Fujifilm GFX Review Part I

Reviewed by Stephen Scharf

I recently rented a Fujifilm GFX 50S and the GF 32–64mm ƒ/4 zoom lens for a few days over a long weekend, a weekend that included my last professional motor race of the year, the Go Pro Grand Prix of Sonoma Indy Car race. To get a feel the camera in real-world settings, I thought it would be fun to use the GFX at the race for atmosphere, paddock and pit lane photos, as well as doing some landscape and architectural photography. This user review will be comprised of three parts: Part I, operation and first impressions; Part II, photographic use and image quality; and Part III, final impressions and conclusions.

Operation and first impressions
The GFX has the solid, robust feeling of a professional body, with all-magnesium construction and a grippy rubber covering. A deep front grip and extruded thumb rest ensure excellent purchase when holding the camera. The fit, finish, and overall build quality are excellent, as we’ve come to expect from Fujifilm.

As a Fuji X-T2 user, it was very easy to get up to speed with the GFX: the lens aperture rings and control knobs for setting ISO and shutter speed, the camera back with D-pad and function buttons and menu system are effectively identical to the X-T2. On the right side of the top cover there's an LCD in place of the exposure compensation knob that displays at a glance key camera settings, frames remaining, etc.

The 32–64mm ƒ/4 lens (25–51mm-e) is also very high-quality and well-made, the aperture ring having just the right amount of resistance to prevent accidental changes. The large rubber grip for the zoom ring makes holding the camera and lens very nicely balanced in-hand.

On both camera and lens, there are nicely thought-out design details. For example, the top surface of the ISO and shutter speed knobs are concave for improved ergonomics, a better feel turning the knobs and a more positive engagement of the locking buttons. The LCD articulates to the same positions as the X-T2, and also has a touch-screen to select both AF lock or position. In addition to the artificial horizon there is a set of half-rings with markings that can be displayed that show the degrees of pitch and roll of the camera.

Very cool.

There's also a framing outline that can be invoked on the LCD making it easier to see the frame borders when shooting against dark backgrounds, such as black seamless. Nice. Another big win is the self-timer can be set to remain invoked even if the camera is shut off.

The GF-series lenses have a "C" position in addition to the "A" setting on the aperture ring that allows setting of lens aperture with the command dial instead of the aperture ring if desired. There is also an interlock on the aperture ring of the lens that prevents selecting the C and A modes accidentally.

All these design details shows how well Fuji thinks things through regarding design, ergonomics, and functionality, providing photographers with the flexibility to configure the camera in a way that's best suited to their preferred style of operation.

Mounting the lens, the GFX is compact for a medium-format camera, but the most surprising thing is just how light it is. I don't know how Fuji made a camera and lens that are so well-made and robust, yet so light. Every photographer I showed the camera to remarked on its lightness.

Here’s a photo showing the GFX and 32–64mm next to my X-T2 for scale. The camera, with the 32–64mm attached, fits very easily into a Think Tank Retro 7 with room for an X-T2 and another lens or two.

Powering up, the camera starts up quickly and the electronic viewfinder is beautiful: big, bright, clear, and fast, with excellent resolution. The LCD is also very high-resolution and looks gorgeous. With the 32–64mm zoom lens mounted, I found the autofocus to be quite fast; likely faster than my X-T1, and plenty fast enough for the type of photography for which this camera was designed.

After taking a photo, there is a blackout of ~½ second, which is the time the Sony sensor takes to read out the data from the sensor. I noticed the blackout for the first five or six frames. The GFX is very much a "think about what you are doing before you take the photograph" kind of camera, and with that mentality in mind, after those first few frames, the blackout was something I never noticed when using the camera.

Pardon the cat photos, but these happen to be the very first shots I made with the GFX. I tried a to do a bit of product photography the night the camera arrived but my newly adopted little kitten, Aga, took over proceedings, so I took a few informal portraits of her.

This is a straight out-of-camera JPEG with virtually no editing.

The image below is a 100% crop (once you open it by double-clicking on it) of Aga’s cute little face. TOP's blog template unavoidably softens and blurs images somewhat, but take my word for it: the color, naturalness of tones, and detail, particularly on a 5K Retina display, are very impressive.

Overall, my first impressions are that the GFX is a very well-made and well-designed camera that is easy to pick up straightaway and start shooting with. Straight out-of-camera JPEGs show very accurate color and skin tones and impressive detail. They require little to no editing. The camera's compact size and light weight make it very easy to shoot with effectively hand-held.

More soon. In Part II I'll concentrate on using the GFX in a real-world photographic setting, and an evaluation of image quality.

Stephen

A scientist by profession and a photographer by avocation, Stephen Scharf has been a professionally accredited motorsports photojournalist since 2003. He’s currently one of the track photographers for Sonoma Raceway, covering all their professional motorsports and racing events for photojournalism, PR, and media purposes. His photographs have been published in numerous newspapers in the SF Bay Area, including the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as various motorsports websites and magazines. His work also includes landscape, architectural, urban exploration, fine art and documentary street photography.

©2017 by Stephen Scharf, all rights reserved

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Comments

[Gordon Lewis]

FWIW, the Fujifilm GFX body weighs 2 pounds (920g). The 32-64mm zoom weighs about the same: 1.93 pounds (875g). Together they weigh 4 pounds -- about the same as a Nikon D850 with a 24-70mm f/2.8G Nikkor. Not bad, considering the GFX features a larger sensor. On the other hand, how "light" a 4 lb. rig feels to you will depend on how long you have to carry it.

[tex andrews]

I totally love that it's a cat picture, and an ooc jpg. Awesome.

[Robert Harshman]

I've been a Times subscriber - Sunday and digital - since Drump launched his campaign. It's important to support reporting in the age of lies.

[JasonHindleUK]

That review ended far too soon :-/. What is this strange allure of gear I can’t afford?

[toto]

Give me cat photos over product shots anytime. :)

[Stephen Scharf]

@Gordon Lewis: Fully agree with your points on the weight of the GFX and lens. It's all about one's frame of reference, and with the motorsport PJ guys I shoot with (and for me, until the X-T2 debuted last year), that frame of reference was a Canon 1D-series body and L lenses; either 17-40, 24-70, or 70-200/2.8. And the GFX + 32-64 is considerably lighter than that. More on that in Part II.

@JasonHindleUK: Don't worry; more to come in Parts 2 and 3. ;-)

Cheers, Stephen

[Marcelo Guarini]

This is a camera that I will love to have, but I can't say why.

[Jerry Walsh]

Thanks. He forgot to mention the price.;)

[Stephen Scharf]

@Jerry Walsh: The prices are in the links that Mike embedded, but this camera lens combination is ~$9,000.

~$1000 less than the Hasselblad X1D body alone.