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Author Topic: First "hands on" impressions of the Fuji GFX  (Read 7354 times)

Stephen Scharf

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First "hands on" impressions of the Fuji GFX
« on: February 24, 2017, 12:02:00 pm »

Fujifilm reps were at Samy's Cameras in San Francisco on Wednesday, so I had a chance to play and "shoot" with the much-anticipated medium format (MF) Fujifilm GFX 50S.

As the camera was a pre-production model, we were not allowed shoot any images on our own cards, but regardless,  I came away with some useful, at least for me, first impressions.

In the hand, it is about the size of a Nikon D810 or Canon 5D-series. As you may have read, it is surprisingly light, but it is also very well made and robust-feeling; the fit and finish are excellent. The front grip and thumb rest are comfortable and nicely textured, and provide excellent purchase for a secure grip, and if you're an Fuji X-camera user, the now-classic X-camera knobs and dials will immediately feel right at home. I found the AF to be surprisingly fast, at least as fast as a Fujifllm X-T1. There is a short viewfinder blackout after taking a single frame, but in the applications and scenarios in which this camera would be used, the blackout time poses virtually no practical issue.  The EVF and LCD are gorgeous, and the shutter actuation and “feel” is to die for. It is also very well damped, you can tell that shutter shock is not going to be an issue with this camera.

Given the size of the lenses, they are suprisingly light, bright, and exude a very high level execution and fit and finish. The autofocus performance is fast and quiet with no discernable aperture blade chatter. The lenses give the impression of being extremely well-made.

After holding, using, and shooting with the camera, it's clear it’s primarily intended for seriously "hard-core" advertising, portrait, editorial, commercial, automotive, and fashion medium format photography of the highest professional standard, as well as expert enthusiast outdoor, travel, or landscape photographers who understand what working with a MF camera entails, and know how to get the camera to deliver it.

Full article at my blog here: First Impressions of the Fujifilm GFX 50S

Cheers,
Stephen
« Last Edit: February 24, 2017, 01:27:57 pm by Stephen Scharf »
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Conner999

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Re: First "hands on" impressions of the Fuji GFX
« Reply #1 on: February 24, 2017, 01:19:09 pm »

Thanks for the feedback. Looking fwd to the roll-out.
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: First "hands on" impressions of the Fuji GFX
« Reply #2 on: February 24, 2017, 04:53:35 pm »

Sounds like a nice camera.

But beyond that, this launch is managed incredibly well by Fuji.

Cheers,
Bernard

hubell

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Re: First "hands on" impressions of the Fuji GFX
« Reply #3 on: February 24, 2017, 07:11:42 pm »

Sounds like a nice camera.

But beyond that, this launch is managed incredibly well by Fuji.

Cheers,
Bernard

That's a matter of perspective. I find it troubling that Fuji has been so reluctant to let people who are attending "demos" shoot raw files to their own cards and work on them in a raw converter. I can't remember Phase and Hasselblad starting to ship cameras to end users before they were able to shoot and/or download raws that could be worked on in Capture One, Phocus or Lightroom. This whole "launch" feels "stage managed" to me. The GFX is scheduled to ship next Tuesday and Fuji still is not letting the public shoot raw files and see for themselves how the files work in Lightroom. I hope I am wrong, but I almost feel like something is being hidden from me. I guess I will find out next week, as I have one on order. However, if there is no Lightroom support for raw files, I don't know what I will do. An $8500 JPEG shooter doesn't really interest me. [G]
« Last Edit: February 24, 2017, 08:03:32 pm by hubell »
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Rdmax

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Re: First "hands on" impressions of the Fuji GFX
« Reply #4 on: February 24, 2017, 07:40:43 pm »

That's a matter of perspective. I find it troubling that Fuji has been so reluctant to let people who are attending "demos" shoot raw files to their own cards and work on them in a raw converter. I can't remember Phase and Hasselblad starting to ship cameras to end users before they were able to soot and/or download raws that could be worked on in Capture One, Phocus or Lightroom. This whole "launch" feels "stage managed" to me. The GFX is scheduled to ship next Tuesday and Fuji still is not letting the public shoot raw files and see for themselves how the files work in Lightroom. I hope I am wrong, but I almost feel like something is being hidden from me. I guess I will find out next week, as I have one on order. However, if there is no Lightroom support for raw files, I don't know what I will do. An $8500 JPEG shooter doesn't really interest me. [G]

My guess it is to dissuade pessimism around early products. Wasn't this a problem with Hasselblad X1D?
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Stephen Scharf

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Re: First "hands on" impressions of the Fuji GFX
« Reply #5 on: February 24, 2017, 09:13:51 pm »

That's a matter of perspective. I find it troubling that Fuji has been so reluctant to let people who are attending "demos" shoot raw files to their own cards and work on them in a raw converter. I can't remember Phase and Hasselblad starting to ship cameras to end users before they were able to shoot and/or download raws that could be worked on in Capture One, Phocus or Lightroom. This whole "launch" feels "stage managed" to me. The GFX is scheduled to ship next Tuesday and Fuji still is not letting the public shoot raw files and see for themselves how the files work in Lightroom. I hope I am wrong, but I almost feel like something is being hidden from me. I guess I will find out next week, as I have one on order. However, if there is no Lightroom support for raw files, I don't know what I will do. An $8500 JPEG shooter doesn't really interest me. [G]

The Fujifilm rep at Samy's SF this week said that Adobe ACR/LR RAW support should follow the GFX release for sale within a couple of weeks.
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Stephen Scharf

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Re: First "hands on" impressions of the Fuji GFX
« Reply #6 on: February 24, 2017, 10:52:07 pm »

My guess it is to dissuade pessimism around early products. Wasn't this a problem with Hasselblad X1D?

My guess it is to execute a disciplined market launch.
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siddhaarta

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Re: First "hands on" impressions of the Fuji GFX
« Reply #7 on: February 24, 2017, 11:03:28 pm »

RAWs available in the gallery of this article. .... not exactly interesting ones though

RAWs

and here

RAWs

... only thing we need is software, not even Silkypix can open them yet ... maybe P1 or LR come first  ;D somebody mentioned Affinity Photo can open them
« Last Edit: February 24, 2017, 11:44:00 pm by siddhaarta »
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hubell

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Re: First "hands on" impressions of the Fuji GFX
« Reply #8 on: February 24, 2017, 11:07:01 pm »

My guess it is to execute a disciplined market launch.

Well, if the launch was truly disciplined, Fuji would already have in place Lightroom support for the GFX raw files. What are we supposed to use to process raw files between next Tuesday and Mid to Late March?

Stephen Scharf

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Re: First "hands on" impressions of the Fuji GFX
« Reply #9 on: February 25, 2017, 12:44:48 am »

RAWs available in the gallery of this article. .... not exactly interesting ones though

RAWs

and here

RAWs

... only thing we need is software, not even Silkypix can open them yet ... maybe P1 or LR come first  ;D somebody mentioned Affinity Photo can open them

The version of Silkypix that is going to ship with the GFX camera will open GFX RAF files, acc. to the Fuji rep at Samy's.
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ErikKaffehr

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Raw developers
« Reply #10 on: February 25, 2017, 01:17:15 am »

Hi,

I have tried to open the raw files with RawTherapee and AccuRaw, both worked fine, although RawTherapee has no built in profile for the GFX. I used the attached DCP profile.

Best regards
Erik
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Erik Kaffehr
 

Stephen Scharf

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Re: Raw developers
« Reply #11 on: February 25, 2017, 02:41:22 am »

Hi,

I have tried to open the raw files with RawTherapee and AccuRaw, both worked fine, although RawTherapee has no built in profile for the GFX. I used the attached DCP profile.

Best regards
Erik
I was also able to open some GFX RAF files a few weeks back with RawDigger's FastRawViewer and convert them to TIFFs but as you say, Erik, there was no GFX profile.
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razrblck

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Re: First "hands on" impressions of the Fuji GFX
« Reply #12 on: February 25, 2017, 03:54:40 am »

Photography Blog had raw samples but have since been removed.

I posted these pictures before, this is what the RAW files looked last month out of RawDigger (no profiles, no auto corrections).





I have about 3GB of RAW files and as I said before they all seem very nice. This is what you would expect from the Sony 50MP sensor paired with Fuji glass.
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ErikKaffehr

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Sample raw processed in RawTherapee
« Reply #13 on: February 25, 2017, 04:32:19 am »

Hi,

I processed a sample raw from Imaging Resource, attached below. Left side JPEG image from Imaging Resource, right side raw image processed in RT using a DCP profile intended for my A7rII.

A second sample, downloaded from here: http://img.photographyblog.com/reviews/fujifilm_gfx_50s/photos/ is also attached.

Best regards
Erik

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Erik Kaffehr
 

vjbelle

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Re: First "hands on" impressions of the Fuji GFX
« Reply #14 on: February 25, 2017, 07:57:09 am »

Erik..... what is RT?

Victor

Edit:  Figured it out......
« Last Edit: February 25, 2017, 08:18:39 am by vjbelle »
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Rob C

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Re: First "hands on" impressions of the Fuji GFX
« Reply #15 on: February 25, 2017, 08:53:56 am »

Can't say the skin tones on the model's arms look very nice.

Reminds me of the look of early digital skin.

Rob C

ErikKaffehr

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Re: First "hands on" impressions of the Fuji GFX
« Reply #16 on: February 25, 2017, 09:15:52 am »

Hi Rob,

I would agree on that.

At this time we have no colour profiles for that camera. I could easily make a profile if I had a decent shot of a ColourChecker. The white of the eye was used for colour balance.

Here is the image on the original site: http://img.photographyblog.com/resize/1920/1440/0/100/reviews/fujifilm_gfx_50s/photos/fujifilm_gfx_50s_07.jpg

That may be original out of camera JPEG. I don't know.



Best regards
Erik



Can't say the skin tones on the model's arms look very nice.

Reminds me of the look of early digital skin.

Rob C
« Last Edit: February 25, 2017, 09:21:38 am by ErikKaffehr »
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Erik Kaffehr
 

fotagf8

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Re: First "hands on" impressions of the Fuji GFX
« Reply #17 on: February 25, 2017, 09:17:45 am »

BH Photo is now showing GFX 50s availability on Tuesday, February 28. 
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gkroeger

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Re: First "hands on" impressions of the Fuji GFX
« Reply #18 on: February 25, 2017, 09:32:25 am »

I had a chance to play with one in Austin yesterday. They were allowing folks to take images on their own cards... but I didn't have one with me. I was particularly impressed by the in-camera reprocessing of raw files. I reprocessed a raw with different film simulations and white balances and was able to save the results as jpeg or tiff. The LCD and EVF display also changes depending on the film simulation in use.
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vjbelle

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Re: First "hands on" impressions of the Fuji GFX
« Reply #19 on: February 25, 2017, 09:40:33 am »

I've processed some of the available Raw files in RT just to check as much lens consistency as I can.  Odd that I get a black column on the right hand side of every image.  The files don't have the cutoff when viewed initially in the file browser but when brought into the editor the black column appears and also affects the file in the browser window.  I'm not all that concerned as soon enough there will be raw support with other software.... just curious.

Victor
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