The Fujifilm GFX50S II - It's Not Overkill!

Alright, before we get started, let me just preface everything by saying you do not need this camera. I made a video recently in the past couple months about the XF 33mm f 1.4 lens for the Fuji XF mount system. And I think it's an incredible lens and I think what Fuji is doing with some of their high resolution sensors, like what's coming in the X H2 regular with the fifth generation R sensor, I think it's fantastic. Having said that, you don't need this camera and obviously the camera I'm talking about today is the GFX 50s 2. So this camera right here is amazing. I recently picked it up a couple months ago and I've been using it quite a bit. And one of the things that I'm taking away from this experience is that it's not overkill. Before I purchased the camera I heard a lot of people talking about how overkill it is and how you don't need it and how quite honestly it's not necessary. And yeah, I mean to some extent.

You don't need any camera, you don't.

Need any piece of equipment, you don't need to take photos. But if you like taking photos and if you take photos as a hobby, I really do think this is a compelling purchase. Now having said that, if you already have an APS C camera or you have a full frame camera or you're already happy with their system, you don't need to jump. It is not something you need to do. For me personally, I wanted to see what high resolution work I could get. I also think a lot about the future in a really weird existential way. And I think about what photography is going to look like at that time. Is it going to be high resolution? Are we going to have 15k, 16k televisions and displays? I have no idea. Probably not. But I think it would be pretty cool to get a 50 megapixel image in my catalog and primarily shoot those so that in the future, looking back on pictures of my daughter and my family, of the places I've lived and the places I've been, I think it'd be pretty cool to see that in high resolution. And I think more importantly, not just high resolution, but high fidelity. And this idea of fidelity is, you know, interesting and could be it's video on its own, right? But I will say that this camera, this medium format sensor is very special. So here's the sensor itself. You've probably seen it a million times if you're watching this video, but I think it's a really, really powerful sensor. I think. Yeah, this camera has not the best autofocus. Yes, you do slow down. Yes. You can't really capture super fast moving objects for reasons that I'll probably get into when you take a look at some photos later. But I do want to just mention that this camera is special. It makes you slow down like the X Pro 3, but it makes you slow down because the shutter is, you know, can be pretty slow and be pretty chunky. I don't know, it's not even focusing right now, but I don't know if you can hear that. Shutter is pretty heavy and it does feel like that even at higher shutter speeds. But it's an incredible camera.

The images you get out of it.

Are really, really compelling. More importantly, the fidelity and the feeling of the images when you look at them on a nice screen. I have a 4K monitor and just nothing comes close. I have never used a camera. I've never seen images. I've never, you know.

I just have.

Never experienced fidelity like that. And it kind of is a one to one reproduction of the world in a weird way. You know, when you're looking at an Image On a 4K monitor, it's like, yep, that's exactly what I saw in real life. Yeah, there's more bokeh. There's more, you know, clinicalness, as people say, with some of the lenses, especially this 30 millimeter 3.5. But these images are really, really special. So I want to spend the rest of the video kind of talking through some of the images that I've taken with this camera. Also want to show you a clip of me using the camera as like a street photography camera with the 50 millimeter 3.5 because it's not that big. Now if you're coming from an XF camera like Fuji X T3X Pro 3X100V, this is massive, but feels pretty great. So this is my little discussion of the Fuji GFX 50s 2. So here's one of the very first.

Photos I took with the GFX50S II. I had just picked it up locally here in Orange county and I had just got the 3570 kit lens which this photo is taken with at 35. And I went to San Clemente and this is off of the bluff there looking over the pier. It's a really typical shot. I screwed up the palm trees on the right. But this shot kind of blew me away just because of a lot of different reasons.

One of the big reasons is the.

Colors are there this is the Fuji colors we're all used to.

If you've shot Fuji before, I was.

Able to kind of take it into Lightroom, play with it a little bit, which I really enjoy. But again, the fidelity, the quality, you know, looking at it one by one here, it just speaks a lot. Do you need this? No. But it really gives you a sense of the scene. It gives you a sense of where that person was that took the photo and what was happening in that moment. And I think that is a really special thing. So really enjoyed that piece there. And here's another photo from that same day, kind of walking up the hill, just. Again, this is a street photography image in a sense where you could really get to see how you can bring this camera around and just take photos of people and things. And it's a lot of fun. You can kind of see the detail on his tattoo here on his arm. The sweater on the girl there is really detailed. And again, that's something that only I think medium format and especially the GFX system can give you. And this is kind of your typical street shot of a car and old Buick here on my old road where I used to live. And you know, again, dynamic range on these sensors, you know, it's going to be good, but the detail that you find in the shadows, the detail you find in some of the darker parts of the image. After having taken an into Lightroom, it really says a lot about the capabilities of the sensor. You know, this was taken with the 50mm 3.5, and for a pancake lens, this just came out really, really well. I'm happy with this shot. And this is Sam, a man who I met on a hiking trail. Probably my second week with the camera. He was asking me what kind of camera I was using. Had no idea about it, but I asked him if I could take a portrait of him. My first shot with the camera of a human, and it came out really well. And again, the details there, I mean, Sam's 92 and been around the world, but you can definitely tell the quality in the beard. And again, this is on the 50mm F3.5, not a portrait lens. Super high fidelity. And again, really amazing depth of field. This was shot wide open at F3.5, and the results are truly stunning. For something that you just pick up and shoot, it's pretty crazy to see. And this is a photo of my daughter. I eventually got the 80 millimeter 1.7 lens, which I love so much. And this is one of the first shots I took of her and this is where the 50, especially the 80 millimeter, starts to have issues. You can see here miss the focus. Focus is on the side of the crib there and the camera tells you you got focus. The lens takes a little while to rack because there's so much glass in this 80mm 1.7. But even then, if we pull back out, it's still a fantastic image. In any YouTube review or anything you read or see about the 80mm will tell you. Alongside the GFX 50s to 50s, 50R or even the 1002, you can you get incredible results with this lens. So with the 50S II, again with some of the focus issues, you can still make good portraits happen. Here's a portrait shoot I did. Still looks great. I mean the background, the compression is just unbelievable. Again, can you achieve this on full frame? Maybe. But what Fuji does with colors and skin tones, it's kind of unreal and it makes it feel like a much better experience. And your clients are probably going to be happier if you're doing professional stuff. They kind of get blown away because it's a different kind of look. And look, this is another shot of my daughter and you don't need me to tell you, but simple photos like this in severe low light situations, I'm only shooting ISO 1600 here on the 81.7 wide open at 1.7, the fall off is unbelievable. I've added some grain here. I've played a little bit with the colors as you can tell, and kind of play with the skin tones.

But I am just so happy with.

An image like this. It feels incredible. Again, this, this is a 63 millimeter equivalent on full frame. The fall off here is unbelievable. And again, do you need this?

No.

But as a casual lens with kids that aren't moving that much, it works really well. This is 1/200th of a second at 1.7. And yeah, the X T3 is a better camera for this. But I mean truly I'm super happy with the result. And it's a great image that, you know, you may want to print in frame.

Last couple images I want to show you.

This is from a street photography session I did downtown Orange. If you've ever been to Orange, California, the city, pretty cool little place downtown, old town. Parking sign here, you know, again, just some of the compression. This is the 50mm 3.5. Even on a camera like this, with that lens, it's easy to carry around. You get some good compression, you get a really fun image. I mean, this is a 40 millimeter full frame equivalent and it just comes out great. Again, fidelity here is awesome. Super happy with this little session. I did my last couple photos here. This is of a obviously little self portrait in the reflective glass downtown Santa Ana. And again, the 50 millimeter sitting on the GFX, I've got it on a peak design slide light strap. It's comfortable. You can carry around around my hip all day. I was out for I think four hours shooting and had a lot of fun. Again, you don't need it. Could you do this with the X100V? Yeah. But the fidelity is not going to be there. And in my opinion, that feeling, that look, it's definitely not going to be there. But if you have it, it just makes for a really fun shooting experience.

And honestly, when you do street photography.

With this camera, which is entirely possible as I'm going to show you here, it's that feeling where. And again, this is a big downside of the camera is that if I didn't have this camera with me and I wasn't capturing this fidelity, could I achieve all this with another camera? Absolutely. But it's that fomo, right? It's that am I missing out by not taking a higher resolution image? I don't quite know the answer to that question. Not everybody can afford this camera. Not everybody can afford these lenses. They're entirely way too expensive. My recommendation for most people is just to get a X T3, get a, you know, X100V or even an X100X1 hundreds. Like get a Fuji camera cheap, get a X T1, throw on the 35 1.4. Heck, throw on the XC35F2, get out there and shoot. But if you're in this world of GFX and you want to really appreciate it and you experience it, man, it's really hard to go back. It really is, because it's that special of a system. But again, it's not overkill. You can make it work and the results are pretty damn glorious.

So I hope looking at some of these photos has made you realize how special these images are. They may not seem like that at first, but when you really look into these and compare them with other images from other camera brands, other sensors, they do have sort of a quality to them. Is it magical? Is it just depth of field? Is it just large format? We don't know. But I think at the end of.

The day it's a very special camera.

So. So thanks so much for watching the video.

I appreciate it and I hope you learned something about the GFX system, and I hope I was able to share.

Some of my work and some of.

My experience and what's worked for me and why. I love this camera. But the conclusion is this. You don't need it. It's not required, it's not necessary, but it's definitely not overkill. Because if you can make this system.

Work for you and you can enjoy.

It, you're going to have a hell of a time.

Thanks for watching.