Nothing actually places a digicam to the take a look at like photographing a full marriage ceremony day. There’s documentary pictures, product pictures, portraits, landscapes, and even low-light pictures all rolled up into one occasion. So can the Fujifilm GFX100RF sustain?
To start out off this little experiment, I needed to be sure that the one and solely digicam I used was the GFX100RF. I did not wish to merely add it as a second digicam as a result of when I’ve tried this up to now, I discovered that it is too straightforward to easily use the digicam when it was handy. And solely utilizing the digicam in best conditions would not actually be placing the digicam to any form of take a look at. However I additionally would by no means put a pair’s marriage ceremony pictures into any form of jeopardy. So for this take a look at, I’m really the second photographer. This provides me a bit extra freedom to fail, which permits me to essentially push this digicam and use it even in conditions I really feel it is probably not very nicely suited to. That mentioned, for this marriage ceremony, I’m working alongside a great buddy of mine who’s a marriage photographer out of Saint Louis. And he totally knew what my plan was earlier than bringing me on for a marriage that did not really want a second photographer. All that to say, there wasn’t a ton of threat by way of not with the ability to ship for conditions the place the digicam won’t be capable of rise to the event.
This additionally will not be a full overview of the digicam (although I plan to do a deeper overview sooner or later), and can as an alternative be extra of a dialogue about how the experiment went total. And to begin, it was completely fulfilling to have just one digicam and one lens for a complete marriage ceremony day. More often than not, I’m of the opinion that much less is extra in relation to pictures gear. The extra cameras and lenses you could have, the extra issues it is advisable to take into consideration. When a second begins to unfold, you consider what digicam to seize, what lens, then you consider gentle, second, and composition. With just one digicam and one lens, you may get straight to fascinated about take the very best photograph. And sure, there are occasions when one thing occurs that you just simply cannot seize with the lens you could have. However there are all the time moments you’re going to miss regardless of how a lot gear you could have. However with a single lens, you merely concentrate on what you possibly can seize nicely, as an alternative of specializing in each single risk. I additionally discover that being confined to at least one lens causes you to assume and strategy a scene otherwise than you usually would. This will result in discovering extra attention-grabbing methods of telling the story.
With this in thoughts, one other beauty of the GFX100RF is its capability to primarily crop to different focal lengths. So whereas the lens is a set 35mm lens (28mm equal), you possibly can crop/zoom to 45mm, 63mm, and 80mm. The digicam does this by leveraging the decision from the 100-megapixel medium format sensor. And the wonderful thing about that is that the crops/zooms are saved to the uncooked file’s metadata, so when you find yourself in Lightroom, you could have the liberty to zoom again out if you need. Since you all the time get the total decision uncooked file, even when zoomed in. And whereas the zoom options are a nice-to-have, I discovered myself sticking to the usual focal size for almost all of the day.
One function that’s just like the cropping capability is the brand new facet ratio dial—related within the sense that the digicam is leveraging the excessive decision of the sensor in an effort to allow you to change the facet ratio from the usual 3:4 to three:2, 1:1, 65:24, 17:6, and lots of extra. Just like the zoom possibility, you additionally nonetheless retain the total decision file, so you possibly can all the time revert again to the unique ratio or change to a distinct one in publish. However not like the zooming function, you can’t use the facet ratio possibility when capturing in uncooked. For some purpose, if you’re capturing uncooked, if you change the facet ratio, nothing occurs. After a good quantity of enjoying with choices, I later came upon that to ensure that the facet ratio choices to work, it’s essential to have a type of JPEG file saving enabled. If you happen to do, the facet ratio will nonetheless be written to the uncooked file, just like the crop modes are. However the facet ratio perform is not going to work in any respect if you’re solely photographing in uncooked. Which looks as if form of an oversight, and I assume will likely be mounted in a future firmware replace. However that is one function I used to be enthusiastic about however did not get to make use of totally. That mentioned, I do really feel that the implementation of a devoted dial for this function may have been executed higher. Whereas I do get pleasure from having the devoted dial, I want that this dial was left clean, as an alternative of getting the facet ratios etched into the dial. As a result of for me personally, there are only some facet ratios I might be concerned with utilizing, and it is a huge ache to should scroll previous all of the choices I do not ever plan to make use of. As an alternative, it could have been good to have the dial clean, after which within the menu I may choose what facet ratios I wish to cycle via. Moreover, if a person by no means deliberate to play with the facet ratios usually, we may have used this dial to cycle via different choices like movie simulations, focus modes, and so on.
One other function of this digicam that not often will get talked about is that it would not use a standard shutter such as you see in most fashionable cameras. As an alternative, it makes use of a leaf shutter. Not solely does this make the system quieter in addition to scale back vibrations from the shifting elements (extra on this later), nevertheless it additionally means that you can sync flash at any shutter pace. This will unlock a ton of inventive freedom when utilizing flash.Sadly, one of many essential causes I really like getting access to increased shutter speeds when utilizing flash is in an effort to decrease my ambient gentle whereas sustaining a shallow depth of discipline. And since this digicam has a minimal aperture of f/4, there is not actually a lot must attempt to preserve a shallow depth of discipline. This f/4 lens can also be my greatest level of rivalry with your entire digicam. Whereas I perceive this determination was in all probability made in an effort to attenuate the scale, the digicam as an entire shouldn’t be pocketable even on a dishevelled denims sort of day. So I would somewhat have a bit extra size or bulk to the setup in an effort to get one thing like an f/2.8 lens connected.
One other level of sacrifice for this digicam that I hear lots of complaints about is the dearth of in-body picture stabilization. And to be sincere, I had the identical thought. However in precise use, I may fairly simply handhold photos as little as 1/4 of a second. And that is primarily as a result of leaf shutter not inflicting as a lot inside motion because the digicam takes pictures.
Whereas the autofocus was pretty quick and the monitoring was decently correct (particularly by way of a medium format digicam), the f/4 lens appeared to trigger limitations in decrease gentle conditions—oftentimes looking for focus longer than anticipated and even, at occasions, not with the ability to seize focus in any respect. I additionally really feel that one of many greatest promoting factors for utilizing a medium format digicam is its capability to render superb shallow depth of discipline photos. So with the lens alternative, you lose autofocus reliability in addition to that dreamy shallow depth of discipline that medium format is understood for.
The autofocus pace and accuracy in low gentle, whereas a bit annoying at occasions, wasn’t a deal breaker or an enormous con. That’s, till the lights actually went low for the social gathering dancing a part of the day. Right here, the digicam actually struggled to search out something to concentrate on. In an effort to fight this, I ended up turning one in every of my flash’s modeling lights on (which I held in my hand and pointed at my topics). This positively helped the scenario, however the AF pace nonetheless struggled. I additionally don’t love to make use of fixed lights for the social gathering dancing a part of the day if in any respect potential as a result of I really feel it attracts an excessive amount of consideration to me, in addition to can change individuals’s expertise on the dance flooring.
On the finish of the day, the Fujifilm GFX100RF stored up. Whereas it struggled to complete sure elements of the race, it managed to limp throughout the end line whereas nonetheless sustaining its dignity. And though there are a handful of issues I might have appreciated to see totally different on this digicam (primarily the f/4 lens), I may completely see this digicam being an incredible addition to a marriage pictures bag—particularly when it got here to the on a regular basis documentary scenes or for some environmental portraits (particularly ones that use flash). And whereas I’m proud of how the photographs got here out and the way the digicam carried out as an entire, it is nonetheless all the time a great factor to have not less than one other focal size to depend on, in addition to backup digicam our bodies in case one thing occurs to your essential physique. However with that, get pleasure from a handful extra photos from this marriage ceremony.
