X-T4 wildlife improvements?

[MJM]

Hi all, I recently bought an X-T4 with 100-400 and 1.4x TC. Upgraded from a LUMIX G9, and absolutely love it so far, as I like 'hybrid'.

I'm very much an amateur, and dont claim to be any good. But whilst I'm very impressed with the combo, I do think there are a number of small, easily fixed areas Fuji need to seriously look at for wildlife shooting:

1 - Panasonic's implementation of focus bracketing (which goes forward and backward from the focal point, potentially saving many shots) is much better for this type of photography.

2 - Customisation options need to be improved, especially the ability to switch quickly between 2 completely different sets of settings, including focus area, AFS/AFC, drive mode, and minimum shutter speed etc (like Sony do).

3 - Panasonic's implementation of the focus check magnifier is also much better, just because it doesn't lag, can be set to automatically happen for a variable period with initial focus, and shows the focal point.

4 - a good affordable and compact longer zoom would be nice 🙂.

Also the OIS seems to temporarily disable itself at inappropriate times, requiring a restart - not good when you're trying to get a shot - plus the min shutter speed setting with ISO settings seems to be limited to 500 max. Or am I missing something?

Changes like this would make an already great wildlife setup absolutely perfect in my book! I'd be interested to hear other thoughts?

Edited August 16, 2020 by MJM
typo

[mawz]

#4 is coming, an XF70-300 f4-5.6 is one of the '4 more lenses for 2020' according to the rumour sites.

[MJM]

Well I was actually thinking more along the lines of a good, sub-£2000 200-600mm or similar.

I know the X-T4 isn't really aimed at wildlife photography, but many wildlife photographers prefer APS-C over FF, for the extra reach. So it's a big niche that Fuji could easily fill, should they choose. The Sony APS-C cameras are the only real competition (at the moment, at least) in the mirrorless world, but whilst they do some things really well they're just a weird, horrible design that few serious photographers would consider. Fuji, on the other hand, just needs a few tweaks as I mentioned - in my humble opinion.

[mawz]

On 8/18/2020 at 5:07 AM, MJM said:

Well I was actually thinking more along the lines of a good, sub-£2000 200-600mm or similar.

I know the X-T4 isn't really aimed at wildlife photography, but many wildlife photographers prefer APS-C over FF, for the extra reach. So it's a big niche that Fuji could easily fill, should they choose. The Sony APS-C cameras are the only real competition (at the moment, at least) in the mirrorless world, but whilst they do some things really well they're just a weird, horrible design that few serious photographers would consider. Fuji, on the other hand, just needs a few tweaks as I mentioned - in my humble opinion.

Look into the Fringer EF adapter, I'm heaving very good things about it and the long zoom options in EF mount.

I think everyone agrees that Fuji needs to spend some serious time on telephotos, they have a single lens past 230mm and only one other one known to be in the pipeline (the 70-300). They need a couple tele primes (300/4, something ~500mm) and that 200-600 you mention.