Cloudburst...

[Manfred M]

I am continuing to work with the GFX100sII. I primarily intend to use it as a studio and on-location camera.

The good news is that while shooting tethered, the camera charges through the tethering cable that is attached to the computer, so the battery is fully charged even after 8 hours of shooting. The the D810, tethering was really hard on battery life.

On the flip side, the D810 had no issues focusing on the glassware I am shooting, but it seems to confuse the Fuji. Fortunately with the focus indicators and manual focusing, this is not really an issue.

I seem to have no issues tethering to Capture One and Fuji's own Fujifilm X Acquire software, but getting Lightroom to work (requires a Fuji plugin that I have). No luck so far... These are all using a USB cable. Apparently I can tether wirelessly as well, but I have not got that to work yet either.

[billtils]

Manfred, I may have (or probably did) miss a post somewhere but curious about the GFX decision ,,,

[Manfred M]

Manfred, I may have (or probably did) miss a post somewhere but curious about the GFX decision ,,,

As a print maker (large format) and someone who exhibits in a number of galleries, I had a hard look at where my work was going some time ago. Over the past few years I had been exposed to both medium and large format (film) cameras, and when I explored the potential as to where I would be taking my photography, medium format digital seems to be an obvious direction to go. It has higher resolution and the cameras have more subtle colour rendering as the newer ones use true 16-bit colour. The larger sensor also gives a slightly different look and feel to the images. Unlike FF cameras, which use a 2:3 aspect ratio, medium format tends to be 3:4, which is closer to how I make my prints.

As I am primarily a still life photographer (with some studio / on-location portraiture), size and weight of the camera (and lenses) is not really an issue. I do a lot of my work using a tripod, so again, heavier equipment does not really bother me. The 102MP sensor was compared to say the 60MP Sony a7R V (which is a more expensive camera body that the Fujifilm), definitely suggested medium format makes sense for where my work is going.

When Nikon went from the F mount to the Z mount, the impact of switching camera systems was already made for me, to some extent. I am going to continue to use the D810 for travel and street photography.

When I looked at what was out there, the only realistic choices were Fujufilm and Hasselblad, as Pentax has not refreshed their line in over a decade, Leica's approach is not quite where I want to go and Phase One cameras (with their150MP sensors) cost more than a luxury car.

That brought my choice down to one of the numerous Fujifilm cameras (GFX100ii, GFX100s) or Hasselblad (X2D or 907x) as these all use a 102MP sensor. There were strong rumours that Fujifilm would be introducing an updated GFX100sII in the first part of this year, I decided to see where that came out price wise.

The reason I ended up going with Fuji was price. I really liked the X2D and from a design and ergonomics standpoint, that camera is gorgeous. The only major downside for me was that putting leaf shutters in their lenses drives up the unit cost of the lenses. The new GFX100sII came out at $US5000 and the two lenses I was interested in f/4 45-100mm and the f/5.6 100-200mm are on sale right how. The total package cost for me to go Fuji was about the same as going with the Hasselblad X2D body only, so that made the decision a lot easier.

Right now I am into the steep part of the learning curve but the initial experience has been positive. The native print resolution I get is about 24" x 32" on Epson, which is certainly something I was looking for, so I may have to invest in a larger printer down the road...

[DanK]

This is a great example of "different strokes..."

For your purposes, a larger format makes perfect sense. For me, the pressure was to go in the other direction. I do carry my gear, and with advancing age, I find it more and more bothersome. When I went to mirrorless, I was disappointed with the APS-C offerings (Canon's offerings aren't sufficient, and for various reasons, I decided against the Fuji XT series) and ended up with a Canon R6 II. It's a wonderful camera, but it didn't save me much in the way of weight, although the combination of IBIS and ILIS is so good that I can often much more often leave tripod home. I gave very serious thought to the new OM-1; it's in many respects a superb camera, and for a full system, it would cut weight enormously. However, a 20 MP 12-bit MFT sensor was a step too far for me. I still have some regrets about not going that route.

[billtils]

Thanks Manfred. That's as rational and well thought out as I would expect from you. Enjoy!

[billtils]

Dan, I have what could be described as "an online photo buddy" who posts a fair bit on another forum and who switched from a 5D3 to an OM-1 and has absolutely no regrets. That of course is not a universal truth and, for one thing, will vary depending on what you like to shoot - he is mainly landscape for pleasure.

[DanK]

Dan, I have what could be described as "an online photo buddy" who posts a fair bit on another forum and who switched from a 5D3 to an OM-1 and has absolutely no regrets. That of course is not a universal truth and, for one thing, will vary depending on what you like to shoot - he is mainly landscape for pleasure.

Leaving aside weight, I think that for my purposes, the R6 II is better: more dynamic range, probably better color rendition (14 bit rather than 12, 5.96 micron pixel pitch vs. 3.36 micron). However, this comes at a cost in weight. The difference in bodies isn't that much; the real issue is the difference in the size and weight of lenses. I think I'm stuck now anyway: to replace not only the camera but all of my lenses would cost a huge amount, more than I can justify at this point.

[Manfred M]

Bii / Dan - All interesting points and the "bottom line" is that the camera system(s) we end up choosing come as a result of a number of decisions we make regarding our own personal photographic needs.

Often the most important consideration is cost. I don't think any of the members here have unlimited budgets, so trying to find the most cost efficient solution is often the number one consideration.

The type of photography that we do also plays a significant role here. A very common comment is that as we age, we do not have the physical capacity to carry around a lot of heavy camera gear all day, so a lot of people are going from full-frame to smaller crop frame sensor cameras (APS-C or the even smaller mFT). I know many people that are exclusively using camera phones now.

Frankly, I have not seen significant improvements in image quality in cameras over the past decade, but some of the other functionality (intelligent focus and tracking, for instance) has improved. Once a technology matures, this tends to happen and the massive improvements we saw in the upgrade cycles are no more. The only way to significant improvements in image quality is to shoot with a camera with a larger sensor (and lenses designed to bring out the capabilities of the larger sensor). Higher bit depth are also part of that solution. That is why I have moved to medium format.

When I compare the weight of my existing D810 and the two lenses that I use most commonly (Nikkor G f/2.8 24-70mm and the Nikkor G f/2.8 70-200mm), my new system weighs a little bit less, but at a cost of slower lenses and a narrower range of focal lengths. In the studio, I rarely wide focal lengths and long focal lengths, so the trade-off works for me. Likewise, most of my work is at small apertures to maximize my depth of field (although my new camera does focus stacking, something I intend to test) as well as sensor shift, which can give me 400MP images, something that will work in my still-life environment.