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 Re: Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point | |
gdanmitchell wrote:
guidostow wrote:
ruthenium wrote:
I added this camera (GFX100S II) with the GF20-35MM F4 lens last December. What helped that decision was the opportunity to have the system for a week, on loan from Fuji Canada. You may want to explore this option, if you are not sure whether you should like the GFX. Later on, I similarly had a chance to spend time with the GF500MM F5.6 lens, also loaned by Fuji Canada. I now have my own copy of this lens together with the GF55MM F1.7 prime. I don't have the feeling that there are lenses that , for my uses, are not available for the GFX. I am perfectly happy with the three GF lenses I purchased.
In the last seven months, I really bonded strongly with the GFX. There is something about the camera and about the experience of processing the raw files that I find enjoyable. My Sony A1 and some of the excellent lenses (35mm F1.4 GM, 70-200mm F2.8 GMII, 200-600mm G, Tamron 35-150mm F2-2.8 etc) are, unfairly(!), "collecting dust".
It is true that the GFX100S II is not a fast system, yet it is not as slow as to be a problem. I like the 4 x 3 sensor better than the 3 x 2, and (unexpectedly) I really like having the 100MP. The body design and layout of the buttons and dials on the GFX100S II are very different from the Sony bodies. Thus, it would make sense to try this system before committing to purchasing.
Thanks for this... I'd certainly do a "try before I buy" before making the change.
I'm not the average sony user. My practice is very much shaped by my time using large format (mostly 4x10 and 8x20). I work slowly and carefully, entirely on a tripod. I would use my adapted canon TS-E lenses manual focus lenses 24,50,90 and 135 (maybe adding the 17...) I'm excited by the Fringer adapter with the physical aperture ring. I work entirely from the LCD. I'm skeptical about the 4x3, but excited by the 65x24 crop option.
I would keep my sony bodies and sigma zooms for wet/dusty conditions and IR.
I'll keep pondering, I don't want to jump before I'm sure.
My point above was not that the GFX system is right or wrong or that it is good or bad — just that working with it is a very different thing than working with high-end FF systems.
Like you, I also work (with my larger camera systems) almost* exclusively from the tripod, and I rely heavily on the LCD for framing and manual focus. (Basically I run the camera in a fully manual mode for this.) However, I moved away from using prime lenses (for my landscape photography) and for a decade or so have used only zooms, with the exception of occasionally using a macro prime. (I use a Pentax medium format zoom lens on a Mirex tilt/shift adapter at times, too.)
My personal issue with GFX — and I acknowledge that it is personal to my style of landscape photography, which often relies on long lenses — is that there is no Fujifilm zoom longer than 200mm (the 100-200). And, of course, that’s a wider angle of view than 200mm on FF. I rely a great deal on 70-200mm and 100-400mm zoom lenses, with the latter occasionally using a 1.4x TC.
I know that Fujifilm makes excellent 250mm and 500mm primes for the GFX cameras, along with a 1.4x TC. But I want (expect, need…) the precise compositional control provided by zoom lenses… and I do not’ want to deal with two big primes and a TC where one lens does the job on FF with greater control.
As I often add, though, YMMV. :-)
I see that you rely on a set of four prime lenses between 24mm and 135mm, and you can certainly find lenses that will work with that approach. Your T/S (Canon EF I presume) lenses should give you sufficient coverage for the somewhat larger miniMF sensor area, though your ability to to T and S will be a bit more limited, if that matters. You will, obviously, be getting larger angles of view, but some photographers are willing to crop to FF size occasionally.
If I had been in your situation — owning a set of lenses that should work well with an adapter — I probably would have moved to GFX several years ago.
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* my “almost” qualifier is that I do sometimes photograph wildlife with my current FF system, and I most often do that handheld. For me — but probably not for you — that is another negative on the miniMF system on several counts: speed, reach, and lenses. When I contemplated GFX while waiting to see if Fujifilm would ever come up with better long lens options, I assumed that I’d need a second system for this photography.
I think that you have clearly presented why full frame is the correct choice for what you do. I come from years of using a rangefinders, so my current travel kit for international travel has bifurcated. The X2D2/20-35mm/35-100mm/38v/Nomatic 25L Backpack represents my move away from full frame, rangefinder cameras and the Leica M11 Monochrom.. all with prime lenses. I read above where a move isn’t made until the poster was “sure”. For me, I recognize that the equipment sets the parameters around which I work and it is up to me to recalibrate to accommodate and nothing ever qualifies as “sure”. So, here I’m committing to B&W conversion, zoom vs prime and a slight bump in size/weight to a “medium format” system. My days of RTSiii & A1 with long zooms ended when I stopped shooting field sports and most of what I shot was with 21/28/35mm primes, so the other change was covering longer focal lengths. My second challenge was returning to full frame. What piqued my interest was the Sony 50-150mm f/2.0. Rather a strange interest given that I almost exclusively shot 21-35mm. It was really the f/2.0 that captured my interest and I’m convinced that upon revisiting previous locations, this lens will result in a very different set of images, as would a macro lens. So, my second kit is the A7R6/17mm,24mm,50-150mm/same backpack. Both kits make for a lot of uncertainty in that my prime use lenses will be the longer zooms. I doubt that my assembly of images can come close to any of yours, so I have less at stake with making such a change, but the change itself presents new challenges, much the same as returning to film presents new (old) challenges. So, my suggestion regarding being sure is that the large expenditure of money will, at a minimum, ensure that you give the new gear a real go and if you decide that it was the wrong choice for you, plenty of photographers will be happy to purchase used Fuji MF gear.
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