Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
This two-part video series from Johnnie Behiri at Cinema5D covering the creation of the new Fujifilm GFX100 medium format digital camera has been absolutely fantastic to watch. In Part one, Johnnie met with the folks from Fuji to talk about the design and concept of the camera and the challenges faced during that process.
Now, Part 2 has been released which shows the first production run of Fuji GFX100 cameras actually being built. It’s a wonderful insight into the birth of a new camera.
Getting to play with a prototype camera is a little like Christmas morning mixed with Texas Hold’em. There is a childlike excitement in getting to be one of the first in the world to try something totally new, yet it’s also a gamble, and even the best strategy can change with the flip of a card.
You can spend hours preparing for a certain shot, setting up the lights, setting the scene, and then in a flash some odd warning can pop up on the screen and you can’t consult Google or call customer service as, chances are, nobody else has had this problem yet.
News of Fujifilm working on a 100-megapixel camera has been around since Photokina 2018 last September. Finally, only last month, it was unveiled. The Fuji GFX 100 is Fujifilm’s latest flagship mirrorless medium format camera. The folks from Cinema5D got the opportunity to travel to Japan to see the birth of this new camera and monitor its development.
Naturally, they shot video so the rest of us could take a peek. This is just the first part of a two-part series on the making of the GFX 100. Part one deals with the design and development of the camera, while part two will see the factory where the camera is actually made.
In late May, Fujifilm teased the Instax Mini LiPlay, another analog-digital hybrid camera with LCD screen. It’s now officially announced, and other than bringing together analog and digital, it also adds audio to the experience.
Well, this is kinda cool. It appears that Fujifilm isn’t doing everything they can to forget film exists, after all. It was mentioned last July that Fuji might be planning to bring back some black & white film, and now they’ve just gone and made it official.
They’re starting with Neopan ACROS 100II. Technically, this isn’t a reintroduction. It’s a new formula, which Fuji says gets around the issue of raw material availability in the old ACROS 100 formula.
It was two years ago when Fujifilm introduced SQ10, its first analog-digital hybrid. The company is now teasing another Instant camera with LCD screen, and it’s possible that this time it will use the Instax Mini instead of Instax Square film.
The Fujifilm 33mm f/1 AF lens isn’t exactly a secret. It was first mentioned back in July last year when Fujifilm released their latest lens roadmap for X series cameras. While not originally scheduled for release until 2020, the lens was made official a couple of months later in September.
We knew the focal length, the maximum aperture, and what mount it was for. We even had a rough idea of the release schedule, but what we didn’t know about was the price. Now, it seems that Czech retailer, Oehling, has put up a price. A price that equates to a little under $3,100.
Fujifilm has announced that it will be implementing “a worldwide pricing revision for its photographic films and photographic papers”. Fujifilm says that they’ve been facing the rising cost of film and logistics. They say that they’ve absorbed some of the costs through structural reforms, but can not risk sacrificing the quality of their product, so prices are going up.
Along with the big announcement of the X-T30 mirrorless camera, Fujifilm has also announced a new lens you can pair with it. Fujinon XF 16mm f/2.8 R WR is a wide-angle prime for X-Mount APS-C Fuji mirrorless cameras. It’s small, lightweight and therefore ideal for everyday use and travels.
The Canon EOS RP isn’t the only new camera being announced today. The hotly anticipated (and much rumoured) Fujifilm X-T30 is now officially here. It sees some rather nice upgrades over the previous generation X-T20 announced back in January 2017. It maintains the same size 1.5x crop APS-C CMOS X-Trans sensor, but with a bump from 24.3 to 26.1-megapixels.
The X-T30 sees some new shooting aspect ratios, along with slight increase in video shooting resolution, offering 4K DCI. The autofocus system also gets a boost, going from 91 Hybrid AF points in the X-T20 to 425 phase detection AF points in the X-T30. And when it comes to stills shooting speed, that’s increased from an already impressive 14fps up to 20fps.
You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube and Facebook.
can change a lens mid-rappel, swap a memory card while treading water, or use a camel as a light stand.
To see more of his work please visit his studio website blurMEDIAphotography, or follow him on Twitter, 500px, Google Plus or YouTube.
JP’s photography is available for licensing at Stocksy United.
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