The house and the studio/office were both nice and chilly this morning. I'd have stayed in bed and luxuriated in the cool embrace of interior paradise but for the siren call of our morning swim workout. I hauled myself out of bed, dressed in the almost obligatory summer wear (thin, floppy, long sleeve shirt with an SPF rating of 40; dress shorts, Teva sandals, and a Fjall Raven wide brimmed hat) and headed over to the pool. After a long workout I headed back home to grab some chow and to also grab today's object of curiosity and interest: the Fuji GFX 50Sii. Oh...and the 50mm f3.5 lens for that system.
In the interest of a vaguely objective appraisal I opted to shoot in Fuji's raw file format and I set the camera for the way I like to shoot when there's no money on the table. That would be in Aperture mode, Auto-ISO (diligently overriding the EV control), white balance set to the little "sun" icon and the lens set to f5.6. Single point AF using S-AF and that's about it. As simple as I can make the process.
Some observations. The camera is fairly heavy and feels dense. That's fine. It's in the same ballpark as the Leica SL2 and I'm used to carrying that around for hours with no discomfort. The native aspect ratio of the sensor is 4:3 which is more square than the typical 3:2 and that means when and if I crop the frame and shoot at 1:1 I don't lose as much overall resolution. At 1:1 you are still getting about 38 megapixels of data.
The 50mm f3.5 lens I got with the kit is bulky but not too heavy. It's a nice partner for the camera and keeps the whole package reasonably small.
I have a simple adapter for Nikon F to Fuji GFX lens mounting. I have four Nikon F mount lenses to play around with. They are: Voigtlander 40mm Ultron, Carl Zeiss ZF 50mm f1.4 Planar, Nikon/Nikkor 50mm f1.4, and the Voigtlander 58mm f1.4 lens. All are interesting and good in their own way. The Ziess lens and the Voigtlander 58mm are exceptionally good once you move past f2.0 ( using f2.8-f8.0 to get the good stuff). All four of the lenses vignette on the mini-medium format sensor in the GFX but not by much. The 58mm has the least vignetting. Since my plan is to use the camera in the square format I am happy to report that all of the lenses work at that aspect ratio with minimal to no vignetting and few optical issues.
I would like something longer but I need to work with the camera for a while before I decide how to proceed. I may, just for a change, shy away from diving into endless legacy permutations and go directly to the GFX 100-200mm zoom. But that's still way off in the mists of the future.
One thing about the GFX50Sii that I have to say I really love is the top mounted display with the big wheels which show the aperture and the ISO, or the aperture and shutter speed setting (depending on how you have them set). The display is a perfect for a quick glance and it's always on so you don't have to turn on the camera and wait in order to see your settings.
I'm not sure the back panel is as well calibrated for relative exposures and I found that I kept using exposure compensation set at minus one stop in order to make the EVF or the rear screen expose the way I wanted. But, of course, when I got back to the computer my in the field compensation made for files that were actually darker by half to three quarters of a stop than what I was seeing by "eyeball measurements." Lesson learned? Trust the meter or experience over the previews.
None of the images I made today were a tough test for any modern camera or lens. I was working with bright sun and stationary objects. I was using the camera with a shutter speed that was usually up in the 1/2000th second area and a modern 50mm lens used at f5.6 should be just about bulletproof.
I spent a couple hours just walking. From about 10:30 till about 12:30 pm and then it just started getting too hot. Really. Too hot. Also the battery, which had a charge reading of 76% when I left the house has dropped down to two bars --- or around 25%. It was time to call an end to today's joust with hostile weather. The earth has resources/weapons at its disposal that I'll never be able to beat.
The files look great in Lightroom. Easy to work with and, I hope you can see for yourself in the samples, filled with incredible dynamic range. Easily one of the best DR performances I've personally experienced....
The lens is sharp, the camera is straightforward and fun to use, the hat was superb. Click through and see for yourself. These are all minimally processed in Lightroom, converted to Jpegs and pushed up to the web to enjoy the tender mercies of compression and other forms of partial destruction. But I think they still hold up fine.
The camera and lens are keepers. Not sure I would have spent the list price on the package but happily part with cash at the price I did agree on.
Stay cool. Have fun. Now that it's over 102° the logical thing to do is take a nap on the couch, under the ceiling fan, with an icy Pellegrino at hand. Ciao.
Square black and white portraits coming up next....
13 comments:
To be honest I do not see any difference between the Fuji, your Leica SL or CL or your Sigma FP. The Leica and Sigma do have a "richer" look.
Good luck with the heat, be safe, heat can kill a senior street photographer :)
As for me I'm trying to rid myself of extra camera gear and lower my BP. I haven't been working out for a few months and I gained 8 lbs back resulting in an increase in my BP by 10 points to 138/64. With that in mind I'm trying to pick one camera and 2 lenses for street work/events/photojournalism and a camera for landscape work.
Less food and more activity is the key to good health, and that's where photography comes in. If you are out looking for images, you think less about food, and you get more exercise, it's a win win.
Be safe in the heat.
Hi Roger, I think Blogger does a great job at homogenizing all digital images down to the lowest common denominator. I should probably describe what I see in comparisons and caution readers to value the written description over the representation on the screens. Only fair.
BP really can vary can't it? Diet and exercise are part of the cure and then my doctor tells me the third leg of the stool is reducing stress. I'm always working on that.... not always successfully....
Hang in there. I'm not out in the worst parts of the day and I'm pretty careful. But I'll redouble my vigilance. Thanks!
bravo to both the photos and the prose! still waiting for the sequel to your novel if that's what you end up doing :-)
Kirk,
I own the GFX 50ii,63 2.8,35-70,and the 100-200 all are great performers.The 100-200 is a standout absolutely superb optics and remarkable I.S.its a little heavy but easy to hand hold.Enjoy your new toy!and yes you can immediately see the difference when you print those images out!
The Fujifilm GF 32-64mm f4 zoom Lens is also very good and nice to use. Particularly as you now embrace the 28mm angle of view, (the Fuji is 25 to 50mm equivalent).
With the impasse of no Canon mirrorless to replace the 5DSR (I find the R5 very ordinary and several notches below in both build and sensor output), perhaps I should check out the Fuji GFX again.......
Thank you for the write up, I know it’s early days but how would you compare the DR vs the Lumix S1R?
As someone who has played around with many different cameras, at some point I came to the realization that there is very little insofar as a walking around camera where you need anything special or higher MP or really more than a current iPhone unless you like the form factor of what a camera feels like in your hand, then pick literally any current camera whose form factor you like and you are good to go. All of your photos posted you have done numerous times in one way or another and this is not a criticism of that. It is that these taken with a very expensive camera are no different in any way from any other camera that you have used over the years in which you have shared these kinds of photos. So what is the point? You are not a “tester” of new camera gear. Do you need the thrill of taking out a new camera (to you at least) in order to get out there to take photos? Of course not, you love to go out and take photos. I have found that one camera does it and I dont bother chasing rainbows, unless it is to take a photo of a real one. Just saying.
There is always someone hellbent on saving me from myself........
Kirk - I think that having a variety of formats to work with is a good idea. I am glad to see that you got a medium format camera that you at a very good price. I look forward to seeing more photos from this camera.
I am saddened to hear that Texas and much of the Southern and Southwest US are having a heat ordeal. Stay as cool as you can. Take care.
Congrats on returning to the Fuji world. I love my X-T5 and X-S10 after also returning. I used to have the X-T1, X-E2, and X100T but went off on my own exploration of other systems. It was fun (and expensive), but I'm glad to be back.
In case you don't know about it, the "pal2tech" YouTube site is a wealth of info on all things Fuji, and the guy behind it is very entertaining to boot. Yesterday he talked about the latest firmware updates. They are mostly bug fixes, but your GFX50S-2 gets support for the new Fuji app, which I don't have a use for, but you might.
Dick
Kirk, I have to say that I second what Anonymous said about the 35-70. I own the GFX100s and the 35-70 is as good as very good prime lenses at all the focal lengths. Haven't tried the 100-200 but the 110mm prime is astonishingly good - right up there with APO SL, Voigtlander and Zeiss on my Leicas.
Thanks Jon, Just waiting for B&H to open up this evening so I can push the "magic" button. Seems like a no brainer...
The color and contrast looks gorgeous. Makes me want one.
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