When Apple launched the iPhone 15 Professional, Greg Joswiak, the corporate’s senior vp of worldwide advertising, stated the gadget’s three rear cameras would give shoppers “the equal of seven digital camera lenses of their pocket.”
We might spend a number of podcasts debating the technical validity of that assertion, however what Joswiak was making an attempt to indicate was that the iPhone now had sensors with a decision that was massive and excessive sufficient that it might crop in to emulate varied focal lengths.
Now, Fujifilm is making an attempt the identical factor.
With a 35mm lens caught to a physique shockingly much like the super-popular X100VI, it could be straightforward to imagine Fuji’s new GFX100RF is the corporate’s try and take a successful technique and scale it as much as medium format.
However whereas most fixed-lens cameras just like the X100VI create intentional limitations and encourage you to shoot greater than you assume, the GFX100RF is all about flexibility and intentionality. Utilizing its high-resolution 102MP sensor, an all-new facet ratio dial and 4 completely different digital “zoom” modes, Fujifilm goals to exchange 9 cameras and 4 lenses with one comparatively compact physique.
$4899
The Good
- Side ratio dial is a unbelievable addition
- 102MP sensor provides tons of flexibility
- Compact design
The Dangerous
- f/4 minimal aperture feels limiting
- No in-body picture stabilization
- Filter adapter and lens hood triple dimension of lens
Fujifilm’s GFX100RF is the corporate’s most compact medium-format digital camera but. Housing the identical sensor as its flagship GFX100II, the $4,900 digital camera is massively succesful, delivering the identical pleasant bodily controls and wealthy colours the model is understood for. There’s a purpose folks love taking pictures with Fujifilm cameras, and if you happen to’re in search of extra of that have, the GFX100RF gained’t allow you to down.
The brand new twist this digital camera provides to the method is its facet ratio dial. This bodily dial, mounted to the again of the digital camera, helps you to choose from one in every of 9 completely different codecs to border your picture. As somebody who nonetheless shoots quite a lot of previous movie cameras, it had me geeking out massive time. Significantly, as a result of the facet ratios the digital camera presents are primarily based on actual movie cameras Fujifilm manufactured a long time in the past. It’s a really enjoyable throwback. You’ll be able to select between 4:3, 3:2, 16:9, 17:6, 3:4, 1:1, 7:6, 5:4, and, my favourite, 65:24 — an homage to Fujifilm’s legendary TX-1 panoramic digital camera.
As a result of Fujifilm didn’t embrace the hybrid optical viewfinder such as you’ll see within the X100VI and X-Pro3, it included three completely different view modes for composing with these facet ratios as a substitute. You’ll be able to see the total scene with body traces, a 50% opacity mode that permits you to see what’s outdoors your body, or a full blackout mode that solely exhibits the crop you’re taking pictures.
After testing this digital camera for a couple of month, I’ve began to surprise why each digital camera doesn’t have a dial like this. Carrying the digital camera round Utah, it was a ton of enjoyable to leap round completely different ratios whereas composing a photograph, and in a number of circumstances, a picture that I’d solely thought-about ‘good’ within the full 4:3 mode was upgraded to ‘nice’ as soon as I discovered the suitable crop for it.
Now clearly, once you crop out a big portion of a picture, you’re additionally cropping a good quantity of decision. However even when utilizing the most-cropped 65×24 ratio, you’re nonetheless left with a big 50MP file. And if you happen to shoot RAW along with JPG and also you edit in Adobe Lightroom, RAW information can be ingested pre-cropped with the choice to zoom out to the total 4:3 picture. I really like that.
The super-high decision of the sensor has one other profit, although. The GFX100RF presents 4 digital focal lengths, which crop into the middle of the sensor to ship a special subject of view. The digital camera presents 35mm, 45mm, 63mm, and 80mm choices, which equate to about 28mm, 35mm, 50mm and 63mm in full-frame phrases. These “zoom” modes will even price you decision too, although, with the total 80mm focal size cropped to 65×24 spitting out a 9MP picture.
To make zooming in easy, Fujifilm added a small change to the entrance of the digital camera much like what you’d see on an previous camcorder. And proper above that, you’ll discover a remappable knurled dial, which unusually wasn’t mapped to something out of the field on my unit.
It seems like Fujifilm constructed this digital camera to do all of it, and in quite a lot of methods, it defies expectations of what a fixed-lens digital camera is constructed to do. However sadly, the GFX100RF can also be restricted in two key methods: a comparatively sluggish f/4 aperture and an absence of optical picture stabilization.
An f/4 aperture on Fujifilm’s medium format sensor equates to about f/3.16 on a full-frame digital camera, and whereas that isn’t horrible by any means, it felt limiting in my time with it. A slower aperture means much less mild on the sensor, and fewer mild means pushing up the ISO or flattening the shutter pace. On a digital camera just like the Fujifilm X100VI with optical picture stabilization, I might comfortably drop the shutter pace all the way down to a full second hand-held. However on the GFX100RF, the slowest I might comfortably shoot handheld with out getting a shaky picture was 1/30 — possibly fifteenth if I used to be particularly regular.
As somebody who carries round a tripod practically each time I am going take images, this wasn’t an enormous deal for me. However Fujifillm is positioning this digital camera as the very best on a regular basis digital camera available on the market, and with out a sooner lens or optical picture stabilization, you may need bother taking pictures with this digital camera as soon as the sunshine will get low, except you utilize uncomfortably excessive ISO values. Once I needed to shoot in decrease mild, I typically switched to Fuji’s glorious Acros black and white simulation, which is made to look fairly grainy anyway.
It’s comprehensible why Fujifilm might not have added optical picture stabilization to this digital camera. The 100RF is just marginally greater than the Fujifilm X100VI, so it might not have developed a stabilization system compact sufficient for the physique but. And at $4,899, which remains to be fairly costly, this digital camera is available in cheaper than every other GFX physique Fujifilm at the moment sells. Plus, this one features a lens.
However what perplexes me probably the most concerning the digital camera is the choice to make use of an f/4 aperture. Taken alone, the lens is shockingly small — smaller than each devoted GF lens that Fujifilm sells by a protracted shot. However Fuji additionally features a lens hood and filter adapter ring within the field, and, added collectively, these equipment nearly triple the general footprint of the lens to the purpose the place it’s about as massive because the lens on the Leica Q3. And at that time, why not simply make a much bigger, sooner lens?
There’s little question the GFX100RF can be constantly in comparison with Leica’s full-frame Q3 — primarily as a result of, till lately, if you happen to needed a good remotely new fixed-lens digital camera with a big sensor, the Q3 was just about your solely possibility. And whereas Fujifilm has Leica beat with its new versatile facet ratio dial and ultra-high decision, Leica trades these options for a a lot sooner f/1.7 lens and optical picture stabilization. Which options matter to you might be going to rely upon what sort of photographer you might be. And, on the very least, I’m glad there’s lastly an alternative choice obtainable available on the market.
I actually cherished my time with this digital camera. Composing practically each facet of your closing picture in-camera is an actual pleasure, and I’ve a comfortable spot in my coronary heart for bodily dials. However for a digital camera that aspires to do all of it with one lens, you’re going to want a tripod to make {that a} actuality.
Images by David Imel