[clackers]

Mirrorless cameras hold an advantage over SLRs when it comes to short focal length lenses, longer lenses will always be rather large - there is no way of getting around this.

Just out of curiosity, Digitalis, what's the reason?

Fuji's X platform has got a number of excellent wider lenses but a paucity of longer ones.

[Digitalis]

Just out of curiosity, Digitalis, what's the reason? Fuji's X platform has got a number of excellent wider lenses but a paucity of longer ones.

The reason is technical and If I had the time or patience, I could easily write a long essay this topic but in a nutshell: An optically perfect 300mm lens focused on infinity has an optical center that is 300mm from the film/sensor plane. This holds true no matter what format you are using the lens on. The registration distance of the lens mount is taken into account when positioning of the optical center of a lens (this is what causes problems when adapting lenses to non-native lens mounts). However there are some lens design tricks that optical designers use to prevent telephoto lenses from getting too large but these can severely compromise the image quality of the lens.

[normhead]

I was kinda hoping you'd turn up Christine... it's nice to have someone who actually has the camera make these comments.

[clackers]

An optically perfect 300mm lens focused on infinity has an optical center that is 300mm from the film/sensor plane.... However there are some lens design tricks that optical designers use to prevent telephoto lenses from getting too large but these can severely compromise the image quality of the lens.

Ah, thanks for that summary, Digitalis!