5 Things You Will Love & Hate About the Fujifilm GFX … … But It’s Frankly Fujifilm’s Best Product Launch Ever ;)

Fujifilm GFX: BHphoto, Adorama, AmazonUS
Fujinon GF63mmF2.8: BHphoto, Adorama, AmazonUS

5 Things You Will Love and Hate about the GFX

Holy Moly! That was a heck of an annonucement.

And after the massive live blogging (that still continues!!!), I’m slowly finding the time to go through the various first look reviews. And I invite you to check out the live blogging, too. A lot of great stuff to find there also about the X-T20, X100F and XF50mmF2.

But now I want to focus on the GFX, and make a list of 5 things you are going to love & hate about it. I’m basing the list on the first looks I’ve read.

LOVE:

A hard list, because there is so much to love about it.

1. Image Quality “deserves to be printed“: Astonishing Sharpness (see for example the video at minute 3:30 at thedigitaltrekker). Excellent high ISO (Read also High ISO… Noise, What Noise? at Damien Lovegrove’s prophotonut) and great dynamic range.
2. Dual Operation: Command dials or dedicated Shutter/ISO/Aperture Dial? You can use whatever you prefer. Extremely customizable camera overall.
3. Despite the Beta Firmware, the AF speed is snappy and seems to be already as fast as the X-T1 (read ivanjoshualoh).
4. EVF: A “monster of a viewfinder“, says jonasraskphotography. Huge (0,85x magnification), high resolution, tilting… awesome!
5. You can create TIFF files in camera

HATE:

I think that, with the GFX, Fujifilm made the best product launch ever (much better than when they launched the X-system). It comes with tons of features and 6 lenses in just 1 year. So it’s hard to find the “Hates” and I’m streching the list quite a bit. The GFX is an awesome camera, but I’ll challange myself and pick out 5 points:

1. Price: You get the kit for $8,000. Considering that we are talking of a Medium Format camera, this is actually a more than fair price, but it’s still $8,000… and most of us won’t be able to afford it.
2. There is an adapter for HC lenses. So you can get the leaf shutter. And there are electronic contacts for aperture. But no Autofocus.
3. The file size is big. And with the new Super-Fine JPEG setting, you have little compression. But when it comes to workflow, rendering a preview can be cumbersome (up to 10 seconds according to thedigitaltrekker – Video minute 4:25)
4. 14 bit color depth. That’s what the specs say. But a Swiss Manager, who said it would have 16 bit color depth, was wrong. But from all the samples I could see until now, I think we might easily get over it 😉
5. 1/125th sync speed (but you can adapt leaf shutter lenses on it… and HSS can help here, too)

And how would your “5 Loves & Hates” list look like? I’d be curious to read it in the comments.

Fujifilm GFX: BHphoto, Adorama, AmazonUS
Fujinon GF63mmF2.8: BHphoto, Adorama, AmazonUS
Fujinon GF32-64mmF4: BHphoto, Adorama, AmazonUS
Fujinon GF120mmF4 Macro: BHphoto, Adorama, AmazonUS

Fujifilm X-T20: BHphoto, Adorama, AmazonUS
Fujifilm X100F: BHphoto, Adorama, AmazonUS
Fujifilm XF50mmF2 WR: BHphoto, Adorama, AmazonUS