Bob Poole Puts the Fujifilm GFX100 II in the Path of Elephants — and It Delivers Cinematic Magic

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While working on his latest elephant documentary, Emmy Award–winning cinematographer Bob Poole decided to bring an unexpected camera into his setup: the Fujifilm GFX100 II. Not as a main cinema camera — that role was covered by the ARRI Alexa 35 paired with the massive Fujinon Duvo HK 25–1000mm f/2.8–5 — but as a creative tool to capture something different.

The goal was simple: get unusual, ultra-high-quality shots from extremely low angles.

To make that happen, Poole and his team built an elephant-proof cage and placed the GFX100 II directly on the ground — right on paths regularly used by elephants — to capture perspectives that would be impossible with traditional cinema rigs.

Naturally, this should have been a disaster.

After all, if he had asked internet forum experts, they would have confidently explained that the GFX100 II is “not a real video camera” and that creating meaningful cinematic footage with it would be basically impossible.

Luckily, Bob Poole didn’t ask the forums.

And somehow — against all odds and comment sections — the GFX100 II ended up delivering stunning, cinematic footage that blends seamlessly with high-end cinema cameras.

Here’s what Poole had to say about working with the GFX100 II:

  • GFX100II has been instrumental in this film project, giving us angles we would have never been able to achieve with larger cameras
  • We made an Elephant proof cage and dropped the GFX100II on a path the Elephants use
  • when the Elephant pops in front of the camera, all the detail is there on that large sensor, all that information, I think it’s going to blow people away
  • the idea was always to have massive wide angle shots that show the landscape from a perspective you otherwise you would not see
  • GFX100II came into play because the wide angle stuff coming out of these lenses in this amazing camera were seamless
  • the image has the same beautiful soft rolloff of the Arri Alexa 35, shallow DOF, super sharp, beautiful bokeh
  • the image is fantastic
  • GFX100II also really valuable for timelapse, counting on that large sense to be able to oversample and then be able to work within the frame which has given our post production so much flexibility, because we can move within the frame we’ve created
  • GFX100II stills are amazing. We have got so many beautiful images

Well done, Bob — and well done Fujifilm for giving creators tools that don’t just improve image quality, but actually expand what’s creatively possible, opening new ways to work, experiment, and tell stories with more freedom and flexibility.

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