Fujifilm Fujinon XF 100-400 mm f/4.5-5.6 R LM OIS review - Autofocus

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Fujifilm Fujinon XF 100-400 mm f/4.5-5.6 R LM OIS

24 May 2016

Arkadiusz Olech

10. Autofocus

The speed performance of the autofocus is rather patchy. Usually at the short end of the focal range you experience no problems whatsoever and running through all the scale plus finding the focus takes about 0.5-0.6 of a second. It is a good result.

At the 400 mm focal length the situation changes a bit. The autofocus becomes slower and not as reliable – it happens to miss the proper position and has to look for the right focus the second time. It extends the focusing process to distinctly over one second. Such situations happen most often when you try to set focus from infinity to an object situated closer. The chances of missing the focal point for the first time increase also when you are dealing with objects with weaker contrast or/and a poorly lit scene. I admit we are hardly impressed. In this category the tested Fujinon clearly lags behind its full frame rivals.

Despite installing the newest autofocus limiter software we didn’t notice any significant improvement in the range from 5 meters to infinity. If the lens hit the target at once it took about 0.5 of a second, if it missed the first time it lasted even over one second.

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What’s more, we don’t like the fact that the producer chose the distance of 5 meters as the beginning of the limited range. Perhaps it is a bow toward aviation photographers but the bird photographers certainly won’t find it especially useful. You take photos of small birds often from a distance of less than 5 meters so we think a value of 3-4 meters as the beginning of the limited autofocus range would be a better choice.

In studio conditions we didn’t have any reservations concerning the autofocus accuracy – the lens missed in less than 3% of cases.

The tested lens also had no problems with the front or back focus tendencies.

X-E1, 300 mm, f/5.2