If you’re curious about what it’s like to shoot with Fujifilm’ newest medium format contender, the GFX 100, Adorama and Seth Miranda has you covered with a hands-on video.
With Fujifilm fans and photographers eager for medium format counting down the days to get their hands on the Fujifilm GFX 100, we spotted something to satisfy that curiosity, even for just a little bit. Adorama recently shared a short, hands-on video from Seth Miranda, who took a pre-production model of Fujifilm’s new medium format contender to Tokyo for a test run. So, check out how that went down!
In the first part of the video, Miranda shows us some behind the scenes of a product shoot of the GFX 100. We see his lighting setup for the “beauty” shots and also some preview footage from the shoot. Then, for some real-life shooting situation, he’s took the medium format camera along with some lights, a trigger, and some grips and headed out to get a nice tattoo.
That’s definitely something worth documenting in pictures. But instead of whipping out his phone for an Instagram Story, Miranda went straight for the big gun. Out came the GFX 100 with a 45mm lens, and he bravely shot through the entire session while pinned down and getting poked for his tiger tattoo. Of course, he had to shoot only with available light, and see what angles he could get being stuck in just one position with the 45mm lens.
“Being so close I was worried about the minimum focusing distance. Could I even be this close and get something sharp? How can I variate these shots? Can I keep getting the same shot and make it look somewhat interesting? What am I really trying to document?” These are some of the questions and concerns he had while shooting in this manner. He finally decided to go for apertures between f8 and f16 to do away with the shallow depth of field and get as much of the scene before he focused. Given the mixed lighting and white balance issues, Miranda opted for the classic black and white Acros look first, then switched to the classic Chrome profile.
Now, for some more technical shooting notes. He also said that each RAW file was at 210 MB, while JPEGs were at 40 to 50 MB each, so shooting with this camera will definitely fill up your cards fast. As for the ergonomics, he said it did feel like shooting with a flagship DSLR, so that could be something of interest to DSLR users if they want to switch to the GFX 100.
Finally, how could he pass up on the opportunity to take some portraits of the master tattoo artist? With only minimal time and minimal setup, he was able to get some pretty cool results in both color and black and white.
That’s a good preview of what we can expect when it comes to shooting with this new medium format beast. There’s definitely more of those out there to look for while we wait for the big day on June 27th, so we’re keeping our eyes peeled!
Screenshot image from the video by Adorama and Seth Miranda
