Fujifilm Photography News and Rumors

DPReview released their review of for the Fujifilm GFX100 and they are pretty obviously impressed. It’s kind of sad they are getting push back about doing a preview focused around street photography. The GFX100 was designed to use for everything, not just landscapes. Below is a summary of the above video:

• Compact body
• Rugged design
• Excellent IBIS
• Fast AF
• They got push back over using the GFX100 like a regular camera
• The screen on the back is fantastic
• The weight gives it good stability
• EFC gives it great stability with the great shutter
• Fantastic for handheld shooting
• You get quite a lot of the resolution handheld
• With 102MP you can crop crop crop
• Great dynamic range
• 100 or 800 ISO you get fantastic push
• If animals do not fear humans the GFX is fantastic for shooting wildlife
• IBIS allows for acceptably sharp photos down to around 1/15th a second otherwise 1/125th without
• Still doesn’t like the vertical grip
• Fujifilm’s EVF is almost as good as the Panasonic S
• GFX100 is the new landscape king
• Gave it to a pro that also didn’t like the vertical grip
• The pro that preferred OVF ended up liking the EVF
• The touch screen makes sense and it is nice and quick
• Battery life is ok, but not great
• Like being able to take focus point all the way to the end
• Blackout time is pretty bad
• The pro that was stuck in his ways and used to 1DX got great results
• Incredible stunning detail
• DPRTV still stands by 50MP not offering much over the full frame, but the 102MP is amazing image quality all around
• 14-bit vs 16-bit makes a difference at 100ISO for more dynamic range
• If you’re shooting quicker like street then shoot 14-bit RAW, because the benefit of 16-bit is slight at best
• The GFX100 is very versatile thanks to the great IBIS and X-T3 like AF
• 110mm isn’t very fast on the GFX100
• Very lens dependant AF
• Many photographers will want to stay full frame to handle action
• Most enjoyable medium format camera he has ever used
• Comes down to do you need 100MP
• Full Frame cameras are still probably best for most, but the GFX100 can do it all
• Very interesting video capabilities that they will explore in a later video

Fujifilm GFX News, Rumors, and Collaboration
Fujifilm GFX Owners Group
Fujifilm GFX Page

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Fujifilm GFX100: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama
Fujifilm GFX50R: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama
Fujifilm GFX 50S: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama

I have been using my GFX100 pretty much exclusively now for two weeks and it is very much like using an X-T2/X-T3, but I still miss the dials. The camera really picks up autofocus performance when shooting outdoors on a sunny day, but it struggles to focus under low light. I haven’t tried to tweak it more for low light yet, but the GFX50S focused better in low light with default settings than the GFX100 in my experience. I estimate that the AF performance is between X-T2/X-T3 speed in good light, but in low light, the performance drops to X-Pro1 territory and becomes frustrating.

One of my more interesting days with the GFX100 so far came on the 4th of July when I utilized high-speed shooting to capture fireworks exploding, which lead to over 80gb of photos, but since it was dark out I had to pre-focus. It was also enjoyable taking photos of my kids, but the amount of detail captured concerns me because the camera captures a crazy amount of retina detail even when shooting a full body portrait. In fact, eye movement seems to be the top reason to raise the shutter speed of the GFX100 because it is easy to capture a sharp/detailed photo that only has motion blur in the eyes. IBIS can’t solve for eye movement.

If you’re a fan of the “medium format” look than you will be happy with the GFX100 most of the time. I find that I get the 3d medium format look more frequently with the GFX100 than I did with the GFX50S, but it is easy to lose the effect through editing. It would be very hard for me to demonstrate what I am talking about on the blog, but editing GFX100 files in Lightroom is an interesting experience because the 3d pop of medium format comes and goes as the sliders are adjusted, so color tonality is playing a very big roll in the GFX100’s medium format look in Lightroom.

Some have been very concerned with the computer power needed to edit GFX100 files, but I haven’t had trouble with my relatively old high-end computers. I think the single biggest issue for most will be storage because I am currently averaging about 100gb a week shooting 16-bit RAW. If I continue at this pace I will need to add 5.2tb of storage a year to my computer, or really 10.4tb since I only store photos on RAID arrays.

Currently, my preferred storage solution for files is WD Gold Enterprise 12TB drives in a Drobo and my preferred drive for editing is Samsung SSD 860 EVO in a thunderbolt Raid-5 enclosure. I have owned other enclosures in the past, but all had shortcomings when drives or the unit failed. So far in my experience, Drobo has been great about minimizing downtime since I purchased Drobocare and OWC makes great enclosures that perform well for a reasonable price. For my storage needs, I estimate that I will spend about $600 a year on storage just to keep up with the pace I have been shooting at, which I never really had to plan for before because I would just replace drives as they failed with the largest drive available.

A quick note about WD Red drives. Generally speaking, I would recommend WD Red drives over gold drives for nontechnical buyers, most drives are overkill speed wise for use in a Drobo, but if I repurpose the drives in the future I want them to be snappy so I pick Gold over Red. I have always used drives for multiple purposes and I still have some hard drives laying around my house that are almost 30 years old. They were all used for multiple applications before becoming cold storage drives from the drives time period, so I never buy drives that limit their usefulness.

Fujifilm GFX News, Rumors, and Collaboration
Fujifilm GFX Owners Group
Fujifilm GFX Page

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Fujifilm GFX100: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama
Fujifilm GFX50R: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama
Fujifilm GFX 50S: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama