When Apple launched the iPhone 15 Professional, Greg Joswiak, the corporate’s senior vice chairman of worldwide advertising, stated the gadget’s three rear cameras would give customers “the equal of seven digicam 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 suggest was that the iPhone now had sensors with a decision that was massive and excessive sufficient that it might crop in to emulate numerous 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 will be simple 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 suppose, the GFX100RF is all about flexibility and intentionality. Utilizing its high-resolution 102MP sensor, an all-new side ratio dial and 4 completely different digital “zoom” modes, Fujifilm goals to switch 9 cameras and 4 lenses with one comparatively compact physique.
Fujifilm’s GFX100RF is the corporate’s most compact medium-format digicam but. Housing the identical sensor as its flagship GFX100II, the $4,900 digicam is vastly succesful, delivering the identical pleasant bodily controls and wealthy colours the model is thought for. There’s a motive folks love taking pictures with Fujifilm cameras, and in the event you’re on the lookout for extra of that have, the GFX100RF received’t allow you to down.
The brand new twist this digicam provides to the components is its side ratio dial. This bodily dial, mounted to the again of the digicam, helps you to decide from considered one of 9 completely different codecs to border your picture. As somebody who nonetheless shoots lots of previous movie cameras, it had me geeking out massive time. Notably, as a result of the side ratios the digicam presents are based mostly on actual movie cameras Fujifilm manufactured a long time in the past. It’s a really enjoyable throwback. You possibly can 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 digicam.
As a result of Fujifilm didn’t embody 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 side ratios as an alternative. You possibly can see the total scene with body traces, a 50% opacity mode that permits you to see what’s exterior your body, or a full blackout mode that solely reveals the crop you’re taking pictures.
After testing this digicam for a couple of month, I’ve began to marvel why each digicam doesn’t have a dial like this. Carrying the digicam 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 of ‘good’ within the full 4:3 mode was upgraded to ‘nice’ as soon as I discovered the proper crop for it.
Now clearly, whenever you crop out a big portion of a picture, you’re additionally cropping an honest quantity of decision. However even when utilizing the most-cropped 65×24 ratio, you’re nonetheless left with a big 50MP file. And in the event you shoot RAW along with JPG and also you edit in Adobe Lightroom, RAW information will likely 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 digicam presents 35mm, 45mm, 63mm, and 80mm choices, which equate to about 28mm, 35mm, 50mm and 63mm in full-frame phrases. These “zoom” modes can even value 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 swap to the entrance of the digicam 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 digicam to do all of it, and in lots of methods, it defies expectations of what a fixed-lens digicam is constructed to do. However sadly, the GFX100RF can be restricted in two key methods: a comparatively gradual f/4 aperture and a scarcity of optical picture stabilization.
An f/4 aperture on Fujifilm’s medium format sensor equates to about f/3.16 on a full-frame digicam, 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 knocking down the shutter pace. On a digicam 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 almost each time I’m going take pictures, this wasn’t an enormous deal for me. However Fujifillm is positioning this digicam as the very best on a regular basis digicam available on the market, and and not using a quicker lens or optical picture stabilization, you may need bother taking pictures with this digicam 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 digicam. The 100RF is simply marginally larger than the Fujifilm X100VI, so it could not have developed a stabilization system compact sufficient for the physique but. And at $4,899, which remains to be fairly costly, this digicam is available in cheaper than another GFX physique Fujifilm presently sells. Plus, this one features a lens.
However what perplexes me probably the most in regards to the digicam 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 an extended 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, quicker lens?
There’s little doubt the GFX100RF will likely be persistently in comparison with Leica’s full-frame Q3 — primarily as a result of, till not too long ago, in the event you wished a fair remotely new fixed-lens digicam with a big sensor, the Q3 was just about your solely possibility. And whereas Fujifilm has Leica beat with its new versatile side ratio dial and ultra-high decision, Leica trades these options for a a lot quicker 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 another choice obtainable available on the market.
I actually beloved my time with this digicam. Composing almost each side of your remaining picture in-camera is an actual pleasure, and I’ve a tender spot in my coronary heart for bodily dials. However for a digicam that aspires to do all of it with one lens, you’re going to wish a tripod to make {that a} actuality.
Images by David Imel