The second part today, brings you inside the Fujifilm factory in the GFX100 assembly line, on the streets of Tokyo to test a prototype GFX100 and in the backstage of the GFX100 launch party room.
you see how the sensor and IBIS are assembled together
one person assembles the entire top part
a person checks the response of dials and buttons
18 tapes of tape are placed on the camera before they glue the rubber on it
some quick Fujifilm manager interviews ahead of launch, just to document their tension
The day before GFX100 launch, Toshihisa Ilda is visibly tense and he says that after GFX100 launch we will get completely drunk
at the end he keeps his promise, and he celebrates the launch of the GFX100 in a traditional Japanese way, by drinking Sake
That’s still more expensive than the Fujifilm GFX50R and Fujifilm GFX50S, but not that much. And it is certainly much cheaper than the Fujifilm GFX100, but the latter features a 100 MP BSI sensor and IBIS.
I am very happy that Hasselblad is going aggressive when it comes to pricing on the Hasselblad X1D II 50C.
The Fujifilm GFX kit will cost you $10,896, whereas the Hasselblad X1D kit $ 17,425.
You basically save about 40% by investing into the GFX system, and if you would buy today, with the current GFX deals, you actually save almost 50% over the X1D system.
So even by buying the Fujifilm GFX100 and 3 lenses at full price, you still save $1,000 with the Fuji GFX system and you also get:
IBIS
much faster autofocus
100 megapixel
4K/30p video
twice as fast continuous shooting frame rate
BSI sensor with full phase detection pixel coverage
& more
There is one fundamental design choice Hasselblad made, that makes the X1D system always substantially more expensive over the GFX system: the lack of focal plane shutter.
This has 2 downsides:
you can’t use cheap old legacy glass on the Hasselblad X1D
you have to pay for the leaf shutter every single time with every lens purchase
Guys, I am the first one to be happy about another player in the medium format market, that competes with Fujifilm. That’s what we customers need: competition!
The Hasselblad X1D II 50C is a much needed and welcome upgrade to the orginial X1D. The faster processor will sort out quite some issues the first generation cameras had.
But the GFX system remains the by far most affordable option to go into medium format, and the new Hasselblad X1D II 50C hasn’t changed that.
While the images turned out sharper than the competition, some were hoping for an even better performance.
Well, turns out DPReview studio test shots were flawed. In fact they just said:
While we make every effort to provide the most consistent, representative performance in our studio-based testing, it is sometimes very difficult. After further analysis we’ve discovered our GFX100 shots are fractionally misfocused, an issue exacerbated by the exacting resolutions of the 100 MP system. While these images show that the GFX 100 can capture significantly more detail than its 50MP predecessors, they do not show the full extent of this difference. We are planning to re-shoot the scene as soon as a production camera arrives and would like to apologize for any misconception these images may have furthered.
I guess this happens, when you hurry too much. Take your time, DPR, we can wait a bit longer for our pixel peeping. The important is we have a fair test.
The good news: even misfocused, the GFX100 is the sharpness king :)
The third episode of the Fujilove podcast with Fuji Guy Billy just went online (episode 1, episode 2). You can listed to it all at sticher and Fujilove.
the black line in the center part has been manually added by Bill from Photons to Photos
Fujifilm GFX100
For years, mirrorless cameras lagged behing DSLRs in terms of autofocus speed.
In order to catch up, companies started to incorporate phase detection pixels on their sensors, and modern cameras have phase detection pixels spread all over the sensors, very much to the delight of photographers, who enjoy fast autofoucs, eye autofocus all over the frame and reliable subject tracking.
But no technology is perfect, and so also phase detection has its downside.
When pushed to the extreme (meaning extreme shadow recovery for example), sensors with phase detection pixels can show some banding.
This has been documented with Nikon, Sony and so forth, and of course Fujifilm is no exception. They all use the same Sony sensor at the end of the day :).
It looks like also the Fujifilm GFX100 is (unsurprisingly) showing the same banding issue, when its RAW files are pushed to the extreme.
In fact, the Fujifilm GFX100 sensor has
a total of 3.78 million phase detection pixels
7,776 PDAF pixels every 18 lines
The more phase detection pixels a sensor has, the more you can use phase detection also in lower light.
Bill Claff from Photons to Photos has published a Fujifilm GFX100 sensor heatmap (via dpreview), showing a short black line every 18 rows (see image above).
Should we panic?
I guess not. Or we could just throw any modern mirrorless camera into the garbage that uses phase detection pixels (unless it’s X-Trans ;) ).
It’s, as always, a tradeoff.
Do you want faster autofocus? Or do you want RAW files that even when pushed to its limits and beyond don’t show banding?
The Solution
First off: Fujifilm is fine tuning the firmware for the Fujifilm GFX100, and of course they are aware of banding. They are working to optimize sensor readout and the final firmware will show, how much banding the camera will really have.
But in any case, there is partially a solution to that, even without optimized and final firmware.
As I told you already months ago, Fujifilm is working to bring pixel shift multishot into the Fujifilm GFX100.
The original goal was to have it ready for GFX100 launch, but it needs a bit more time of development.
But pixel shift mulitshot will come, and as we have seen from other phase detection mirrorless cameras offering this feature, pixel shift reduces or even eliminates banding completely.
So, as long as you are shooting static subjects on a tripod and use pixel shift multishot, you won’t have any issues with banding.
In case you were wondering about Fujifilm GFX100 and Actus GFX, Cambo said on their facebook page:
“During the last couple of weeks we received a lot of emails regarding the Fuji GFX-100. Will it fit on the Actus-GFX? The answer is yes.
The new GFX is substantially higher than the current 50mp models. We’ve just machined the parts required to fit the 100mp body to the Actus. And as demo cameras are still sparse in Europe, we took the opportunity to try the combination during the grand opening of Calumet’s new store in Frankfurt.
Q: Does camera rotation clear for portrait orientation?
A: In portrait orientation you could actually use the Actus-GFX as it is. Only when used in landscape orientation the new GFX-100 requires more space.”
Hasselblad says the launch will take place on June 19.
There are no further details. All we can see is an image showing a shutter button that looks just like the one of the Hasselblad X1D.
This indicates that the Hasselblad X2D (or Hasselblad X1D Mark II) could be on its way, maybe with the same 100 megapixel sensor of the Fujifilm GFX100.
This is a fantastic news especially for Fujifilm GFX lovers, since the more competition there is in the medium format segment, the more companies will fight for customers and offer more features for less price.
So, dear Hasselblad, we all look forward to June 19!
