Back in August, Tony and Chelsea Northrup have posted their thoughts about the so-called mirrorless war, where they basically predicted success for full frame, and said Fujifilm will remain a niche product, because it’s only APS-C and they don’t have super fast glass to match full frame DOF. You can see the summary of the video here.
William Chua took the Fujifilm GFX 50R out for some street photography in Cologne. You can read the full blog post and see the samples at williamchua.com. Some excerpts:
Being a GFX 50s user, he was not too excited about this camera. But after using it for a few days, he has to say he loves it more and more
Its a great camera for street photography
might not be as comfortable to use with big glass like the GF 250mm
in a lot of his sample images, he used face detection, and he’s glad to say it works extremely well
Jonas Rask shares his impressions of the Photokina 2018 in the best way possible: by sharing wonderful images taken with Fujifilm GFX 50R and X100F. Check out his article “When the floor dust settles” at jonasrask here.
Kai Wong was at photokina and shares his walkthrough the various booths. Of course he also checked out the Fujifilm GFX 50R. Jump to minute 5:43 here, to check out the part about Fujifilm.
MediumFormat: First Impressions of the Fujifilm GFX 50R at mediumformat
PhoBlographer writes in his Fujifilm GFX 50R first impressions that the Fujifilm GFX 50R is the camera he’s been waiting for. They would like a 50MP X-Trans version and pay even more for it, and faster glass (such as the rumored GF 80mm F1.4) would also be appreciated. Read it all at phoblographer here.
Spanish: The Spanish site albedomedia (translation) goes hands on with the Fujifilm GFX 50R. They share their impressions as well as some media slides including an overview of Fujifilm’s camera history, which you can see below.
Fujifilm GFX 100 MP X-Trans
ThePhoblographer had a talk with Fujifilm USA manager Justin Stailey, mainly about the Fujifilm GFX 50R, but there was also a question about the Fujfiilm GFX 100.
Phoblographer: Why isn’t the GFX 100MP sensor an X Trans sensor? Justin: I don’t think we said that it was or was not X-Trans. but…In Medium Format, the Bayer Sensor has proven to provide excellent image quality
So, despite hinting that a Bayer sensor is more likely than an X-Trans sensor, Fuji Manager Justin did not exclude the possibility it could be a 100 Megapixel X-Trans sensor. Read the whole interview at phoblographer.
DPReivew just published the interview they had with top Fujifilm manager Toshihisa Iida at photokina 2018, which includes the clearest statement I have ever heard so far if Fujifilm will go full frame or not. It’s a clear “No, never!”
He also opens to the possiblity of an interchangeable lens Instax camera and maybe even cine lenses for the GFX system.
Here some excerpts of the interview.
Q: Will Fujifilm ever enter the full-frame market? A: No, never. Because we don’t have that legacy – luckily or unluckily. We don’t see any point in Fujifilm entering that market, particularly since we have good APS-C and medium format systems. If we entered full-frame [our systems] would just start cannibalizing each other. We’re happy to stay with two completely independent systems.
Q: Do you see many of your users upgrading from X to GFX? A: Not quite yet. Because they’re totally different systems. […] I hope that in near future more X Series customers will step up to GFX.
Q: GFX 50R and GFX 100S A: All GFX 50R controls must be reachable with one hand, that was our concept for usability. We wanted the camera to be more suited to street, reportage and portrait photography. The forthcoming 100MP camera is more SLR style, with a detachable viewfinder, more similar to the 50S, but with an integrated battery grip for greater battery capacity. The sensor and the image stabilization system need more power. The biggest challenge was image stabilization.
Q: Will the viewfinder experience of the 100MP camera be better to the current GFX 50S and 50R? A: It should be a lot better, yes, because the readout speed of the new sensor is a lot quicker. The sensor and the processor itself are both upgraded. The processor is much more powerful.
Q: Video features on Fujifilm cameras? A: The forthcoming 100MP camera will be the first 4K/30p GFX camera. […] With the X Series we have a plan, for example to extend recording time, and make the menus more usable for still and video shooting.
Q: 100MP and 4K/30p represent a huge amount of data – is SD media still appropriate? A: I think that SD media and HDMI output are enough for now
Q: Do you welcome third-party lens manufacturers that want to create lenses for XF and GF? A: They’re not open standards as yet, but of course our customers want choice. We’re always considering what would benefit our customers, and more lenses are generally beneficial for customers.
Q: Should we expect to see more smaller, compact lenses for GF mount, like the forthcoming 50mm pancake? A: Yes, in the future we’d like to expand our lineup of compact lenses for GF.
Q: In the past we’ve spoken about software corrections for some lenses. Do you see a future where your high-quality lenses could be made smaller using software? A: We always prioritize optical quality first, minimizing software correction. That’s our policy at the moment, and I don’t think it will change. That’s why the APS-C format is important to us. We make the lenses as small as possible, without [a lot of] software correction.
Q: What are the challenges of designing fast focusing large-aperture lenses? A: A brighter lens means that each element is heavier. So we need to build in more powerful focus actuators, but there’s limited space. So it’s always a tradeoff of lens brightness, focus speed, and how heavy the lens is.
The Spanish site Fujistas was at the Fujifilm GFX 50R launch event. They wrote about it on their blog here (translation), and amongst the others, they shared the following tidbits:
Fujifilm claims to be worldwide Nr.2 mirrorless camera manufacturer
they demonstrated the crop capabilities of the Fujifilm GFX 100 Megapixel camera and they were extremely impressed
If Fujifilm’s statement is correct, then Fuji surpassed Panasonic and Olympus, and, considering also DSLRs, they are now 4th behind Sony, Nikon and Canon.
Also, a few days ago we shared some Chinese Fujifilm media slides that showed us the details of the upcoming firmware update for Fujifilm GFX 50S. However, we struggled a bit with the translation.
Now Fujistas shared the English version of the slide (see above). The firmware update for Fujifilm GFX50S will bring the following new functions:
35mm Format Mode with GF lens and Fujinon HC lenses
