HaroldC3
Senior Member
Note: I am a landscape photographer, not a wildlife photographer. As such, my knowledge of anything related to wildlife photography is limited. Also, please keep in mind I usually don’t produce in-depth reviews, I consume them. Thus I’m sure there are issues with my review. All images are processed to my taste. Typical sharpening settings in CaptureOne are: 200, 0.5, 0.5 and NR is set to 25 for all.
The 70-300mm has a lot going for it. It’s a light, compact telephoto lens with a good focal range and standard aperture range (4-5.6). It has Fujifilm’s newest OIS as well as weather resistance, both of which make it a great option for anyone from a backpacker to a soccer mom. Then there’s the option to add teleconverters which makes the lens attractive possibly to wildlife photographers. The lens weighs much less than the Fujifilm 100-400mm and essentially the same as the Fujifilm 55-200mm lens. The question is does it replace the current 55-200mm lens?
Build Quality / Construction
Despite being mostly plastic, the lens is solid. The plastic feels like a quality plastic, like some of the old Canon EF lenses I remember. There are no creaks when squeezing the lens. The switches are also solid and firm. The rubber for the focus and zoom rings are also quality, typically Fuji rubber.
The lens does have the WR moniker and does have a gasket around the lens mount. It also has WR sealing in 10 locations on the lens. All of which makes the lens a great option to use in harsher conditions than non-WR lenses.
The hood is about 1cm longer than the 55-200mm lens hood. It’s also got a little more matte of a finish as compared to my 55-200mm hood. Lastly, the hood seems to slide on and off with much less resistance than my 55-200mm hood, which seems to take a decent amount of force to twist on and off. Like the 10-24mm hood, there is a slight overlap on most of the front of the lens barrel, I assume to protect against light coming from the back-side.
As for the rings, the aperture ring has a perfect resistance to turning and has distinctive clicks. The zoom is smooth for the amount of glass it has to adjust in and out. I feel no noticeable hitches or unevenness when zooming. The focus ring is buttery smooth.
The lens does have a focus lock that can be engaged at 70mm. The nice feature is you only need to zoom the lens to disengage it, however, you must push the switch again to reengage at 70m. I have found, so far, it has not been needed but we will see once the lens ages if lens creep starts to appear.
Focus Speed / Accuracy / Motor
Note: I use a Fujifilm X-T3 with firmware 4.00 currently.
In general, focus speed is excellent. I had no complaints about the speed of focus except when focusing from a very near object to a very far object. About half the time the lens would rack focus and then lock on. This also happened on occasion when attempted bird-in-flight images.
See the below video for an example. Also, make sure to listen to the video as the lens’ AF motor does make noise when racking back and forth and the video does include that sound.
Focus accuracy overall was excellent. I would say the exception would be at 300mm on distant subjects. I did get misses on distant objects even when taking multiple images. At closer distances (maybe 50 yards or less) I had a much higher accuracy rate (at 300mm). At any other focal length I had no issues whatsoever. I mostly used single-point AF though with BIF I did use wide/tracking AF.
The lens does come with a focus limiter which limits distance from 5 meters to infinity. This is supposed to assist with faster focus. I did not use the focus limiter except to test for the focus speed issue as noted above. I did encounter the same issue sporadically as noted above even with the focus limiter, though the racking back and forth was not as much due to the limited focus distance.
Image Quality
In general, image quality is excellent. The lens is capable of both sharpness in the center and across the entire frame. As expected, the weakest focal length is 300mm wide open at f5.6. However, I found the image quality at 300mm f5.6 to be excellent for most subjects up to 50-100 yards. It’s when you try to focus and capture subjects at great length does the less-than-excellent image quality make an appearance. At that distance, other factors could come into play including atmospheric haze or thermal distortion.
The sharpness from 70 - 200mm is excellent, even wide open. Because of this, I think Fujifilm has all but replaced the 55-200mm lens with the 70-300mm lens. I think in the 200 - 300mm range is where everyone’s opinion will differ and it will be a judgement call as to what is and is not acceptable. In my opinion, the main issue is at 300mm wide open on distant objects. I think while possible to use the 70-300mm lens as a wildlife lens, the wildlife must fill the frame enough in order to get any detail from them. If it’s a very distant subject then I would not expect to capture much detail. Whether it is a realistic expectation to capture detail from a distant subject, I’m not sure.
One weakness of the 70-300mm is vignetting at 300mm f5.6. The vignetting is pronounced however correctable but uncorrected it is easily noticeable. Stopping down the lens at 300mm will reduce the vignetting greatly. At other focal lengths I did not notice if vignetting was an issue.
Uncorrected vignette
As for chromatic aberrations, they are pretty well controlled in the lens. I did notice some issue with CAs in areas that were slightly out of focus from the area that was in focus. I also did not some CAs on the whites of wildlife but not as much on tree branches.
Unfortunately, I do not have the Fujifilm teleconverters thus I cannot test the lens with them.
Conclusion
Does this lens replace the 55-200mm lens? I believe so. Fujifilm would need to discount the 55-200mm lens to something around $499 to make the price make any sense compared to the 70-300mm. The 70-300mm does everything just as good in the same range as the 55-200mm except for the fact that it’s missing the 55-69mm focal range. I would say if you don’t have 55mm covered by another lens and you find yourself using 55mm often then a used 55-200mm lens becomes attractive. I think the 70-300mm pairs perfectly with the 16-80mm lens and will probably become one of the best zoom lens combinations for Fujifilm and compete against the best other brands offer.
Would I recommend the 70-300mm? For me, it’s a buy. Fujifilm has produced a well-rounded general telephoto lens that is packed with a lot of features. Image quality is always subjective and images speak louder than words. I encourage you to examine my complete sample gallery on Flickr. (Keep in mind all images are processed to my taste)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/photosbyharold/albums/72157718625108873
Also, I have made available several RAW files from my Fujifilm X-T3. They can be downloaded from here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1gbHjQeO2iR-uOncYrxwKT-ubE_fozVNg?usp=sharing
The 70-300mm has a lot going for it. It’s a light, compact telephoto lens with a good focal range and standard aperture range (4-5.6). It has Fujifilm’s newest OIS as well as weather resistance, both of which make it a great option for anyone from a backpacker to a soccer mom. Then there’s the option to add teleconverters which makes the lens attractive possibly to wildlife photographers. The lens weighs much less than the Fujifilm 100-400mm and essentially the same as the Fujifilm 55-200mm lens. The question is does it replace the current 55-200mm lens?
Build Quality / Construction
Despite being mostly plastic, the lens is solid. The plastic feels like a quality plastic, like some of the old Canon EF lenses I remember. There are no creaks when squeezing the lens. The switches are also solid and firm. The rubber for the focus and zoom rings are also quality, typically Fuji rubber.
The lens does have the WR moniker and does have a gasket around the lens mount. It also has WR sealing in 10 locations on the lens. All of which makes the lens a great option to use in harsher conditions than non-WR lenses.
The hood is about 1cm longer than the 55-200mm lens hood. It’s also got a little more matte of a finish as compared to my 55-200mm hood. Lastly, the hood seems to slide on and off with much less resistance than my 55-200mm hood, which seems to take a decent amount of force to twist on and off. Like the 10-24mm hood, there is a slight overlap on most of the front of the lens barrel, I assume to protect against light coming from the back-side.
As for the rings, the aperture ring has a perfect resistance to turning and has distinctive clicks. The zoom is smooth for the amount of glass it has to adjust in and out. I feel no noticeable hitches or unevenness when zooming. The focus ring is buttery smooth.
The lens does have a focus lock that can be engaged at 70mm. The nice feature is you only need to zoom the lens to disengage it, however, you must push the switch again to reengage at 70m. I have found, so far, it has not been needed but we will see once the lens ages if lens creep starts to appear.
Focus Speed / Accuracy / Motor
Note: I use a Fujifilm X-T3 with firmware 4.00 currently.
In general, focus speed is excellent. I had no complaints about the speed of focus except when focusing from a very near object to a very far object. About half the time the lens would rack focus and then lock on. This also happened on occasion when attempted bird-in-flight images.
See the below video for an example. Also, make sure to listen to the video as the lens’ AF motor does make noise when racking back and forth and the video does include that sound.
Focus accuracy overall was excellent. I would say the exception would be at 300mm on distant subjects. I did get misses on distant objects even when taking multiple images. At closer distances (maybe 50 yards or less) I had a much higher accuracy rate (at 300mm). At any other focal length I had no issues whatsoever. I mostly used single-point AF though with BIF I did use wide/tracking AF.
The lens does come with a focus limiter which limits distance from 5 meters to infinity. This is supposed to assist with faster focus. I did not use the focus limiter except to test for the focus speed issue as noted above. I did encounter the same issue sporadically as noted above even with the focus limiter, though the racking back and forth was not as much due to the limited focus distance.
Image Quality
In general, image quality is excellent. The lens is capable of both sharpness in the center and across the entire frame. As expected, the weakest focal length is 300mm wide open at f5.6. However, I found the image quality at 300mm f5.6 to be excellent for most subjects up to 50-100 yards. It’s when you try to focus and capture subjects at great length does the less-than-excellent image quality make an appearance. At that distance, other factors could come into play including atmospheric haze or thermal distortion.
The sharpness from 70 - 200mm is excellent, even wide open. Because of this, I think Fujifilm has all but replaced the 55-200mm lens with the 70-300mm lens. I think in the 200 - 300mm range is where everyone’s opinion will differ and it will be a judgement call as to what is and is not acceptable. In my opinion, the main issue is at 300mm wide open on distant objects. I think while possible to use the 70-300mm lens as a wildlife lens, the wildlife must fill the frame enough in order to get any detail from them. If it’s a very distant subject then I would not expect to capture much detail. Whether it is a realistic expectation to capture detail from a distant subject, I’m not sure.
One weakness of the 70-300mm is vignetting at 300mm f5.6. The vignetting is pronounced however correctable but uncorrected it is easily noticeable. Stopping down the lens at 300mm will reduce the vignetting greatly. At other focal lengths I did not notice if vignetting was an issue.
Uncorrected vignette
As for chromatic aberrations, they are pretty well controlled in the lens. I did notice some issue with CAs in areas that were slightly out of focus from the area that was in focus. I also did not some CAs on the whites of wildlife but not as much on tree branches.
Unfortunately, I do not have the Fujifilm teleconverters thus I cannot test the lens with them.
Conclusion
Does this lens replace the 55-200mm lens? I believe so. Fujifilm would need to discount the 55-200mm lens to something around $499 to make the price make any sense compared to the 70-300mm. The 70-300mm does everything just as good in the same range as the 55-200mm except for the fact that it’s missing the 55-69mm focal range. I would say if you don’t have 55mm covered by another lens and you find yourself using 55mm often then a used 55-200mm lens becomes attractive. I think the 70-300mm pairs perfectly with the 16-80mm lens and will probably become one of the best zoom lens combinations for Fujifilm and compete against the best other brands offer.
Would I recommend the 70-300mm? For me, it’s a buy. Fujifilm has produced a well-rounded general telephoto lens that is packed with a lot of features. Image quality is always subjective and images speak louder than words. I encourage you to examine my complete sample gallery on Flickr. (Keep in mind all images are processed to my taste)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/photosbyharold/albums/72157718625108873
Also, I have made available several RAW files from my Fujifilm X-T3. They can be downloaded from here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1gbHjQeO2iR-uOncYrxwKT-ubE_fozVNg?usp=sharing
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