It's no secret that there is a rivalry developing in the medium format digital world these days. The older players have been joined by Fujifilm with their
GFX 50S camera and its range of lenses. It stopped the show at last year's Photokina and is doing the same here in the shop. The good news for Perth photographers is that it is available readily - no need to wait until production builds up - and you can make a careful assessment of it by trying out the rental kit we have.
It's got a big sensor - 43.8mm x 32.9 mm and it will throw 51.4 megapixels into your SD cards. You will need more memory to operate something like this, and more computer power, time, and storage to deal with the files.
The shutters in the camera allow a range of anywhere from 4 seconds to 1/16,000 of a second - you can synch at 1/125th. It would make an awesome studio camera. Not a fast shooter, though - max of 3 fps. You can choose between 100-12,800 ISO in the standard range or go out of he easy shooting up to 102,400 ISO for JPEGs. There are about 117 areas for focusing on the screen.
The rear LCD is a help in a fixed studio - it tilts and allows you to operate by touch. If you want to fire your results off or control the camera by other means there is full wireless connectivity. The specs quote some 400 shots from the battery.
This sort of camera, as all other medium format cameras, is a detail machine - you will see people who need maximum recording ability using it for fashion, catalogue, scientific, or portrait work.
They can choose from three lenses right now - 63mm standard with a 2.8 aperture, a 110mm f2 portrait lens, and a short zoom with a 32-64mm f4 range.
They will shortly be joined by a 23mm f4 wideangle and a 120mm f4 macro lens - a useful professional spread of glass for the exclusive Fujifilm G mount.
The camera and lenses are probably going to be somewhat less expensive that their rivals, but like them, are unlikely to have other manufacturers making glass for the system. Once you are committed, you are committed. Adequate processing software options exist for dealing with the files - but remember that these are large amounts of information.
There will be a hands-on report one week in our regular weblog column of the first encounter with the camera system - you need not wait for me, however - you can rent and try right now. It will be particularly productive for those of you who enjoy the Fujifilm film simulations in their smaller cameras.
Click
here for full camera specs.
