https://fujilove.com/is-the-gfx100s-the-future-of-fujifilm-design/
“If you are a current Fujifilm X Series owner, should you care about the GFX series? Yes, you should. Even if you don’t plan to get into digital medium format photography, we should all pay attention to what Fujifilm is doing with the GFX cameras. Many design and ergonomic decisions made on the GFX cameras often find their way into the X Series cameras….
It appears Fujifilm engineers are willing to take more risks on their medium format cameras, perhaps because it’s still a young series. The X-Pro, X-T, and X100 cameras have many years and generations of history to consider when making design choices, but not the GFX line-up….
Moreover, Fujifilm has always taken into consideration the needs and feedback from its user base and is willing to make changes when necessary.”
Commentary
No sooner had Fujifilm released its more affordable GFX100S DSLR-style medium format camera than, it seems, an even more affordable has been rumoured to be on its way later in 2021, according to Patrick DiVino at Fuji Rumors.
Based on its name, the GFX50S II is likely to be another DSLR-style camera in line with the top-selling GFX50S, first of Fujifilm’s medium format range.
Fujifilm, as I learned from one of the company’s presenters/demonstrators last Sunday, refers to its 43.8 x 32.9mm 51.4MP CMOS sensor-equipped medium format cameras as “large format”.
At the event, the Fujifilm staffer showed a slide of various photographic genres with the company’s X-Series cameras below and its G-Series cameras above, with two overlapping vertically-stacked ellipses indicating APS-C below and MF above.
The overlap denoted professional genres and was stark reminder that many professional users have always relied on a range of media sizes and aspect ratios for their work, and not just the larger ones usually marketed towards professionals by brands such as Alpa, Hasselblad and Phase One.
According to a test a few years ago by the late, great Michael Reichmann, comparing results from an 8″x10″ sheet film camera with those from a high-megapixel digital camera, digital was about to overtake analog in image quality.
I suspect that now, with 100MP sensors and larger, digital may have already done so, but even medium format sensors of 50MP may be enough to impart the feeling of uncanny realism once the province of sheet film formats of 4″x5″ and larger.
The great British photographer Brian Griffin has made many of his surreal portrait photographs for exhibition as big, big prints with a Phase One 30+MP digital magazine, and those prints, reportedly, possess an uncanny reality making viewers feel as if they are in the presence of the subjects themselves.
Mr Griffin also uses a Mamiya 7, a 120 roll-film rangefinder camera with interchangeable lenses, a reminder that Fujifilm has a long and noble history of medium format camera innovation with cameras offering aspect ratios including 6×4.5cm, 6x6cm, 6x7cm, 6x8cm, 6x9cm and 6x17cm.
Take Kayo, author of the Fujifilm article this post cites, is correct in stating that “design and ergonomic decisions made on the GFX cameras often find their way into the X Series cameras” but Fujifilm’s analog camera and lens innovation history surely also plays a part in the company digital efforts.
The Fujifilm GFX50R, possibly due soon for a mark II revision, is surely a hat tip towards the company’s many 120 roll-film rangefinder cameras, and I hope that there will always be a rangefinder-style camera in Fujifilm’s GFX series.
On the other hand, if I am entirely wrong on that, then best to prepare for the inevitable discontinued camera stock sell off.
That will be a sad day for me at least given how I loved and relied on analog rangefinder cameras in a range of film formats and aspect ratios in the past and how much I continue to rely upon digital rangefinder and rangefinder-style cameras.
The long tradition of Fujifilm medium format and 35mm film cameras with a range of shapes, sizes and purposes
At the risk of being a completist, I have listed all the different Fujifilm analog film cameras I have ben able to obtain in images at time of writing, to give some idea of how impressive Fujifilm’s pre-digital products were.
Links
- Antique & Classic Cameras – Fuji 6×4.5 Rangefinder Cameras
- Antique & Classic Cameras – Fuji 6×7 and 6×9 Rangefinder Cameras
- Antique & Classic Cameras – Fuji 617 Camera
- B&H Affiliate Link – FUJIFILM GFX 100 Medium Format Mirrorless Camera
- B&H Affiliate Link – FUJIFILM GFX 100S Medium Format Mirrorless Camera
- B&H Affiliate Link – FUJIFILM GFX 50R Medium Format Mirrorless Camera
- B&H Affiliate Link – Fujinon Protection Filters – According to Fujifilm, these should be used in preference to UV filters to reduce interference with Fujifilm cameras’ Lens Modulation Optimizer function applied in-camera to JPEG files. Not such a concern if you rely on your camera’s raw files which remain untouched by LMO.
- B&H Explora – Film Camera Roundup: What’s Available These Days? – published in 2020.
- Brian Griffin – website
- DPReview – Photographer Profile – Brian Griffin – “Brian Griffin is one of England’s most influential and creative portrait photographers. He studied at Manchester Polytechnic’s School of Photography, where he first discovered a multitude of artistic movements to influence his work. Brian’s work draws from influences as diverse as Renaissance masters, through to Symbolism and Surrealism, with ‘film noir’ lighting often used in conjunction.”
- ebay.com.au – Fujifilm Medium Format Film Cameras
- Fstoppers – Review: The Fuji GX617 Panoramic Beast
- Fuji Rumors – Fujifilm GFX50SMKII Will Be Fuji’s Most Affordable GFX Camera, Hence Cost Less Than…
- Fujifilm X Global – GFX 100S – product pages
- Fujilove Magazine – Is the GFX100S the Future of Fujifilm Design?
- Fujilove Magazine – My Deserted Island Scenario Fujifilm X-Series Kit
- Hasselblad – Hasselblad XPan – “In 1998, Hasselblad’s partnership with Fuji revolutionised the camera industry with the introduction of the new XPan.”
- Japan Camera Hunter – “My name is Bellamy Hunt, AKA Japancamerahunter…. I source quality film cameras and other photographic equipment from Japan to customers around the world.”
- MrLeica.com – Leica Blog & Film Camera Reviews – Fuji GF670 Review: 11 Reasons Why You Should Buy!
- SveinO.no Blog – Fujifilm GF670W – The beast from the east – PART 1 – PART 2
- Unititled.Net – Cameras – Please use these B&H affiliate link lists here and below for researching and purchasing hardware and help keep Unititled.Net going.
- Unititled.Net – Lenses
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