Review

I recently acquired a used Fuji GFX50s small medium format (44x33mm) digital camera along with Pentax 645 35mm, 55mm, 75mm and 150mm primes (with adaptors). I also got the Fuji 35-70 kit lens in the irresistible year-end promotion deal.

So what’s it like?

Body

First impression is that despite the big and well shaped hand grip, it’s bulky and heavy. This is from the perspective of someone used to m4/3 gear. Pick up a m4/3 camera after handling the GFX and it feels like it has anti-gravity.

From the perspective of someone using a premium DSLR, it’s probably similar. It’s not actually that much different in bulk from my partner’s old APS-C sensor Fuji S5 Pro (based on a modified Nikon D200 body). But of course the lenses are bigger. It’s definitely back to old school handling, one hand for the grip, one hand underneath and on the lens supporting the weight. Not a lot of scope for one handed shooting.

The extra weight and bulk is a problem for me. I can use the camera hand held, but it gets uncomfortable bouncing around on a neck strap after any length of time. I’m more comfortable carrying it in a bag then taking it out and shooting from a tripod. A reasonable riposte might be “Get down the gym” but I like small, light cameras. People with muscles may not mind it. Certainly if you’re used to something like a D850, it will be fine.

Viewfinder

The viewfinder is a 3.69M-dot OLED EVF. It offers a large and expansive view. It could swallow the viewfinder of my Lumix GX7 several times over. It’s still an EVF, you like them or you loathe them. I like them, although there are higher resolution ones than this available. This one does have a couple of tricks up its sleeve.

You can remove it and fit it to an accessory tilt and swivel mount. I can imagine that could be really useful but the accessory is too pricey to pick up on a whim. Maybe one day.

It is old eyes friendly! It has a Large Print viewfinder info option. This doubles (maybe triples) the size of the readouts in the EVF. You can assign to a function button so you can switch between tiny info and giant info should you need it. I like this, too many EVF cameras don’t really give complete enough customisation over the EVF display, this one is good.

It also has a giant RGB preview histogram function you can assign to a function button. Press the button and you get separate red, green, blue and luminance histograms that takes up half the EVF view. A very precise way of adjusting exposure compensation. It has the same limitations of any preview histogram in that it’s not a real raw histogram, but still much better than the tiny default luminance histogram. I like it.

The camera supports a wide range of aspect ratios (you can assign these to a function button) and adjusts the EVF automatically. My raw conversion software doesn’t seem to respect these settings and just displays the whole frame, but others probably will. I like cameras with lots of selectable aspect ratios as it can help with composition. The GFX50s has many to choose from while my Sony has only two.

Basic controls

The GFX50s uses a variation of the usual retro dials approach of the X-T series bodies. You have a rotary dial on the left shoulder that is a dedicated ISO dial, and a dedicated shutter speed dial to the right of the EVF hump. It lacks a dedicated exposure compensation dial, however, that space is taken up by a E-Ink display. You can set the rear command wheel to act as exposure compensation. There is also a front command dial. I set mine to aperture control (although most of the GF lenses have an aperture ring if you prefer). Both the command wheels are clickable as well, so you can set them carry out a second role. If you don’t like the shutter speed dial, you can set it to a “T” setting which allows you to control shutter speeds using one or other of the command wheels. This allows speeds as long as 1 hour to be set on the camera. Great for long exposure work, no need for a remote release. There is a fair sprinkle of programmable function buttons.

Focusing

Autofocus is plain old contrast detect. If you are used to old fashioned autofocus without any of the amazing speed and features of state of the art modern DSLRs and mirrorless offerings, you’ll find it OK. If you are used to eye detect tracking like a limpet and blazing speed, not so much.There is a tiny thumb operated joystick to move the focus point. I leave it on a single centre point as I do with all my cameras as I shoot static subjects. If you are manual focus only, the GFX50s has a bunch of useful focusing aids. I like Fuji’s dual viewfinder which works especially well with the large viewfinder.

Other features

The rear LCD has a flip up/down hinge type rather than fully articulating, but it has an extra hinge so it can also be used in portrait orientation.

The battery is quite large and fits behind the LCD which creates a box shaped bulge on the back of the camera rather reminiscent of the look of a medium format back. Newer GFX cameras have dispensed with the bulge.

Using the camera

Hand held with the 35-70mm kit lens, it’s ok. The grip is substantial, the main controls well placed, the viewfinder is large. But even though the kit lens is lightweight and compact for medium format, there’s no getting away from the fact you are using a large form factor camera.

Start up speed and responsiveness is absolutely fine and perfectly practical, but again, if you are used to state of the art smaller cameras, it isn’t instantaneously rapid. For static subjects like I shoot it’s much like any camera but it’s not an ideal sports or wildlife camera.

It’s got lots of buttons you can program to specific functions but like any camera I forget which is which and have to try them all. Someone needs to invent programmable button labels.

Autofocus works in a basic way. It seems accurate. It’s not speedy or particularly intelligent. But fine. Manual focus with adapted lenses is ok, I use the dual viewfinder with the small viewfinder set to 3x and focus peaking. This method has always worked brilliantly on the X-T cameras I’ve used but with the GFX I’m not so confident that everything is perfectly focused. It would help if the viewfinder was higher resolution and the peaking less sensitive. But it’s OK with care.

I do wish Fuji would get in line with everyone else and provide a post capture histogram on the automatic review image. You get the ability to chimp the focus but no histogram unless you press the play button. It’s a small usability thing but it annoys me that everyone else provides this function except Fuji.

Have I mentioned the viewfinder is big? It is.

Long exposure

I’m a long exposure photographer. It’s a time-consuming genre. It can be fiddly with cable releases blowing in the wind. Most cameras have shutter speeds up to 30 seconds, plus the B setting. Fuji’s T setting allows you to go all the way down to 1 hour in one stop intervals using the command wheel. Yay, no flappy cable releases to worry about. This is good. The sensor also seems happy up to the 8 minutes exposures I’ve tried. No hot pixels, very clean, no exposure extending Long Exposure Noise Reduction darkframe required. Very good.

Image Quality first impressions

50MP is a lot of detail to play with. Big prints possible. There is a lot of fine detail and crispness, enhanced by the microlens design. I won’t pretend to understand the image science behind it, but the undersized microlenses used on this sensor boost crispness and the appearance of fine detail. The downside is a tiny loss of sensitivity and an increased susceptibility to aliasing/moire artefacts. No such thing as a free lunch.

Files have high dynamic range and low noise. Some people/some marketing would have you believe there is some special magic about medium format. There isn’t really. The sensor is only a little bigger than full frame and the quality is only a little better. To make an analogy it’s much like the difference between APS-C and m4/3. It exists, but it is rarely discernible outside the lab. Think of small medium format as a slightly rotund full frame. If you nail everything perfectly, you maybe get 2/3 of an EV less shadow noise. Mostly you won’t nail it perfectly and won’t see the advantage. The GFX100 cameras have double the pixel count and you expect a bit more from these cameras. The real Fuji advantage comes from the GF lenses. They are very good across the range. Full frame lens lines are more variable. Shame I only have one GF lens, but the Pentax 645 lenses are pretty good as well, and so incredibly cheap on the used market.

I’m doing some comparisons with smaller and larger formats using prints, see if the differences make it to print. It may be a while yet, though.