First look 16
Photography News | Issue 67 | photographynews.co.uk
focus for video. The focus lever and whole-frame coverage of phase detection cells meant that nailing sharp focus on subjects towards the edges of the frame was easily done, with no need for focus lock and recomposing technique. Themonitor offers touch focus, too, which ismore practical when the camera is on a tripod – andworks fine for handheld shooting, too. The focus lever lets you navigate the active focus zone around the scene and pushing it lets you alter zone/point size very quickly. Significantly improved face/ eye detect AF was another aspect of the system worth talking about. Face/eye tracking was claimed to be enhanced by 500% in movie mode and more able to cope with smaller faces. Face detect was also more stable when something passed between you and the subject. There is also a face select feature, too, which can be used via the monitor or the focus lever. I am a keen AF-ON button user, focusing with the thumb and then recomposing. I think Fujifilm has skimped on the size of the GFX100’s AF-ON button and it is small, especially given the surface acreage of the camera. Have a look at how Canon and Nikon have treated this control on its top-end DSLRs, and you’ll see what I mean. That is not to say that it is unusable – because that is not the case – but it could have been bigger for even better handling. For me, the size issue applies to the exposure compensation button, which is ideally placed next to the shutter button, but again this seems small – or it’s too low profile. Speaking of controls, the GFX100 has comparatively few and notably, there are no shutter speed or ISO dials – at least in the physical sense. Both are virtual dials that appear on the large sub monitor and are operated via the front and rear command dials. While some would prefer actual dials, I found using the
Above The GFX100 was fitted with the 32-64mm f/4 lens. The exposure was 1/200sec at f/4, ISO 1600
virtual dials fine, although I would need more time to decide if I prefer them to the real thing. On the far left, there is a lockable mode dial with options for video and still shooting and, in-between, there is a multi setting. At its centre is the drive button. The video and still settings are obvious tags, but multi needs explaining: in other Fujifilm
cameras, the drive control contains menu options for bracketing (AE, focus, film simulation etc) as well as single and continuous shooting. In theGFX100, driveonlyhasthesingle and continuous shooting options with the bracketing etc functions assigned to the multi setting. It is a good solution, although Fujifilm could have gone further. In
multi, you can select auto exposure bracketing, which is fine, but setting the parameters of that bracketmeans going into another menu item. This is the same with other Fujifilm cameras, but for me I’d prefer the logic of engaging AEB, for example, and then setting the parameters of that bracket in the same menu. Duringmy timewith theGFX100,
I dare anyone not to be impressed with the output of the GFX100
Performance: image quality
These two shots were taken on the GFX100 andf GFX 50R fitted with the same lens: the 32-64mm f/4 with an exposure of 1/70sec at f/11, ISO 100.
Both cameras were tripod mounted and the shutter released with the self-timer. The 14-bit Raws were processed
through Lightroomwith some unsharp mask added later in Photoshop. The GFX 50R shots needed magnifying by 141%more
to produce the same subject size compared with the GFX100. All GFX100 images in this first look feature were taken using
a Fujifilm pre-production sample, so keep in mind that the firmware and images might differ on production cameras.
Original image
Taken on GFX100
Original image
Taken on GFX100
Taken on GFX 50R
Taken on GFX 50R
Images The two shots were taken on the 32-64mm f/4 at 51mmwith an exposure of 1/125sec at f/11, ISO 100. Here, both processed Raws had sharpening added in Photoshop
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