100MP In Your Pocket (Sort of)

Any new camera release from Fujifilm should be cause for celebration, because they always advance the platform, and by doing so, photographers have continuing superior options to produce their photographs. I truly feel that this is the peak golden age of digital cameras. I don’t know why any would find a reason to question this release (it’s inevitable, critics gotta criticize), but I can only state that I am enthusiastically for it. There’s just so many great things about this camera.

You have a digital camera that is very much like a slightly larger, Fujifilm X100VI, the same camera that has sold hundreds of thousands of units and still counting. I mean, it is clearly an inspired facsimile of that camera, though with a powerful evolution up the chain with the 44mm x 33mm, 102mp sensor. The GFX 100RF is larger than that the X100VI, but not by much. It is substantially smaller and lighter than any of the GFX 100 series bodies. And yet, it joins them in the same family of sensors, with the 44mm x 33mm, 102mp BSI sensor, sourced from Sony. That’s the big story; incredibly small and light camera combined with the largest and highest resolution sensor in the industry (excepting the Phase One IQ4 150).

Really, Really Good Things

The design and look of the camera, with the emphasis on tactile elements like dials, wheels, and levers, evokes a traditional film camera. and it harkens back to the great and wide assortment of Fujifilm cameras made for film use back in the day. It maintains the classic Fujifilm digital camera look that they have popularized. The materials feel of a superior quality. The big story is yes, that big sensor and small package, but there’s many delicious tapas-style elements (some unique to this camera only) that are great attributes for this camera. Let’s list some of them:

• 35mm Lens has a Leaf Shutter that syncs at up to 1/4000th
• Internal 4 Stop ND
• Aspect ratio selection wheel, now adds 17:6 ratio
• Multiple surrounding view options; black out, white line, semi-transparent.
• Front (faux film) lever can be configured with 5 different functions, with short press, long press, etc.
• Digital Tele Converter with front toggle switch produces 45mm, 63mm, 80mm equivalents via in-camera crop
• Adaptive focus throw selection for the 35mm fixed lens
• Rangefinder positioned EVF
• Shares same battery as rest of the GFX series II lineup
• Weather sealing (with lens filter in place)

Leaf shutter lens? Who saw that coming – well I did not. But I’ll take a leaf shutter lens every day of the week. And they didn’t just stick in an aspect ratio wheel, they took the time to offer multiple ways to view the preferred ratio. I like the position of the Digital Tele Converter, it acts like a zoom function that your front finger would naturally be in control of. Adaptive focus is a nice feature that lengthens or shortens the throw of the focus ring of the lens, you can control it by making it a very short throw for speed, or make it longer for more precision. I like the position of the EVF in the traditional rangefinder mode, as it puts you more in touch with the subject in front of you – less hiding behind your camera. And despite the small size of this big sensor camera, they kept the same battery that the rest of the GFX series utilizes.

A Few Niggles

It’s a bummer that they couldn’t pair this camera with an IBIS component. And, by association, that they couldn’t get the 35mm/4 lens into a faster max aperture. But these 2 missing attributes both certainly would increase the size of the camera, and it is clear that Fujifilm’s overarching theme for this camera is yes, the image quality capabilities, but those capabilities paired with a camera and lens this small and light. I found the plethora of dials at first use a bit tricky to wrangle. Perhaps toss that one up to the generation I belong to. Many cameras are stuffed with options these days. As a society, I expect we’ve become accustomed to this to a certain degree.

From that standpoint, I also found my hands searching for a finger hold that wouldn’t get me into trouble by inadvertently pressing or pushing some button or lever. This is not a dealbreaker for me – for a camera that can be this much fun to use, I can find a way to accommodate. I would have liked to have seen 1/3 shutter speed options instead of 1/2 speed. That’s mostly it – if these are the most nefarious complaints I could come up with, I consider that a win for this camera.

Who Is This For?

That could be the (for Fujifilm) the million dollar question. I feel a bit silly even asking this. But I’ve thought a good bit about this and my answer is I can see the attraction to many. It’s a fixed lens camera, some may rule it out for that reason, but fixed lens cameras have become a viable category that spans sensor sizes from micro 4/3 (Panasonic/Olympus) to APS-C (Ricoh, Fujifilm) to 35mm FF (Leica Q28/Q43, Sony RX1) to Phase One (XC23/XC40), and now we’re here with Fujifilm in the 44mm x 33mm sensor segment. Maybe it’s about time!

I don’t see this camera as a street camera essential; a faster lens and IBIS would make that a no-brainer, but it certainly can be used in that segment, given the small size, weight, and portability. It’s not quite a backup body to a commercial shooter using a GFX 100 II series body, given the fixed lens. Let’s say it could be, within some limits. It certainly ticks the travel camera category. It’s small, light, and yet will have the highest image quality – by far – of any fixed lens camera at this size or smaller. And it is a very enjoyable (fun?!) camera to play with, and by play with, I don’t mean not take serious photographs (because it can easily do that), but to play with all the things that this camera allows you to play with, from the Aspect ratio selections to the Digital Tele Converter, and the rangefinder position EVF and the look and feel of the stylish body (yes, pragmatic snobs, that can mean something to photographers).

I suppose the answer is that even if I am shooting almost any other camera – another GFX, or any other brand you can name, then why wouldn’t I have it with me? Cameras should induce desire, and history has shown that they clearly do, and if you can satisfy desire with something that is so much fun to shoot with and produces this degree of stunning quality, then why not? (budgetary discretions aside, oh yes, I did forget that).

Image Quality Comparison to GFX 100 II Flagship and 35-70 Zoom Lens

I only had the GFX 100RF camera for a short moment as I was traveling when it arrived to us, but I was keen to see whether it would suffer in comparison to the GFX Flagship, the GFX 100 II. And also, at the 35mm focal length, the short end of the GF 35-70 Zoom Lens, which, despite the price is an outstanding optic. I wanted to see how it handled noise, the body is so compact, with the 102mp sensor stuffed inside, did that produce noise issue with excess heat?

Ok, here’s my test scene. And no, I wasn’t desperate for all of you to see my TV room, I just wanted some setting that was static, repeatable, and somewhat controllable. It’s a test, not an experiment. Or, maybe it is an experiment with me doing it. IDK. One thing – you’ll notice the framing is quite different because … I could be a lousy tester. But also I was a bit rushed and I decided to just keep the framing as it was without adjusting the tripod head. So the framing is a bit different, but the 35mm fixed lens appears a bit wider than the 35mm position of the GF 35-70 zoom. So there is that.

And also, the color. I used AWB for both – it’s mixed light, and do with it what you will. I’ve not been the biggest fan of Fujifilm default AWB, it tends a bit magenta to my eye, and almost a bit too neutral-ish, but interestingly the GFX 100RF doesn’t share that in this scene. I can look at both and say some of the color of the GFX 100 II is more accurate, but I can also look at the GFX 100RF and say it feels more pleasing to me, I feel environment. There’s more yellow, and I think I react positively to that. This is just me, though. YMMV. It shows a difference, and that is what matters.

Now – keep in mind, this was likely not a final production unit. To process this as a raw file, I had to cheat the metadata and Capture One thinks it is a GFX 100 II, so it is assigning that profile to it. Same sensor, yes. But that’s no guarantee they will produce the same exact color, or more specifically, react with the same AWB conclusion. I’ll be eager to see how the first production units look with the correct camera profile.

Is There a Noise Penalty?

Ok, look for yourself, but far as I can see, there is not a noise penalty. This is a file that was underexposed and had a way way up shadow push at ISO 1600 with all luminance noise reduction turned off. They feel very equivalent. If anything, I would say while the noise levels appear extremely similar, I might even – by a nudge – prefer the noise signature of the GFX100RF, but it’s so close, I may just be imagining that. I think the clear bottom line is that you have a relatively really small and portable camera with a 102mp medium format sensor that produces no image quality penalty for such a benefit. That’s a win.

The Quality of the Fixed 35mm/4 Lens

Now, first off, this lens is tiny. Like, seriously tiny. So hats off for that. But will a lens that small, and yet designed to cover a 44mm xx 33mm sensor, produce high optical quality? Fujifilm doesn’t make a 35mm prime lens, so I grabbed the well regarded GF 35-70 zoom lens. We’ve tested this lens against the $2,300 GF32-64 zoom and found it easily competes with it. For $999, it’s a very good medium format optic. So here we go, another comparison.

I have to say, this was a bit of a struggle, because I wanted to compare the wide open performance. And nailing the identical focus point seemed to be an issue for me. It’s not a 120mm macro lens of a potato right in front of me, it’s a room scene with a wide lens, so details are relatively small when magnified. And through a combination of focus peaking and magnification, and against time constraints, I did my best, but the GF 35-70 is clearly focused a bit further in the scene than the 35mm/4 lens on the GFX 100RF. Which is ok, a line of proximity focus for each can be found, and after all, what we’re after is to see how they compare, and to get a sense of their individual performance, and we can at least do that to some degree to arrive at a preliminary conclusion.

Considered Results of the Lens Comparison

Yes, correct, due to my mis-focusing, it was difficult to find a similar subject of reference in both scenes from each lens that aligned. So the top image with the left edge is where I found the most sharpness for each lens. Keep in mind, this is max aperture edge performance with a wide angle lens, typically an extremely challenging metric for any lens. There’s going to be resolution falloff. The GF 35-70 does ok. But the GFX 100Rf 35mm …. um, that’s pretty darn good? That surprised me. Ok, the right side, now here, with the length of the window pane, we have at least more overlapping, similar subject matter, and here it appears pretty close, but I have to say I give a slight edge to the GFX100RF 35mm. Remember this is wide open performance at the edges.

I also checked for fringing, which can be found with max apertures in many lenses, and they both exhibit it, but they do so in a different manner, and to a different degree. I feel the GF 35-70 shows a bit more fringing, and it is the classic purple fringing, while the GFX 100RF 35mm shows a bit less, and it has a green-ish yellow fringe edge. Look, they both do it, but again, the GFX 100RF 35mm does not seem excessive at all, considering all that it stands for on a camera this capable at this size. Very well represented, and I see nothing in this lens that gives me pause that I cannot count on it to perform well.

Conclusion – What To Think?

I think we can surmise a number of things. This is a serious and powerful image making camera. And yet, it is also a camera packed with creative and productive elements that will make it enjoyable to use. As cool as it looks, it is not just a pretty face. It is right on par with the best image making cameras Fujifilm offers. And it delivers that in an amazingly small package with a quality lens. So far, to my eye, the product delivers. The only question is whether you will add it to your collection, and only you can answer that. But we can certainly talk about it!

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