6 Months Later: The Fujifilm GFX100 II

Hi, how are you? Hope you're doing good. I have been putting off making this video for quite a while now, but the timing is kind of right and I have some free time. So I wanted just to get some quick thoughts out there. And this isn't me a super in depth video by any means. There's a ton of people on YouTube. I'll link some of their videos here. We've done a really good job discussing the GFX100 Mark II. And I think for me personally as somebody who's. I've talked about this in past videos, I'm kind of like this amateur photographer, but then I've gotten a ton of paid work over the past couple years. So maybe I'm a professional or am I a hobbyist? I don't really know what to call myself in fact, kind of have some issues with titles, but nevertheless I have been owning this camera right here. This is the GFX100II with the 80 millimeter F1.7 on there right now. I also have the battery grip which I love, which I'll kind of dive into. But I've owned this since about October 2023. I bought it as kind of a birthday present for my. It was obviously a huge purchase. I had the GFX 100, excuse me, the GFX 50s two prior to this. So this was a big investment. But I'm something I've really enjoyed so far. But I really didn't start using it until about January of this year. And so I almost want to say this is like a six month review of the camera. So I want to open up this kind of discussion where we'll talk a little bit about my thoughts, my experiences with the camera, maybe some of my gripes, which there are very little. But I want to open up this kind of discussion before we get into some of the photos with a quote or. Actually it's a thread from a really great photographer who actually is one of the people who kind of got me into GFX because he's just a guy who does photography and he's in New York and he's a British guy and he's pretty funny. If you've watched his videos, you probably know who I'm talking about. His name is Johnny, he goes by Johnny Barr on YouTube and threads. He's been getting really into threads lately. So I'll put his thread up here on the screen and I'm gonna read it out loud because I think it's just the nail on the. He hit the nail on the head regarding this camera. So he wrote, the Fuji GFX100 II is a gift and a curse. The gift is a level of image quality that's truly outstanding. The curse is that it's not just super practical for a number of use cases and taking other cameras feels like a significant step down and you worry that you'll miss it in the field. He says. Net net for me is I take less photographs. That for me is substantial downside that's challenging to reconcile. And I think that last part there, I 100% agree with this entire statement. But he really hits a nail on the head with that last part. So yes, this is a heavy camera. It is a big camera. I prefer it with the battery grip, which is crazy, I know, because it's an extra ton of weight, but it just feels so good. But I think Johnny is really onto something when it comes to his statement there because 100%. I'm filming this on the XH2 right now with actually trying out the 8 millimeter 3.5, which it's a little bit too wide, I feel like, but nevertheless, I think it's kind of a fun lens. But yeah, I mean, you take this camera out with you and you get photos whether it's kind of for personal work or for professional work, and you're blown away, right? It's like the most amazing camera in the world. The shooting experience is incredible. It's amazing. I could wax poetic about it forever, but when I take my XH2 out, I've lost the weight, I feel good, I'm running around, I'm shooting photos, and as soon as I get back to that computer, something in my brain clicks when I see the first photos that come out of this sensor, which by and large are still unbelievably incredible. 40 megapixels, amazing camera, etc. But something clicks where I'm like, it's not the GFX. And that's the curse of the GFX, right? Once you experience it and once you actually have stuff professionally done with this camera and these lenses, anything else is a step down. But you might say, well then just take the GFX with you everywhere you go. I have a three year old toddler. I've been taking photos of her since she was born with GFX cameras, with Fujifilm X series cameras, etc. And nothing is worse than carrying this huge camera around this $7500 body with this, you know, expensive battery, grip and batteries, plus this $2,000 lens and just Willy Nilly walking around, it's not a great experience. So before I kind of go too much further, I want to say thank you to everybody who subscribed to the channel and kind of followed me along on this journey. I had a lot of fun making videos, total hobby for me. I work two full time jobs, I have a kid, I'm married, I'm very busy. But I really enjoy making these videos. So thank you for watching. But again, this camera, I love it so much because the image quality is amazing. Coming from a 50s to the shooting experience has been upgraded significantly. Everybody I've talked to that has used this camera totally agrees. They're like, the shooting experience is unbelievable. I hate people on YouTube, they'll say, oh, you know, but it's not as good as a Sony and you know, you might as well get a full frame camera. I agree, you're right, this is nowhere near Sony in terms of autofocus. Somewhere near the crappiest Nikon in terms of autofocus. But man, it feels really good. I would say. And again, I'm stretching here, I don't have scientific proof for this, but I would say it's around like an X T4 level of autofocus where it's still pretty good. Some of the new generation cameras are having some autofocus issues. You can read about a lot of the new firmware stuff happening like with the XH2s and actually this camera. But ultimately I think the experience on here is so good. It starts with the evf, right? This EVF even being removable, which I've almost lost this a couple times and this is super expensive so I should probably not take it off. And Johnny Barr, actually the guy I mentioned earlier, he's talked about taking this off is kind of nice because it makes it a little bit lighter, but I'm always going to look through the viewfinder and of course it's not there. So anyways, viewfinder is amazing. You've heard about this, I'm sure it's pretty much IMAX level quality feels unbelievable. I know the new, what is it, the Nikon Z6 III that has like a really bright vivid viewfinder but nothing touches this one. The magnification is like too much. I have to actually pull it down from 1.0 to like 0.8 for my eyes. What else? Yeah, I mean look, it's the. Having a CFExpress card in a, you know, GFX camera is so amazing. I mean I'm hooked on CF Express now, not only for the buffer size but for the transfer speed to the compute. Even on a Windows computer Mac Studio, it's super fast given that you have the right cable. So CF Express, huge win. Love it. You know, the other thing I really like about this camera is just the versatility. I know that you're literally, and I've talked about this in other GFX videos, you're literally getting the best image quality when you shoot photos with this. Like, bar none, where we can kind of agree to disagree is on some of the Fujifilm lenses, for example, the GF63 millimeter F 2.8. It's got a lot of character. And so whether that really is the best image quality at that focal length in those situations is up for debate. But the 55 millimeter 1.7 and this 80 millimeter 1.7 are so good. Yes. A little bit chromatic aberration on this guy. Not so much from what I see on the 55, which I don't own, but I love the 45 to 100. In just a minute, I'm going to show you some photos I've taken professionally and obviously for personal use here. But again, the overall impression of this camera is like, if you want the best image quality, just get it. I mean, there is no debate. Yeah, could you get 1/ hundreds mark 2? Sure. You'll get 90% of the experience. But I've shot videos on here. I've done a ton of work on this camera and it has just been an unbelievable experience. If you have the money, get it. If you're thinking about it and it's a huge investment for you and you don't have the funds and you're not getting paid for any work, don't get it. It's not worth your time. Get the one hundreds too. Or even get the one hundreds on on sale. What do I not like about the camera? There's a few things, but again, I don't want to nitpick. That's not the purpose of this video. I want to celebrate this camera because I think they knocked it out of the park. And again, having owned it for six months, being lucky enough to have owned it for six months has been great. A lot of the reviews you see on YouTube, people like rent the camera and they're like, oh, I took it through its paces for a month and then I returned it because it was a rental. That's fine. But I actually own this camera. Paid for it with my own money. Never really thought about making videos about it, but I don't see a lot of talk about this camera and I think it's getting overshadowed by the 1/ hundreds mark II. What do I not like about it though? Well, one of the things I don't love about it is the continuous burst rate speed. So there's all this drama about 14 bit versus 10 bit versus 12 bit, 16 bit. Like, I'm not so worried about that because me personally, as nerdy as I am and as pixel peepy as I am, I can't really tell the difference between some of the lower bit rates. However, it is annoying that there's some blackout when you're doing continuous shooting. If you're staying at a certain bit rate. If you're using continuous autofocus, like there's some weird scenarios where there is some blackout. However, having said that, like what you're realizing that you're shooting, you're shooting like a large format, you know, medium format sensor that, you know, is just kind of crazy to think about. So the continuous auto shooting, like, yes, it's a lot better than the other cameras, but it's still not really. I would say it's not usable to be 100% honest because if I'm trying to do burst shooting, I'm trying to get some moment within a section of time, whether it's, you know, maybe a couple kissing or somebody doing headshots for them where they're moving a lot. So that hasn't been a great experience, I'm sure. Maybe I need to play with it more and really learn it. I just have kind of avoided it also. I don't love this mode dial on top here. I don't know if you can see, it's quite small. It feels like kind of a afterthought. I love this really large kind of LCD display here. But yeah, I just don't love the mode dial. It's a very minor thing, very minor gripe, but I wish it was a little bit More like the XH2 mode dial where it's a little bit bigger and it's got sort of a more hefty feel to it. This feels a little bit plasticky, still high quality. But last thing, the back screen is pretty much from what I understand, the same as what's on the 50s. Two and one hundreds and one hundreds II. I think that was kind of a missed opportunity. I think they could have done a little bit more with the screen. Obviously if you want to shoot video on this, it does come out quite far. So you can rig it out and add in a monitor and all that kind of stuff. But the back screen is just kind of. I might as well view photos on this because it's just so incredible. But overall this has just been such an amazing camera. I'm very lucky to own it. I love shooting with it. I don't shoot with it enough. I shoot with my XH2 and X T5 probably a little bit more just because again, I have a kid and I'm out with my kid and I can't manage a $7,500 camera with a $2,000 lens that easy. So yeah, love this camera. Again, I just think it's literally the best camera on the market. And yes, people will say depending on what you need it for. But like, let's be honest, image quality, there's nothing better and I don't think there's going to be anything better. So I've been rambling quite a bit here. We're up to about 11 minutes, but I want to spend the rest of the video here for the next couple minutes just showing you a montage of images I've taken with this camera and showing you some of my best shots. Some of these are professional headshots that I've done. Some of them, I think I have some event stuff in there. I'm not quite sure, but I'll show you everything that I like and let you know in the comments below. We'll have a conversation if you have some thoughts like, did you buy this camera? Have you thought about it? What made you not want to buy it? I love talking to you guys in the comments, so please get in touch with me. And again, thank you so much for watching. I really appreciate you guys. See you in the next one. Hopefully it won't be as long. Sa.