Love Fujifilm’s medium-format cameras, but can’t bear shelling out over five grand just for the camera body alone? Fortunately, you won’t have to with the announcement of the Fujifilm GFX 50S II, the outfit’s most affordable medium-format camera to date.
According to Fujifilm, the successor to the 50S from 2017 “offers the perfect mix of accessibility and flexibility” by bundling the professional features found in the outfit’s more expensive models in a package that costs significantly less. Granted, the darn thing will still require you to fork out a substantial sum, but if you want that large sensor with all the bells and whistles to give you limitless avenues for creativity, the more accessible price certainly lowers the bar to get there.
The Fujifilm GFX 50S II is equipped with a 51.4-megapixel CMOS sensor that’s 1.7 times larger than the sensors you’ll find on full frame cameras, as well as the outfit’s latest X-Processor 4 imagine engine. This combo produces images that, the outfit claims, deliver wide dynamic range, exceptional clarity with minimal noise, and smooth tonal transitions. It supports a variety of medium and large format aspect ratios, so you can shoot in a variety of vertical and horizontal profiles, although it can only shoot continuously up to 3 fps. While it doesn’t have the hybrid autofocus on the more expensive GFX 100S, it boasts a contrast-detection autofocus that tracks 117 points in the frame in a manner they claim to be “fast and high-precision,” along with a new face and eye autofocus algorithm that performs even better than its predecessor.
Part of what enables that improved autofocus is the updated in-body five-axis image stabilization, which negates up to 6.5 stops of camera shake for improved handheld shooting. For reference, that’s even better than the 6.5 stops of image stabilization on the GFX 100S, while an ergonomically shaped grip significantly reduces hand strain even when working with large zoom lenses. The camera, by the way, uses this same stabilization mechanism to offer a pixel-shift feature that can combine 16 RAW format images into a single 200 megapixel composition.
The Fujifilm GFX 50S II comes with 19 of the outfit’s signature film simulations for more easily giving your stills that fancy vintage aesthetic, with the ability to check how each one affects the final image via the Live View. It has a 0.5-inch electronic viewfinder with 3.69 million dots for framing your shots in high-res detail, as well as a 3.2-inch touchscreen LCD for live view and menu navigation. While it can shoot video, it isn’t the camera’s strongest suit, as it maxes out at 1080p footage with 30 fps frame rates.
Features include dual SD card slots, built-in WiFi (for remote camera control and wireless data transfer), Bluetooth 4.2, and jacks for mics and headphones. The body, by the way, has a magnesium alloy build that’s both lightweight and durable, all while being weather-sealed, so it’s impenetrable to both water and dust for your outdoor shooting sessions.
The Fujifilm GFX 50S II goes on sale end of October, priced starting at $3,999.