing battery’s is only annoying just something you plan on. I know just what your saying but I don’t have the AF speed problems but then I don’t shoot birds.
I learnt on large format, 20 years ago, and I still shoot medium format film regularly. So yes, I know that struggle.
But there’s a reason sports and wildlife shooters aren’t still bringing along pockets full of Kodak.
A 100-400 mm zoom on the Fuji crop sensor will give the same angle of view as a 150-600mm zoom on ‘full frame’. Given the usual standard of Fuji lens construction the nearest equivalent lens is probably the Sigma 150-600 f5-6.3 Sport. This has dimensions of 290 x 121mm and weighs 2.86kg.
Looking at the photo of the 100-400 next to the 50-140 it appears to be, at most, 20% longer, allowing for the fact that the 50-140 has a bayonet mount cap fitted and the 100-400 does not, so say 210mm. Comparing the diameters it appears to be about 15% wider than the 50-140’s 83mm, so say 12mm which would be 95mm. As to weights the 50-140 is about 2/3rds the weight of the Nikon/Canon 70-200 f2.8 lenses which, if accurate for the Sigma comparison, would give a weight of 1.9kg at most.
So Sigma 150-600mm – dimensions 290 x 121mm and weight 2.86kg
Fuji 100-400mm – dimensions 210 x 95mm and weight 1.9kg
What may well be a better guide is the Nikon 80-400 f4.5-5.6, which has almost the same focal length range as the Fuji 100-400; this has dimensions of 203 x 96mm and a weight of 1.57kg
shame there’s no XP2 mock up…
http://i850.photobucket.com/albums/ab69/fujirumor/p2_zps35b22e00.jpg
Thanks Roy, I meant by Fuji though 🙂
😉
I wonder what the delay is with the xpro2? Could it be solving the heat problem with 4K? I know Fuji apparently have said the xpro1 will have 4K video but if they end up offering better quality full HD I would be happy. The Sony alpha 7000 is also delayed. May be there is a chip supply issue at Sony which is affecting Fuji. Who knows. I have been tempted by the Sony A7r2 but I just love the Fuji experience as I believe Fuji is ahead in usability and the apsc format has a couple of advantages over full frame. Namely wider depth of field for the same amount of light let in via the lens and smaller lenses then full frame. Even the 50-140 is lighter by about 1/3 compared to the canon and Nikon f2.8 equivalent lenses.
What makes you say there’s a delay? Wouldn’t that require an official announcement and then an official change?
Exactly. The only follow ups we’ve seen in the X series are the X-E2 and the X100s/T, and there doesn’t appear to be a stock wait between each release.
X-Pro 2 will come when:
1. it’s ready
2. Fujifilm want to release it
I’m really hoping still for an X-E3. 🙂
I doubt that it will come any time soon, considering the major X-E2 firmware update that’s in the works.
It’s a beautiful day – don’t make me cry. I suspect the real decision will come down to how the xp2 sells, and whether the Fuji braintrust sees the T line competing with the X line. I may have to break down and get an X-E2 as an upgrade to my E1, which does miss focus too often.
Over here, it’s been cold, dark and dreary, so perhaps that offers some perspective consolation. 😉
Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to see an X-E3 as much as you because I much prefer its form-factor over the X-T models. I’m just trying not to set myself up for a disappointment in light of the recent developments.
The way I understood it, the planned firmware upgrade for the X-E2 was basically a response to the online outrage over Fuji’s lingering commitment to this line. And now the X100 aficionados are clamoring for their share of Kaizen TLC.
I guess we still have to come to grips with the sobering realization that Fuji resources allocated for the X project are spread much more thinly than its popularity could lead one to believe and development will probably keep leap-frogging across the model lines for quite some time to come.
I would love if they could do marked aperture rings even on the lenses with variable one. As the Auto mode is after f22 that could be done, maybe with grey markings for the wider apertures as they are not always available.
I like to see the aperture and just to turn to auto when needed.
Unfortunately, it won’t happen. It makes too much sense, and cleaves the entire line too nicely. Fujifilm are more into confusing designs with great optics.
i predict fall 2016 xpro2. just cuz
Here in northern Europe less than f/4.0 is useless. I hope that Fuji will make good 300 mm in the future.
All my photos are useless then ;(
The best 100-400 right now is the new Canon. I think Fuji is up to the task of competing against Canon’s best, and make no mistake, that Canon lens is incredible. The Fuji mock-up looks to be almost as large as the Canon though. Since Fuji is making a crop sensor lens I was kind of hoping it would be significantly smaller and lighter. Anyway, I am sure the Fuji is going to be incredible too and I cannot wait for it to launch, even though it means I will be getting up even earlier now, well before dawn, to get into position for some bird photos.
“Since Fuji is making a crop sensor lens I was kind of hoping it would be significantly smaller and lighter.”
How would that work? All telezooms cover much more than they need to. And focal length and aperture (entrance pupil) are relevant for the size of a lens.
But I agree: Fuji has to match the Canon 100-400
120mm f2.8 pictures without comment?