Brief thoughts on the Fujifilm GFX100

a moment of silence for the poor delusional souls spending $10k on fujifilm camera gear .. and long for full frame

www.flickr.com/photos/mmirrorless

What are you talking about? I have an excellent Fuji kit, it didn’t cost anywhere near 10k and I’m not at all disappointed that it’s not “full frame”. If you have small f/1.4 lenses on APSC it doesn’t matter that it’s not “full frame.”

Throughout commercial advertising works and landscape, these Fuji medium format cameras are going to reset what the eye will expect for the future. An image quality so high it will spoil the rest. Unfortunately for us, not having this kind of money to access these machines, looks like their made for the likes of the commercial world with the occasional rich guy, or gal that can't stop taking pictures of the cat.

Throughout commercial advertising works and landscape, these Fuji medium format cameras are going to reset what the eye will expect for the future. An image quality so high it will spoil the rest. Unfortunately for us, not having this kind of money to access these machines, looks like their made for the likes of the commercial world with the occasional rich guy, or gal that can't stop taking pictures of the cat.

I'm not so sure. We've had MFD cameras for almost as long as we've had handheld cameras. Some of those older CCD backs are still worth something today. And yet, formats like Micro 4/3 are used by pros and enthusiasts all the time. What Fujifilm has done is not increase the price of excellent image quality, but reduce it instead.

 

The current Leica S is about twice as expensive and has less than half the pixels and has fewer features. If you were thinking about buying the Leica (and there's nothing wrong with the Leica BTW!) you would have to look at the Fuji first.

The GFX is a real bargain at $10K, compared to a 100 MP Hasselblad H6 at $35K. A Canon 1Dxii is $6K and a Nikon D5 lists at $6500, and only 20 MP.

Sure it's a bargain! Yes, MFD has been around a while, but Fuji glass is the difference. While I emphasized the cost, I do so with the honest reality in spite of the bargain, shelling out 10 grand is something I won't be doing anytime soon. Its really a tough tease. If I had the $$$ I'd be all over this in a second. I love what Fuji is doing here.

" I've referred to your photos as excellent examples of what the Fuji X system is capable of, so what is your beef?" Orsetetto

 

No beef. I mistakenly, had the impression that you were calling Fuji cameras "@fuji has the luxury of being able to somewhat subsidize an eccentric, boutique camera division" as a generalisation on all Fuji cameras.

 

Got in wrong...my bad.

 

So, what is the desirability of a Fuji camera?

 

The lenses. The controls at your fingertips, as opposed to diving into menus. The jpegs somewhat special..

 

Gear talk is basically is what PN is about. But when we are talking gear, it is nice to see some supporting photos. Ed, a serious supporter of the Sony A7 range is never shy of posting a photo to support his views. Credit to him. Perhaps a thought for others, as we are a photographic forum, which implies photographs not just talk talk.

 

Just a thought.

"The GFX is a real bargain at $10K, compared to a 100 MP Hasselblad H6 at $35K. A Canon 1Dxii is $6K and a Nikon D5 lists at $6500, and only 20 MP."

 

What more can you say.

 

To me it is about pixel peeps folk and unnecessary.

 

I have 15" by 10" on my wall from a 6mp Nikon Nobody who has viewed it has complained about its lack of pixels.

"The GFX is a real bargain at $10K, compared to a 100 MP Hasselblad H6 at $35K. A Canon 1Dxii is $6K and a Nikon D5 lists at $6500, and only 20 MP."

 

What more can you say.

 

To me it is about pixel peeps folk and unnecessary.

 

I have 15" by 10" on my wall from a 6mp Nikon Nobody who has viewed it has complained about its lack of pixels.

I have 13x19 prints from a 12mp D90 that look great, and nowadays APSC cameras with 24mp are ordinary and produce great results. A 100mp camera is specialty stuff. You’d have to have some really high end needs to buy one.

It's about time! Finally we'll be able to take a good photo.

Ideally, we should avoid the tendency toward reverse snobbism almost as much as the tendency to pixel peep. Digital technology evolves, and the new baseline shifts every couple of years: whether we like it or not, whether it really adds anything to the imagery or not.

 

Some of my most beautiful travel pics were taken ten years ago on a trip thru Italy, using a broken-down already-long-outdated circa-2002 Nikon CoolPix 3500 pocket cam (whopping 3.2MP). The camera mainboard had blown, a typical fault with this model which causes it to drain a fully charged battery within 30mins, so the only way to shoot it all day is to remove/reinsert the battery between shots. Even with this annoyance, I managed to snag almost 1000 pics. I put up with the inconvenience because I knew this cam inside and out, phone cams were garbage by comparison back then, and the performance of the 3500 is really quite remarkable for its era (colors and sharpness are excellent, and the pics still hold up when displayed casually on a 60" HDTV).

 

But that doesn't mean it would hold up for professional purposes today, nor perhaps would my equally excellent D40 or D700 pics. Still love and use those bodies, often in preference to my Sony A7II. The Sony I keep for critical manual focus with my large collection of vintage Nikkors, but I don't like it much. 24MP is nice, but the files are "meh" colorwise, requiring more work than from my old Nikons. Horses for courses, and subjective taste.

 

Commercial pressures from an ever-dwindling and snarky pool of clients, or budget slashing at institutional/govt departments, often forces the hand of professional photographers toward gear they may not personally feel they need. The Fuji 33x44 offerings are perfectly positioned to serve this niche, while straddling the upscale enthusiast market as well. For all the cute remarks we make on forums re overly-obsessive pixel peeping, the fact remains commercial/institutional clients now routinely pixel-peep to extremes when justifying the cost of a professional photographer for a project (as do some fine art purchasers, who will scrutinize a print's resolution as if it were the Dead Sea Scrolls while nearly ignoring its artistic content).

 

Phase One offers 100MP and 150MP medium format systems to this niche at prices approaching that of a new Porsche Cayenne, and nobody bats an eye: they wince and pay it (or rent it). The first-gen Fuji 33x44 GFX cameras with 50MP sensors were not fully competitive in this sphere, but the new 100MP model lands right in Phase One's wheelhouse at a MUCH lower price. The small subset of landscape, architectural and cultural legacy museum photographers who actually DO need 100MP 33x44 (but don't necessarily need leaf shutters or extreme movements) will be delighted to have this new, more integrated and portable option. The $10K price and 100MP output of the GFX-100S are undoubtedly overkill for the vast majority of enthusiasts, but an outright bargain in the limited, very specific pro sphere it nibbles at.

Edited June 6, 2019 by orsetto

Had anyone else noticed how similar the fuji looks to the New Olympus?

The E-M1X? It looks as different as two black mirrorless cameras with vertical grips can.