Long term test Fuji GFX100S

Stilly, don’t be a kilo

Medium-format cameras take incredible stills but weigh heavy on the nerd – so Stuff swapped in Fuji’s new sub-1kg upstart for a physio-free fortnight

R114 000 (body only) / fujifilm.com/za

This camera’s image stabilisation has a full six stops of compensation compared to the GFX100’s 5.5.

DAY 01

Medium-format cameras aren’t known for their user-friendliness. Bulky, eye-wateringly expensive and rarely possessed of the planed-down niceties of a mirrorless, they’re traditionally tough to live with… but their giant sensors are capable of producing glorious photos.

Fujifilm’s latest GFX camera bucks the trend – well, mostly. It’s compact and lightweight by medium-format standards and packed with features like in-body image stabilisation and fast, accurate phase-detection autofocus that make it operate like the company’s X-series mirrorless models.

Weighing 900g without a lens, the GFX100S is 500g lighter than the R200 000 flagship GFX100. It’s also much more compact thanks to a significantly lower height and a slimmer frame. The only real trade-off is the loss of the vertical battery grip – something we’d wager most people don’t really want anyway.

The grip would allow you to fit more batteries and hold it more steadily in a vertical orientation, so there are some advantages, but taking it outside to shoot 102MP images without feeling like you need a neck replacement afterwards is a huge deal. It’s still chunky, particularly with a GFX lens on, and weatherproof.

Like the GFX100, this new model has a 3.2in three-way tilting touchscreen on the back. It won’t flip fully forward, but will tilt slightly to the right as well as up and down. That flexibility is likely to be useful when the camera is set on a tripod, as it means you won’t have to stoop to compose shots. Vloggers will want a forward-flip screen, of course, but how many of them are considering a camera this big or expensive for documenting their ramble-chats?

There’s an electronic viewfinder too, and very nice it is, if not quite as sharp as the interchangeable viewfinder on the GFX100. Both cameras have a useful top-plate LCD panel, giving at-a-glance info on current settings even when the camera is powered down.

It’s a camera you can take out to shoot 102MP images and not feel like you need a neck replacement afterwards

Tech specs

Sensor 102MP medium-format CMOS AF points 425 ISO range 50-102,400 (extended) Burst speed 5fps Video 4K @ 30fps, 1080p @ 60fps Displays 3.2in 2.36m-dot TFT touchscreen, 0.5in 3.69m-dot OLED EVF, 1.8in top LCD Dimensions 150x104x87mm, 900g

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Donut of Truth™

01 Superbly detailed medium-format images 02 Compact and lightweight for handheld shooting 03 Fuji’s user-friendly features come to the fore 04 We love the film modes as much as ever 05 Some will curse the lack of a battery grip option 06 Even half the price of the GFX100 is still a lot

DAY 02

Having in-body image stabilisation in a compact medium-format body is impressive in itself – and it’s been improved over the GFX100. It’s great for handheld shooting, and when you’re capturing images with this much detail that extra sharpness is appreciated.

The hybrid AF system combines phase and contrast-detection, and it’s fast. You can switch on face and eye-detection to aid portraits, and they work well with video too.

DAY 05

This sensor is quite something. Paired with the new 80mm f1.7 prime lens and 32-64mm f4 zoom it creates highly detailed images with beautiful colour tone, strong dynamic range and an incredibly narrow depth of field.

Taking full-length portraits with bokeh isn’t easy on an APS-C or even full-frame camera; it is with the GFX100S. We’re almost ready to sit that bank manager down and beg for the loan we’d need to buy this.

DAY 07

Today we’re going out after dusk. The huge sensor size and wide sensitivity range make it an adept low-light performer: even shooting handheld we’re able to snag detailed and dynamic snapshots in the early-spring twilight.

We’ve been shooting in RAW and adjusting images in Lightroom, but jpeg photographers have access to 19 film-simulation modes including the new Nostalgic Neg, inspired by the amber-toned look of 1970s photography.WeloveFuji’sapproach: achieve great, characterful images straight from the camera.

DAY 10

That’s enough stills – time to shoot some video. It proves very capable here, recording 4K at up to 30fps and 1080p at 60fps, and many of those film modes can be applied. Battery life is excellent, with a full charge fuelling an hour of 4K recording (or 450 shots).

DAY 14

To have features such as fast, accurate autofocus and in-body image stabilisation in an easily portable 102MP medium-format camera would’ve been unthinkable just a few years ago. The GFX100S is arguably the most accessible 100MP+ medium-format digital camera yet… but that bump in quality is something only the most perfection-seeking pro shooters will require.