Fujifilm Steals the Show at Photokina
Following on from Hassleblads X1D mirrorless medium format announcement earlier in the year Fujifilm have announced their long rumoured and much anticipated venture in to mirrorless medium format with the GFX50s.
The GFX50s has a 51mp 43.8x 32.9 sensor which is 1.7x larger than full frame DSLR’s yet the body is around the same size as a professional level body from Canon or Nikon.
We are super excited to get our hands on one of these and see if Fuji have translated their X series know how in to the medium format world. With Fujifilms long history with medium format and their refined APS-C X series now maturing in to great all around cameras with the recently released X-Pro2 and X-T2 this might be the mirrorless medium format system to change the game.
Fujifilm also announced 6 lenses will be released during 2017 which is certainly a good start to the G system.
They claim that the camera and 63mm f/2.8 along with detachable (but included in the box viewfinder) will come in at ‘well under $10,000 US’.
For us ‘well under’ would be around the $6-8000 dollar mark so we will have to wait and see how the pricing works out. At the 6-8k mark we think it will seriously tempt affluent amateurs and professionals alike but if it’s pushing $10,000 it might be a bit much to open up a new demographic to digital medium format.
What interests us the most with this announcement is to see the rendering of those superb Fuji colours from a medium format digital sensor.
The camera should be available at the start of 2017 alongside the 63mm f/2.8 (50mm equiv) , 32-64mm f/4 (25-51mm equiv) and 120mm f/4 (95mm equiv), 110mm f/2 (87mm equiv), 23mm f/4 (18mm equiv), and 45mm f/2.8 (35mm equiv).
If as some have suggested the body could retail around the $4000 US mark I think it will gain traction very quickly. I will certainly be interested to see if it is worth investing the money and having APS-C X series for everyday use and the G series for more professional applications.
Especially when you look at the size of it next to a Nikon D810.
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