Wildlife photography is an exhilarating challenge, especially when the subject is as majestic as the bison of Yellowstone National Park. With its rugged terrain, vast open spaces, and unpredictable wildlife, Yellowstone provides a stunning backdrop for photographers. In this post, I’ll be evaluating the performance of the Fujifilm GF 500mm lens while capturing these iconic creatures in their natural habitat. I geared up for this trip with the latest Fujifilm GFX 100 II and an array of Fujifilm medium to long telephoto lenses. The star of the show was the GF500mm lens for its ability to achieve super close-up images of the animals and move around due to its lightweight design. That being said, each lens has its strengths, and I also brought along the Fujifilm GF250mm and GF45-100mm zoom.

Bundling Up & Bursting 8 Shots a Second!

Did I mention it was -43 in Yellowstone? I dressed with every layer I could find and headed out to meet our ride for the day, SeeYellowstoneTours. During this time of the year, almost all roads through Yellowstone can only be accessed by special 4×4 off-road vehicles. As we came around the corner, we encountered a herd of Bison marching down the road like they were in a parade. Knowing I would need to shoot handheld, I checked that my Image stabilization was turned on. As they moved towards us, I pressed my back autofocus button and watched my camera track the eyes of the Bison. Once I locked focus, I began bursting 8 shots a second. The new Fujifilm GFX 100 II can now burst 80 shots consecutively, thanks to the CF Express memory card slot. I never hit a buffer like I have previously on the GFX 100S. These are the most advanced Auto Focus algorithms I have seen Fujifilm develop, and they’ve integrated them into their two new cameras, GFX 100 II and GFX 100s II.

100% Crop of Bison with Fujifilm GF500

Optimizing Autofocus Settings for Wildlife

Before I ventured out into the wilderness that day, I changed a few of my Auto Focus settings to maximize the ability to get the best focus tracking performance for this application.

I selected AF custom setting to # 2.  See the screen attached below. This allows it to focus on the subject and not get distracted by other obstacles in or entering the scene.

I also changed my Subject detection to animals.

As we moved through the park, we saw a snow coach pulled over with another group. After jumping out with our cameras, we learned there was a red fox. The other guides are so friendly to share information over the walkie-talkies when they spot animals grazing. I chased him up and down the road as he searched around the perimeter of the snow, looking for food. The picture below shows exactly how accurate the eye detection is and the ability of Custom Auto Focus #2 settings not to lock focus on any obstacles like these tree branches. Once it locked in on the eyes, I moved around and tried to find more of an opening to shoot from. I also shot a 4K video through the GFX 100 II. 

Utilizing The High-Resolution Viewfinder

Next, on our route through Yellowstone, we saw a lady pulled over and looking up at the top of a tall tree. Our hope was that it was one of the rare Pygmy Owls. I had a Fujifilm GF500mm lens on my camera at the time, so I thought, what do I have to lose! I used my viewfinder like a pair of binoculars to begin my search through the trees. When I finally spotted the owl, I could see every detail. I push the rear function wheel in on the camera to magnify the view by 100%. The Fujifilm GFX 100 II has a 0.64-inch OLED color viewfinder with 9.44 million dots. I cannot tell you how valuable this is when you are able to see all the images you just shot in full frame or magnified through the viewfinder. You can judge sharpness, exposure, and focus so you know if you need to make any changes prior to the next session. I never did that on any other medium format camera, including the Fujifilm GFX 100s, because we did not have that kind of resolution. There’s nearly 3x the number of pixels in the viewfinder.

Cropping In with Medium Format

Moving on down the road, we ran across these Longhorn Sheep. Must have been 50 of them grazing along a snow-covered pasture. The Fujifilm GF500mm just locks and focuses beautifully. As I moved around the scene, I had a few that posed for what seemed like a very long time. I am so impressed at how the optical sharpness of this lens renders with both the GFX 100 II and GFX 100s II cameras. The micro contrast and ability to crop is what Medium Format is all about. 

100% crop from the frame above shows you how sharp the image is. All of my images are shot Raw and imported into Capture One, where I will use a variety of AI brushes and tools to control the contrast, color, and density of the overall image. 

When to Use Manual Focus

As helpful as autofocus can be, there are still situations when manual focus is the better option. For me, as the snow and sleet started to fall, I noticed that when I used rear button focus, the eyes were not tracking as well as before. Almost like it was hunting. The sleet and snow falling in front of the animals was the main issue. I decided to flip the switch from AF to Manual Focus. The Fujifilm GFX 100 II and GFX100s II both have an MF ASSIST menu that can be displayed by pressing and holding the center of the rear command dial. From here, I can select FOCUS PEAK HIGHLIGHT, which highlights high-contrast outlines. Rotate the focus ring until the subject is highlighted. This makes it very easy to see the image come in and out of focus. You can see all the snow scatter and how the Auto Focus can lock on that instead of your subject.

I had two frames that showed what my angle of view and magnification was with the Fujifilm GF45-100 zoom. The first image I wanted to shoot was all the Bison grazing along the waterway. Then I switched to the GF500 to show how much closer you can get. 

My Closing Thoughts

In closing, this experience shooting in Yellowstone uncovered my love for the new Fujifilm GF500mm lens. It is a game changer when it comes to medium-format camera systems. Its lightweight design allows you to move around a scene with ease and precision. The optical qualities of any lens are obvious from the image quality and cripsness. New focusing algorithms have changed the way Fujifilm’s lenses can perform. The ability to track focus and burst at 8 frames per sec is just extraordinary. 

I want to thank my team at Capture Integration and our manufacturer, Fujifilm, for always ensuring I’m equipped with the best medium-format digital camera systems for my adventures. This was only my 2nd time mounting this lens to my camera and shooting images with it. If I can do it, certainly you can too.

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