Is Digital Medium Format Really Worth It?
…Yep
Ever since I picked up my first digital camera, the idea of a medium format sensor has fascinated me. These cameras carried a hefty price tag back in 2015 with most starting at around $10K for the body only. It’s safe to say it wasn’t something my 21-year-old self could afford and it seemed that only high-end fashion photographers were using these systems back then.
Fast forward a few years and the inception of mirrorless medium format cameras from Fujifilm and Hasselblad have made these systems somewhat accessible to the wider market of camera enthusiasts and semi-professionals like myself.
The FujiFilm GFX 50r has been a camera that has captured my attention since its entrance in September 2018. A blocky rangefinder design with a classic manual shutter speed dial and a larger-than-full frame but not quite 645 sensor. After spending a lot of my time lugging around a Mamiya RZ67 I was intrigued to see whether a digital system could replace or at the very least compete with my film setup.
Earlier this year curiosity finally got the better of me and I picked one up along with a Pentax 75mm 2.8 lens and an adapter for both the Pentax lens and my beloved Helios 44. I opted to use vintage glass mainly because I wanted a manual focus experience to keep that analog feel and from what I’ve seen, Fuji’s native glass is both clinically sharp and extortionately expensive. It’s just not something I wanted or needed.
A very popular set of lenses to pair with the GFX system is ZY Optic’s Mitakon 65mm 1.4 as well as the recently released 80mm 1.6. Unfortunately, I’m yet to use either of those lenses but the fast aperture on both makes them attractive options, especially for portrait-focused photographers.
So first things first, 50 megapixels is pretty crazy. I’m not a pixel peeper by any means, but wow — the amount of detail this thing can capture is pretty astounding. I often find myself punching into 100% crop to admire the sheer amount of information captured across the image. Of course, file sizes are pretty large as a consequence but this makes me more mindful when I’m out and about. I’m not taking multiple shots of the same subject and I’m no longer clogging up my Lightroom library with tons of mediocre photos.
Aside from the insane resolution, there’s a ‘medium format’ look to the photos it produces and although it’s sometimes hard to put your finger on exactly what that is, it’s often coined as having more compression at wider focal ranges, allowing for wider angle photos that still retain an incredibly shallow depth of field. This is something that works well for environmental portraits where the subject’s full body is in focus but the background is blurred. There’s a 3d sort of rendering to the image that grabs your attention and makes these portraits feel so life-like.
The large sensor on the Fuji takes in a lot of light. This makes for a super smooth fall-off between the different tonal ranges and the flexibility of the files immediately becomes apparent in post. But just like any other digital camera I quickly found that less is always more when it comes to the edit. These are powerful files but It’s easy to overwork them.
More often than not I’m looking to keep the edits consistent with the way I scan and edit my film images so my approach stays the same. I apply my film emulation profile in Lightroom, add grain actions in Photoshop then correct the white balance and saturation before exporting. It’s as simple as that.
Despite the tactile feel of the focusing ring on the vintage glass, there’s no getting around the fact that this is undoubtedly still a digital experience. Punching in to focus on the electronic viewfinder isn’t particularly glamorous. The focus peaking feature on the camera reduces the resolution of the overall EVF to decipher which parts are properly in focus. This results in a pretty muddied-looking preview. So much so that I’ve permanently turned off that feature and now rely on my intuition to make focus. This is pretty easy to do when you’re cropped in at 100% and it means I’m not constantly having to look at a cartoon-like preview of the image before firing the shutter.
Apart from that, shooting with this camera is a pretty wholesome experience. The slap from the shutter is well dampened but it’s substantial enough to feel like you’re capturing something special. The ergonomics aren’t fantastic but they aren’t as awful as I thought they’d be. If you’re looking for something more comfortable to hold then the GFX 50s might be more up your street. Either way, it’s a compromise I’m willing to make for the sleek rangefinder design and the fantastic images this camera produces.
Ultimately I’m never going to need 50 megapixels for any of the work I do, but there’s no doubt that these cameras create a look that’s unique to medium format photography.
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