Fuji Features

Today I want to write about some of the interesting and rather unique features on my new-to-me Fuji GFX medium format camera.

Like any of today's digital cameras, I have a number of different display arrangements that I can view on the back LCD as well as through the big viewfinder.  Fujifilm, however, has some very useful and rather unique options here.

This display screen shown below is interesting.  On any of the other display screens, I can press a button to magnify the focus point making it easier to manual focus.  The focus point is moved around the screen by using a small joystick on the back of the camera just like on my Sony a7rIIIa camera body.  What is unique about the Fuji camera, however, is that there is a display screen that shows two views at the same time (shown in photo below)...  the full composition...  and the magnified focus point...  as well as the histogram.  This is an extremely nice feature!

The "Drive" button on the back of the camera brings up all the shooting drive modes.  One of these modes is the pixel shift mode.  This mode shoots a series of 16 images to create an ultra high resolution image.  This resulting image is 16,480 pixels by 12,360 pixels in size for a 203.7 megapixel image.  That is pretty impressive and I'm looking forward to trying this on a few landscape images when the weather gets nicer.

There are a few things I want to point out in the image below.  

First, this is another display arrangement that can be customized quite a bit and viewed either on the back LCD or through the viewfinder.  Here we have the view through-the-lens with a box highlighting where the focus point is located.  Some of the settings are overlaid on this screen and I can customize which settings are displayed.  

I can press a button to change this display screen to show only that magnified focus point.  This provides a larger, full-screen magnification for easier manual focusing.  

Additionally, the size of the focus box can be resized.  

Also of note here in this photo is that the aspect ratio is now at the 1:1 square format just like a 6cm x 6cm medium format negative.  This camera has a bunch of different aspect ratios available which I really like!  I can choose to shoot in 645 format (4:3...  which is probably my favorite aspect ratio), 6cm x6cm (1:1), 4 inch x 5 inch (like large format), 6cm x 7cm (the largest medium format film size), and even the old XPan panoramic aspect ratio (65:24).

Below shows the panoramic view in XPan mode...

Below shows the 6cm x 7cm view with no settings overlay...  just a nice clean view as is seen in film cameras (like my medium format Pentax 645 camera).  This clean view through the lens can be used in any of the film aspect ratios.

This top LCD is always displayed even if the camera is turned off (note the position of the on-off switch).  I particularly like being able to see the battery level even when the camera is turned off.  

I can also customize this top LCD a bit...  instead of the settings seen below, another option is to display digital shutter speed and aperture dials, or I can display a histogram which fills the entire top LCD.  At the moment, I prefer this arrangement showing the basic settings and the battery power level.

Below, we're in 6cm x 7cm mode shooting with an Acros film simulation.  One of the very unique features of this camera is it has a lengthy list of film simulation modes that makes the photo resemble how that particular film stock will look.  (I cover that more farther down below.)

There are two things of note here in the photo below...

First, this is the "My Menu" that I customized to my own liking.  I can put the settings I might need to access the most here in this customizable "My Menu".

The other thing of note is that this camera has a 35mm film format mode for using smaller 35mm film lenses.  I just happen to have old film lenses that don't need to be used in this smaller 35mm mode but many old film lenses don't cover this giant sensor so you do need to use this 35mm film format crop mode otherwise you would get heavy, dark vignetting in any photo you captured.  It is really nice to have this feature available for when it might be necessary.

On most cameras, when you use an old manual lens from the days of film photography, you don't have any way to record which lens you were using nor at which settings.  Newer auto-focus lenses record this info automatically.  

On this camera, I can input and save the data for each of my manual film lenses.  When I change lenses, I simply change the adapter setting to the appropriate saved lens in my menu.  Then when I view the image on my computer, I can still see which lens I used.  This is a very nice feature!

Both of my Fuji cameras have what is called a "Q Menu" for "quick menu".  By pressing the "Q" button, I can access 16 of my most-used settings.  This is also customizable to show the 16 settings I prefer.  I've always liked having this button available!

Below, is something I can see in my menus allowing me to choose a stock film simulation which then records images as they would look on this old film stock.  The menu has a description (shown below) of each of the film stocks.  

This is unique to Fujifilm and, over the years, Fujifilm has had a lot of different film stocks available.  

This last image shows the three playback screens for reviewing photos and videos.  The first screen shows the image...  using the joystick to scroll to the second screen shows a nice selection of the settings that were used to capture that image...  scrolling again to the third screen shows some general information including my copyright info and the lens used.

I am really loving this camera!  The amount of customization that can be done is amazing...  the image quality is remarkable...  the tonal qualities are velvety smooth...   it really is a joy using this camera!