(To watch the video go to The Slanted Lens on YouTube!)

I got some great images of this huge owl using the Fujifilm X-H2 and the Tamron 150-500mm lens. What a great combination! I was cheating though, it’s a movie owl. It’s the Brad Pitt of owls. When they say owl, they think of Nicodemus! So here’s some images of Nicodemus the owl!

What kind of owl is it, first? That’s a good question. So this guy is a Eurasian Eagle Owl. So they are the second largest species of owl in the world. That’s awesome! You’ll find them in Europe, Asia, Mongolia, Siberia, Russia, places around there. That’s incredible! Yeah, that’s awesome!

So we’re going to take some pictures of Nicodemus using this 150-500mm lens on the Fuji X-H2. Now this isn’t the X-H2S which you might think, “You’re doing flying images of an owl with an X-H2?” Yes, because I want a large image. And I’ve got a 40 megapixel sensor here. I’ve got a lens here that will convert to a 225-750mm. Which would be a great telephoto to get great images of Nicodemus. I can get in close on him because I’ve got a focus distance of about 23 inches at 150mm and about 70 inches at 500mm. I’ve been taking pictures of him and it’s pretty funny to me because the human eye detect almost works as well or better than the bird eye detect because he’s got such huge eyes. They’re so human looking.

All right, so let’s get to it. We’re going to be using that Tamron 150-500mm lens on the Fuji X-H2. We’re just going to get some great images of Nicodemus here. And I’m so excited. I’ve wanted to photograph owls for forever. And this is a great situation where we can test this lens out and get some beautiful images of Nicodemus. So let’s get started.

So just some of the specs on this lens. It does have an 82mm for the front. So it’s a little larger millimeter. I generally buy all my filters in 82 and then I can step them down. So it wasn’t a problem for me. I love that larger size.

Weight wise it’s like 3.77 pounds. Which is, you know, it’s a heavy lens, but in this kind of a lens it’s pretty hard to get something lighter because you’ve got to have all of the elements to be able to move back and forth to go from 150-500mm. I actually traveled all around Iceland with the Sony version of this for the full frame camera and it was really easy to haul around. And we hauled that everywhere. So I had three lenses in my SKB backpack. And this is one of them. It fit right on the side of it and I had room for other things with camera on top of it.

When this lens is extended it’s about 11.1 inches at 500 millimeters. But it comes back to 8.3 inches when it compacts back to 150 millimeters. So the lens goes F/5-6.7. F/5 on this kind of a lens is a great place to be. Everyone would love F/4, but F4 is twelve thousand dollars. And that’s a lot of money.

Look at how gorgeous the bokeh is on these tight shots. At 500 millimeters I’m getting F/6.7. At 150 millimeters I’m getting F/5. It gives me some gorgeous images. So the bokeh just drops out in the background. Love it!

So I’m really happy with how the autofocus is working here with the Fuji X-H2. I’m getting quick response. I mean it’s just really pulling focus really fast for me. As I’m coming up on him I’m just getting great response and the autofocus is working excellent.

So the advantage of a linear motor is really that it’s going to keep the noise down on the lens. It’s not going to vibrate as much as it pushes in and out as it focuses. You do have the ability to limit the area of focus so you don’t have to push that focus all the way from closest focusing distance to all the way out to infinity. So if you can cut that area down and focus it makes it much faster. And it makes it, just makes it much easier for the lens to respond.

The lens has vibration compensation. You can choose between one or two. One is for standard handheld vibration compensation. Number two is if you’re going to pan. And number three is if you just want to turn it off. Even though you have vibration compensation it just ups the numbers.

So it’s got the B-Bar G2 coating which makes it so this lens is almost impossible to flare. It just gives you clean, clean images, even when you’re looking towards the sun. So when you get that kind of flare it has a beautiful look without really making bringing up all the shadows in the image.

It comes with a lens hood. It’s got the telephoto foot, the collar which I use all the time. So it brings all those elements to come together and come with it.

All right, James this has been a lot of fun. Thank you very much. Oh it’s been a pleasure. Thanks for having us. You’re welcome, no problem. Thanks to Nicodemus who really did a tremendous job. I learned, because we waited till a little dusk so the Nicodemus would fly, I’ve got really high ISO. And trying to get a fast enough shutter to freeze the action, and he was fast man. He’s like flying through the frame. I had a hard time keeping up with him. We had it flying towards us on some and did some cross wise. And man, I have greater respect and admiration for people who do bird photography. That’s for sure.

But the lens worked great. The camera worked great. It was a great combination of that Fuji X-H2 with the 150-500mm Tamron Lens. A great combination! And we’ve got some excellent images of Nicodemus. I think I should say he’s ready to go to bed but he’s probably ready to go out and fly around. He’s crepuscular, yeah, dusk and dawn for him. Which is why he did very well here. That’s awesome, yeah. This has been a lot of fun. So keep those cameras rollin’ and keep on clickin’!