WUN TV // Episode 1 // Fujifilm Strikes Back

Fujifilm GFX Review

Way Up North

Hola!

This is your boy Magic* and I would like to add a few words here.

*Magic (Maciej Suwalowski) is a Warsaw-based wedding photographer. Follow him on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, or his website. Add him as a friend here, cause he is super friendly and awesome. He travelled the timeless and endless space as a magician of light, wizzard of moments, the witcher of wind and fire… or maybe not exactly fire. Born in the best year ever 1985. That’s our boy Magic.

First – if you haven’t watched the video – please do watch it!

Ok, so now what you can see below is my super non-geeky, non-exact-the-same-parameters approach to compare GFX image with other cameras. What I wanted achieve by this? For me, considering getting this camera comes down to one very specific answer – “can I get the awesome portrait with it?”

Short backstory: last year, I tested Fuji X-Pro2 as my 2nd body along with Canon 5d Mark III. And with all its awesomeness (small, super fast, reliable, EVF (!!!), again super fast) I couldn’t get the awesome portrait I wanted to. So personally, this camera was a perfect camera for a documentary part of the wedding day, but excluding portraits. It was just lacking this mystical FF feel. And here a window opens for the GFX.

The Comparison

I wanted to compare the overall feel of the image shooting wide open plus DOF and bokeh effect. To compare with, I chose two cameras that I shoot now, which are 5D mark IV with 50/1.2 lens and Fujifilm X-T2/X-Pro2 with 50 eqiv. To this super weird mix of crop sensor, full frame sensor and almost medium format sensor I decided to add Leica M240 with 50lux lens, because why not? Below, you can find the results from two portraits of Mr. Brad Pitt. Enjoy!

(side note: I applied my personal preset and uniformed the look using colour temperature and tint to make them visually look the same)

Fujifilm GFX 50s 

Fujifilm X-T2/X-Pro2

Leica M 240

Canon 5D Mark IV

Fujifilm GFX 50s

Fujifilm X-T2/X-Pro2

Leica M 240

Canon 5D Mark IV

Thoughts? So, you may wonder what are my conclusions? First of all, the GFX image is huuuuuuge and super sharp. I like this image much more than X-T2/X-Pro2 image. Second of all, the DOF and bokeh are pretty nice, although there is a visible difference vs Canon and Leica. To be honest, I was expecting even more shallow DOF on GFX, but that was only because I didn’t know the truth. And the truth is, that 63/2.8 lens we were shooting with on GFX is an equivalent of 50/2.2-ish lens on full frame camera. So the difference of maximum aperture is quite significant. The image itself is very nice, and has that magic touch (see what I did here?) that was lacking in X-pro2 camera. Since my main reason of testing this camera was checking out what kind of image it produces wide open, I will not analyze in details the rest of the crap (ok, maybe not crap) but I will just mention:

AF – autofocus is pretty good, but not as good as X-T2/Xpro-2 or current Canon/Nikon FF bodies (5d/D750)

DR – dynamic range is really awesome, seems like you can bring back a lot of information from shadows, small example:

ISO – unfortunately I was playing with the camera only for few hours and haven’t checked that, but Brad Pitt said it was pretty good – he shoots up to 12800.

Handling – the camera is unfortunately not as small as Xpro-2/X-T2, but it’s also not that big. I would say, it’s exactly like 5d with 50L, but the grip makes it super comfortable. It feels lighter than it looks. I think, it is the perfect camera for humans and Chewbacca. I would recommend to Ewoks stay with small, crop sensor fujis.

Final word – I would say, this camera perfectly fulfils Fuji’s mirrorless system. Shooting it along with theX-pro2 and the X-T2 is a perfect mix and should give to a wedding photographer everything he or she needs. Am I getting one? Naaah, I think I will stick with FF babies, but I will keep an eye on the future of that kind of cameras, because it’s pretty darn bright.

Thanks for reading my bullshit. Your boy Magic.

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