Medium format of the future with the Fujifilm GFX 100 II

Medium format is a myth that many photographers dream of. Fujifilm makes this dream come true with the GFX series. So after many years, the GFX100 is now followed by the next generation: the GFX 100 II. Now you might be saying to yourself, "Yeah well, what's the big deal about medium format?" But Fujifilm simply proves that there is more to medium format than you might think.

GFX cameras are powerhouses and photographers who work with these cameras usually make their living doing so! But until now, it was photographers who owned a Fujifilm GFX camera.

This short film gives you a taste of the video qualities of the GFX 100II and what you can do with it. So if you have a few minutes, take a look at this short film.

The new sensor of the GFX 100 II

There have been a few innovations around the sensor, such as the standard ISO of 80, which means the camera is also able to capture photos with a 16-bit color depth, allowing for a very wide dynamic range of the shot. The redesigned microlenses of the GFX100II provide better light coverage, and with it, much improved edge-to-edge sharpness and detail that the GFX 100 MK1 could not provide. Also, the new X-Processor 5 has made its way in, which we will discuss later.

Pixel Shift Multishot for up to 400MP

If 102 megapixels isn't enough, the image stabilizer lets you set the bar much higher, with up to 400 megapixel shots. This is where it gets exciting, because Fujifilm's approach here is to have the camera take 20 shots in which each RGB color channel (i.e. red, green, and blue) is captured individually, shifting the sensor via the image stabilizer, as the name of the feature suggests. But because the shots are taken in the individual colors, there are almost no false colors.

Analog film simulation in medium format

Perhaps the most popular function of the Fujifilm cameras can now also be found in the medium format camera. There are 20 analog film simulations offered on the GFX 100 II, which can also be customized and individualized. Particularly noteworthy is the return of Reala Ace Film, as a film simulation on the GFX.

Autofocus performance with the X-Processor 5

Thanks to the X-Processor now installed, the Fuji GFX 100 II offers much better autofocus performance than its predecessors did. With the help of AI support, the camera now recognizes different objects. As known from full frame & co, the Fujifilm GFX 100 II can now recognize people, animals, birds, cars, bikes, planes or trains. This improves the reliability of the autofocus and thus offers the photographer / videographer the opportunity to focus more on image composition.

The powerful video functions of the GFX 100 II

Enough about photos, let's move on to the video features that make the camera interesting for some video productions. That's because there are significant improvements and video format support here that make the GFX 100 II particularly interesting to use for videography.

• Inbody equalization of Anamorph
• Support for Premista & Cabrio lenses
• minimal rolling shutter effect
• F-Log2 support, high dynamic range of 14+ stops
• Tracking autofocus also usable via touch
• Support of many cinema formats / video formats
• Camera to Cloud connection with Frame.io
• Raw output via HDMI
• fan compatible
• external SSD supported via USB recording
• 8 f-stops sensor stabilization
• Pixel Mapping
• Waveform / Vectorscope
• ATOMOS AirGlu^TM BT Wireless Timecode
• Fullsize HDMI
• up to 12-bit RAW is possible with external recording

With all of these features, the Fujifilm GFX 100 II could also be considered a budget-sized IMAX camera, as it is certainly more affordable than the more common cine cameras that are usually used to film in IMAX quality.

What does medium format bring to video?

If you have to deal with video resolutions, codecs and the like, as in some other full-format cinema cameras now, you will be somewhat overwhelmed by the possibilities here. Because there are also many formats that are larger than full-frame. Here the sensor size plays together with the megapixel density: The more megapixels the camera has, the more accurate the color fidelity and color transition of the image. This finer color transition makes the image look more realistic and gives it more depth than it would with a coarser mesh of (less megapixel thick sensors) megapixel sensors. Of course, the image tends to be noisier than it would be with a less megapixel sensor.

Our conclusion

The medium format lives on! Not only with a strong price, but rather with the breaking of many clich?s about full format. The autofocus speed in particular has usually kept these cameras from breaking through into the mass market. But the medium format myth has become more tangible than ever.

More articles in the blog