I was lucky enough to get my hands on this remarkable optic as soon as it became available, and before many reviews had dropped. I’ve now been using the lens on a Fuji XH2S for several weeks and feel able to provide a fair appraisal of its qualities and behaviour in the field.
Quite frankly, this is the best lens I’ve ever used, and is, as far as I can tell, optically perfect. It was hand in glove made for the Fuji XH2S body and performs brilliantly in the field.
Okay, so now you know the bottom line, let me talk about the various pro’s and cons (okay, actually it’s all pro’s and no cons). Well, there is one con, which I’ll deal with first so we can concentrate on all the good stuff without distraction. My biggest gripe is that you will need an expensive 95mm filter to protect the front element (around $200 USD). Don’t buy a cheap one, go for the best as you don’t want to compromise this lenses wonderful, dare I say perfect, optical potential. I’m using the B+W 95mm T-PRO Clear Filter. It’s first class optically and will protect the native fluorine coated front element. Some may not bother given the fluorine coat, but I think that’s fool hardy.
At 500mm on the APS-C format, it represents 750mm in full frame equivalence (762mm actually). This is perfect for bird photography and also plants/flowers and animals. It has 21 elements (5 are extra-low dispersion [ED] glass and 2 are super ED glass) in 14 groups and can focus nice and close for small birds etc at 2.75 meters (0.2x reproduction). It has a fast linear motor for focusing (focusing is internal), but two of the best aspects to this lens are the 5.5 stops of stabilisation which works in tandem with the stabilisation in the camera body and the weight. This lens is so light, it’s hard to believe. The lens is only f/5.6, but it is still a very light weight for this aperture. It weighs only 1,335 g and is 104×255 mm in size, so for this genre of lens it is very compact. It is very well built, weather resistant and feels robust and I think it should be able to take a lot of stick out in the field.
It has 9 aperture blades, so is capable of achieving a really lovely bokeh. I have to add the caveat that when shooting birds with a messy background of twigs and leaves, don’t be disappointed when you see the busy, nervous out of focus zone. If you get a more distant, harmonious background the bokeh is mostly outstanding.
F/5.6 will give the best bokeh, but in all honesty, after many hours of pixel peeping, I’ve come to the conclusion that while bokeh is best at f/5.6, sharpness is there at f/5.6 and there is no sharpness benefit in narrowing the aperture beyond f/5.6. Of course, selecting a narrower aperture may be beneficial in increasing depth of field, something that can help with birds in flight photography where autofocus tracking or panning can lead to inaccurate focus. Additionally, I could not see any chromatic aberration and no flaring in bright light.
Many of us impoverished photographers have grown up seeing our fellow photographers wielding large white prohibitively expensive lenses to catch wildlife. I know I’ve always been envious of these lucky shooters. Well, now it has become a far more affordable proposition for the masses. Okay, so the lens isn’t exactly cheap, but for what it offers (in build, optics, utility), it is the bargain of the year. It’s as capable and optically good as anything out there. So, I’d actually suggest that the price is a pro and not a con!
In the field, this lens is a joy to use. It shines when it comes to larger birds such as waders and other water birds. Results are always bitingly sharp, with great clarity and colours. The focal length allows you to fill the frame with the whole bird or even gain a full head shot for birds such as cormorants and herons. It is perfect for birds in flight allowing space for take-off. The Fuji XH2S is really fun to use for this. I opt for pre-shot ES at 30 fps using ISO 2500 and 1/3200 sec in shutter priority and bird detection, although my usual approach when I’m not doing BIF is MS 3 fps and aperture priority (f/5.6) at ISO 500 which works well most of the time when the camera is set to bird detection. The detail you can capture with this lens is simply shocking – tack sharp doesn’t seem an adequate descriptor.
I suppose the elephant in the room for most people is the question “should I buy this 500mm lens or go for the more flexible Fuji 150-600mm zoom”. This is a good question with no simple answer. The zoom is also razor sharp, but is a minimum of f/8.0, so it is slower. I think both lenses are outstanding, but if I could only buy one, I’d go for the 500mm because it is more consistently sharp. The zoom is still really sharp and is far more flexible. The difficulty choosing is made easier by the fact that as a wildlife photographer, you tend to be hiking through countryside a lot. The zoom is noticeably heavier after an hour’s hike than the 500mm is. This is a huge point. You barely notice the 500mm even after an hour or so carrying it around.
Both the zoom and the 500mm have a superbly designed tripod foot, but you’ll quickly realise that with the 500mm lens you don’t really need a tripod at all. The stabilisation is so good and the lens so easy to hold that a tripod would be far to limiting. Also, BIF photography would be compromised with a tripod. The tripod foot is really helpful in carrying the lens around, and is welcome for that alone.
For completion I tested the lens with the Fuji XF 1.4x TC WR. Optically, the image was as good as with no teleconverter, however, focus became too slow for fast moving subjects such as small active birds. If the subject was still, then you could catch a good picture with no problem, but in the field where subjects are darting about, I decided to give the teleconverter a miss. [Quick update, as of 23 Jan 2025, Fuji have released a firmware update for the XF500mm f/5.6 lens (v 1.01) which fixes a firmware bug where the AF is not stable when the focus area is not centered when shooting with any of the companies teleconverters – so hopefully, this will negate my earlier comments].
By now you can see I really love this lens and the 26-megapixel sensor on the XH2S is quite adequate to crop down where required without losing too much acuity.
Should you buy this lens – yes, absolutely. Just look at the price of equivalent lenses among the FF marques. The sharpness and rendering of this lens will satisfy the fussiest most critical obsessives. And for my part I can’t imagine how you could improve this lens.
Given such a positive review, I should maybe mention another “almost an issue, but not quite” point. The lens has a somewhat loose, but smooth aperture ring (I’ve moved it accidentally almost every time I’ve used it). This isn’t a make-or-break issue but certainly warrants a mention.
So, in conclusion:
Sharpness – 10/10
Build quality – 10/10
Autofocus – 9/10
Practicality for field use – 10/10
Suitability for travel – 10/10
Image stabilisation – 10/10
Value for money – 10/10
The following slideshow provides over 60 wildlife images taken on the Fujifilm XF500mm f/5.6 lens attached to a Fujifilm XH2S. All images were handheld, with ISO varying between 500 and 2500. Most, but not all BIF images were taken at 30 FPS using the electronic shutter set to 1/3200 sec. Bird Subject Detection was applied for all images (including the baby rabbit).
