One of the indictments against Fuji’s medium format GF lineup has been in the limited number and variety of lenses. Until recently there were only 15 lenses available, and the longest focal length amongst them was the GF 250mm F4 OIS. But when you consider that focal lengths are registered in the full frame standard, and Fuji’s “crop” factor for medium format is thus 0.79x, that means that the full frame equivalence of 250mm on a GFX body is just 198mm, which isn’t exactly into serious telephoto range. That reach could be extended with the use of Fuji’s 1.4x teleconverter, but that still only gets you to about 277mm of effective reach. But Fuji announced a much longer telephoto alongside the GFX100S II body that I just reviewed in the form of the Fujinon GF 500mm F5.6 R LM OIS WR. With the crop factor, that’s equivalent to right under 400mm of reach, but add on that teleconverter and you’ve got 555mm of effective reach. This opens up whole new horizons for Fuji medium format shooters, and at $3499 USD, it is just $200 more than the 250mm F4. But is the longest of MF lenses worth buying? Find out by watching the video review below, reading my text review, or just enjoying the photos in the gallery below.

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Thanks to Fujifilm Canada for sending me a review copy of this lens.   As always, this is a completely independent review.  All opinions and conclusions are my own. I’m doing this review on a 102MP Fujifilm GFX100S II.

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If you don’t speak “Fuji”, here’s a quick breakdown of what all those letters mean.

• R = Aperture Ring
• LM = Linear Motors (focus system)
• OIS = Optical Image Stabilization
• WR = Weather resistance

The GF 500mm has pretty much all of the available Fuji features, so it gets all the letters. This is a very feature rich lens.

The GF 500mm is not a small lens, but the truth of the matter is that Fuji has actually done a really good job managing the size and weight of this lens. It was both smaller and lighter than what I expected, and while the build quality is not at the level of the super-teles (or even Fuji’s own XF 200mm F2 OIS), it strikes a nice balance between quality of construction and weight.

This is a very sharp lens. Combine the GF 500mm with one of Fuji’s 102MP cameras and sweet things happen. Take this shot, for example.

Unimpressed, right? But when I looked at this image at a pixel level, I noticed that there was actually a frying pan stranded out on that rock.

How did it get there? I don’t know, but it was clear as day when zooming into the image due to the crisp detail that the lens (and a good sensor) afford. But probably the bigger question is where or not the GF 500mm will actually open up new types of photography for Fuji’s MF system. That’s a big part of what we explore in the reviews linked above.

Build and Handling

Image Quality Breakdown

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GEAR USED:

Purchase the Fujinon GF 500mm F5.6 @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Fujifilm GFX100S II @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK

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Purchase the Fujifilm X-H2 @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany 

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Purchase the Fujifilm X-T5 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Find it Used at KEH 

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Purchase the Fujifilm X-S20 @ B&H Photo | Adorama  | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany |

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