Who chooses Fujifilm GFX as a 'serious wildlife' photographer in the first place? There are plenty of better alternatives.

@lighthunter80 - Those that are not serious and move the camera away from the bear to shoot a distant landscape.

Lighthunter - I do think the GFX on itself could be a serious platform IF only Fujifilm knew what it was doing. What I see is that they do get the attention from the photography community. Especially the somewhat more serious enthusiasts. However Fujifilm fails to truly appeal to professionals due to their lack of knowledge on what professionals truly need and want.

I think this lens is another fail - Should have been an F4 or at maximum a F4.5 making it a f/5.6 or f6.3 with a 1.4 extender. Then with the extra resolution that the GFX has to offer it would be a more serious contender.

They focussed on weight and portability. Which on itself is not a bad thing. But for wildlife that option to shoot in early morning and late evening light is just more important than having a light lens to carry.

This lens at 2400-2700 dollars would be a nobrainer, but not at 4000. This imho is the whole problem with the GFX - Cheap cameras but way overpriced lenses for what you truly get.

It’s faster than f5.6 in FF equivalence due to being MF. Not very much about 1/3 of a stop so probably around f5.0 but still…

Right, it’s not 400mm f/5.6; it’s 500mm f/5.6, equivalent to about 400mm f/4.4 in 35mm terms.

How many serious wildlife people are shooting 44x33 medium format? I assume most are shooting 135 format (aka "full-frame") and maybe even APS-C. This is a 500mm f/5.6 lens that covers a 44x33 sensor. Which gives you a 100MP image at a 400mm-ish field of view (compared to FF). It cost only a little more than a Sigma 500mm f/5.6 for 135 format or about the same as the Nikon 500mm f/5.6

As I said if you use it on one of the GFX-100 cameras, it's a 100MP image at a 400mm (135 format equivalent) field of view. If you crop to a 36x24mm area, you get a 500mm (135 equivalent, because you are shooting on a 135 format area) f/5.6 60MP image. If you were to crop to APS-C size area (23.6x15.6mm) you'd get a 750mm (135 equivalent) field of view and a 24-25MP image.

It's important to note that if you were to crop the 44x33mm frame down to a given size, it is effectively no different than if you shot on a sensor of that size (other than the much bigger file and the issues involved with that).

Gourmet Chef/ You are expecting too much. This is a medium format system and there was not any single telephoto lens for MF for almost 20 years since Hasselblad made 300mm F/4.5. You have no idea what you are talking about.

The GFX100 line does have aspect ratio crops so you can save 1:1 (33x33mm area) or a 65:24 X-Pan ratio (44x16.25mm area) which will reduce the file size a bit.

While the files are bigger, it does give you room to re-crop if you wish you had just a little more space on one side or the other. But it does eat up space. Everything in photography is trade-offs.

@daniel ackerman - I was talking about wildlife photography, saying that this lens won't be disadvantaged when you have to crop - ideally you won't have to. I thought that was clear. I'm not interested in your gallery.

Man I get so messed up sometimes with this calculations! For me what matters as i crop is that is like a 400-750 variable aperture zoom.

It depends on your use case. If you’re shooting birds, the Nikon will smoke the GFX setup in AF. But for a safari or
Something, this could be an attractive option.

Both wrong.

This is equivalent to 395mm f4.4
Or for APSC 263mm f2.9

Adam ; my friend was in Africa on a safari , quite cool to see how he could bring out several different animals I didnt even see from one photo by cropping heavy with his gfx100s

Is it very expensive tho? It's only $500 more than the Sigma 500/5.6, and you gotta admit that based on FL and cropping ability alone it'd be a lot more flexible (100MP at 400mm, 44MP at 600mm, and 25MP at 800mm vs simply being locked in to 750mm). The cost of the bodies is a whole other story of course, heh.

Pixel count only makes sense as a measure of image quality if images are perfectly in focus... and that is where I seriously doubt that the Fuji is competitive against say a Z8 + 400mm f4.5 S.

I am still not sure what exact market they are shooting for with this lens. No serious birder or sport shooter will pick an GFX-100II over the best Nikon or Sony, existing GFX-100II like myself will hesitate to spend that amount over other spendings,...

@Impulses

True on the price. The sigma is defintely overpriced

Is there a modern mirrorless lens of that sort that's cheaper? I'm not being smart, I don't have much context here, AFAIK the first party ones are often pricier... The Nikon 400/4.5 S is $3K as well.

I realize lenses like these don't necessarily benefit from being designed for a new mount so I'll take older examples too... The Canon 400/4 DO was far pricier and the Nikon 500/5.6 PF was still well >$3K (still is). I'm actually surprised this Fuji isn't pricier TBH.

@Impulses

All of the various 150/200-600 F6.3 lenses are also 500mm F5.6 lenses with even more additional features and are probably more expensive to built.

The only reason for a 500mm F5.6 to be expensive is because of the low number of units you expect to ship.... Which is because it is unecessarily expensive....

But even if you stay with primes the first party Nikon 400mm F4.5 is cheaper than the Sigma.

The Fuji seems fairly priced though due to the very low number they will build

" All of the various 150/200-600 F6.3 lenses are also 500mm F5.6 lenses with even more additional features and are probably more expensive to built. " -panther fan

I usually take almost anything you say as fact, but that's most definitely not true. The Sony 200-600 G for instance is f6.3 right from 300mm, and the Sigma 150-600 DN is f6.3 from 366mm onwards, so no they're not 500/5.6 lenses. You can argue the 1/3rd of a stop is inconsequential, but you're still comparing primes of a certain quality with zooms with more compromises.

" But even if you stay with primes the first party Nikon 400mm F4.5 is cheaper than the Sigma. " panther fan

But it's not any cheaper than this 500/5.6, which is what I was asking about, it's MSRP here is $3,250 and it's on sale for $250 off. +/-$500 seems pretty moot at these price points so idk what makes the Sigma any more overpriced.

I sure wasn't talking about construction cost, and I dunno what that has to do with what it sells at, supply and demand and all that...