The king of medium-format mirrorless cameras

You can’s say Fujifilm is boring. It stuck to APS-C sensors instead of going full-frame like everyone else, while releasing cool and weird models like the X100 VI. That strategy has been refreshing in a conservative industry and undeniably successful.

It also went big by introducing its first medium-format camera seven years ago, the GFX50S. After eight models, they’ve proven to be popular among pro portrait and scenic photographers, a market Fujifilm never really had before. Each has become increasingly more sophisticated, with better image quality, faster shooting speeds and improved video.

Now that the company’s flagship $7,500 100-megapixel GFX 100 II, has been out for awhile and had several firmware updates, I was keen to test the new AF speeds and more. So I went to London to try it out alongside two pro photographer friends who are thinking of buying one.

Body

The original GFX 100 is a gigantic camera, weighing over three pounds with the viewfinder. The GFX 100 II is more manageable at 2.27 pounds, the same as Panasonic’s full-frame S1. Photographers are still likely to be carrying a heavy bag, though, as medium-format GFX lenses are generally bigger and heavier than full-frame glass.

The GFX 100 II also feels more like a full-frame camera than an old-school top-down viewfinder medium format model. It has an updated, modern control layout, with a pair of control dials, a mode dial, a joystick, 14 buttons and a movie/photo switch.

The rear display tilts up, down and to the side, but doesn’t flip out — not a huge deal, as this will never be a vlogging camera. It shines where it counts, though, with a high 2.36 million dot resolution and enough brightness to use in sunlight. The viewfinder, meanwhile, is one of the best on any camera, with an extremely sharp 9.36-million dot resolution and 100 percent magnification.

It’s easy to handle, thanks to the well-placed controls and large grip. The top display, which stays on even when the camera is switched off, shows all the main settings at a glance. I’m not a huge fan of Fujifilm’s overly complicated menu system, but it’s fine once you get used to it.

As with other recent high-end cameras, you get both an SD UHS II card slot and a much faster CFexpress B option. The latter is required for fast burst shooting, as I’ll discuss soon. Battery life is solid, with up to 540 shots on a charge, or about an hour of 8K or 4K 60p recording.

Performance

The GFX 100 II is the fastest medium-format camera to date. You can fire bursts at up to 8 fps with the mechanical shutter enabled and capture about 300 lossless RAW frames before the buffer fills. That’s about 36GB of data, so it requires a fast CFexpress card.

Autofocus wasn’t a strong point on the GFX, but it’s a big step up on this model. The majority of shots in our burst testing were in focus, though it becomes less accurate when the subject is close to the camera. This isn’t a sports camera, obviously, but it still has the best AF I’ve seen on any medium format camera.

Face and eye detection have also improved, usually locking onto the eye and not, say the eyebrow as the older model did. Fujifilm also introduced AI subject detection from recent models, so it now has settings for animals, birds, automobiles, motorcycles, bikes, airplanes and trains.

The GFX 100 II has a new 5-axis stabilization system with up to eight stops of shake reduction, compared to 5.5 stops before. This is useful for portraits and scenics, letting you shoot down to a quarter second or slower and blur water or people, while keeping the background sharp.

Rolling shutter was pretty abysmal on the original model, and isn’t a lot better here. If you’re taking street photos and want to remain silent, it’s fine if the subject doesn’t move much. For anything else, use the mechanical shutter to avoid some bad skewing.

Image quality

Image quality is this camera’s forte. Naturally, photos are pin sharp thanks to the 102-megapixel sensor. And with 16 bits of color depth in RAW mode, dynamic range is outstanding, right up there with Sony and Nikon. All of that makes it ideal for portraits and landscapes, on top of tasks that benefit from high-resolution, like art preservation.

The GFX 100 II now goes down to ISO 80 instead of 100 to further boost dynamic range. All of that allows photographers to get creative with RAW photos, or tease detail out of highlights and shadows.

It’s not bad at high ISOs either, thanks to the sensor’s backside illumination and dual-gain design. There’s very little noise visible at ISO 6400, and photos are usable up to ISO 12800 if exposure is correct.

The medium format sensor offers incredibly shallow depth of field if you need that for portrait shooting. Combined with a fast lens like the 80 mm f/1.7, it allows for incredible bokeh and subject separation.

For those who prefer to use JPEGs straight out of the camera, it delivers color-accurate images with the perfect amount of in-camera sharpening. That’s ideal for previews or for folks who want to use Fujifilm’s impressive film simulation modes. For the GFX 100 II, Fujifilm introduced a new one called Reala Ace that’s based directly on one of its old negative films. With a punchy, saturated and slightly nostalgic feel, it has become one of my new favorites.

There is one quality issue — the GFX 100 II drops from 16- to effectively less than 14-bits when shooting 8fps bursts in order to reduce throughput. That in itself isn’t a huge problem, but Fujifilm has been cagey about how it markets this, which has rubbed a lot of pro photographers the wrong way.

Video

I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but the X100 II is also Fuji’s best medium format camera for video. It has a host of new modes, most notably 8K. It also offers 6K, 4K/60p and 1080p at 240fps. All those formats can be captured in 12-bit ProRes, along with 10-bit H.265 formats. You also get access to Fujifilm’s excellent F-Log2 capture that boosts dynamic range.

There are some considerable compromises, though. 8K is captured with a 1.53 times crop, reducing the effective sensor size to less than full frame — which negates one of the main medium-format advantages: shallow depth of field. Other resolutions use the full sensor width, but pixel binning reduces sharpness.

Rolling shutter is also an issue at 8K, so be sure not to move the camera much at that resolution. It’s less bothersome at 4K resolutions, likely due to the pixel binning.

All that aside, video from the GFX100 II has a different quality than I’ve seen from most mirrorless cameras. The larger sensor makes it cinematic, especially with some of Fujifilm’s prime lenses. And the 8K video is extremely sharp when downsampled to 4K in DaVinci Resolve.

Realistically though, video is more of a nice-to-have feature for occasional use, as the majority of buyers will certainly be using it for photography.

Wrap-up

The $7,500 GFX100 II is an impressive medium format camera with improvements in every area compared to the previous model. More importantly, what did my pro photographer friends think and will they buy one? “What’s most noticeable is the evolution of the autofocus compared to the GFX100,” said Nathanael Charpentier. “In our studio we usually work with Sony, and the GFX100 II autofocus is still far from Sony’s level, but it’s a big improvement.

“It’s not a sports camera, it doesn’t have super-fast burst speeds. It’s more for studio portrait work. For certain types of ‘reportage’ like candid wedding shoots, if we really need the extra dynamic range offered by a medium-format camera, I could see using it.” At this point, they’re not planning on buying one due to the high price (and the fact that they just laid down 6,000 euros for an A9 III), but it’s high on their list of future equipment purchases.

Its main competitor is the $8,200 Hasselblad X2D 100C, which has perhaps slightly better color science and image quality — while also bringing a certain prestige with the Hasselblad name. However, the GFX100 II is superior in most other ways, including speeds, autofocus and video. If you really need to nail autofocus in busy or difficult situations, though, full-frame is still best: Sony’s 45-megapixel $6,500 A1 or Nikon’s $3,800 Z8 or $5,500 Z9 (both 45MP as well) are better choices.

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