Evection wrote:
Disclaimer: I don't use or care about zooms, so I'm not commenting on their quality here.
Canon RF and Fuji X shooter here. I'm contemplating replacing my RF system with GFX. I don't do action or wildlife and only ever use AF-S anyway, so bad medium format autofocus is not a concern for me. Don't need compact street/travel lenses either as I have my X system for that. When I bring my bulky RF L primes, I only care about image quality, which is why GFX seems like a logical next step. We're talking fine art, portrait and macro here.
So, I rented a GFX 100II with 55/1.7, 80/1.7 and 110/2.0. Those focal lengths suit me, as a starting kit. The test did not go well.
The 80/1.7 is optically subpar to the point I wouldn't even consider it.
The 55/1.7 is a lot better than that, but still disappointing. Corner performance at f/1.7 is mediocre, only gets excellent at 2.8 and narrower. There's also a coma problem -- wouldn't use that lens for nighttime photography.
The 110/2 is the only top-tier lens here. It can replace my RF 85/1.2 in most cases.
Looking at the lens lineup, all the other primes are too slow for my use case. Appreciate they're meant to be smaller and cheaper, but I'm not looking for EDC glass in a medium format system. And here's the thing... the faults I pointed out in the 55 and 80 would be fine in compact glass, but those two are not that. Their heft, price and aperture puts them in the same category as the Canon and Nikon 1.2 glass. They don't live up to it, optically.
Then we come to macro. How is there no 1:1 lens in GFX? (No, I'm not ruining my quality and diffraction limit with extension tubes).
Corner performance at f/1.7? Did I read that right?
Lenses like the RF 50 1.2 and 85 1.2 don't start getting sharp in the corners at infinity until at least f/2, so expect f/2.8-f/4 to be the 44x33 equivalent there. Shoot the Fujifilm GF primes for their character of the lenses wide open, not the corner IQ wide open (except the 110 where you can expect more). Stopped down to f/5.6, which is at least where you'd be for landscape, they are superb.
That said, the best RF portrait primes are in a class of their own. Only the GFs in that class (IMO) are the 110, 120, and 250.
Sep 04, 2025 at 03:00 PM
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