Hands On: Fujifilm X-T50 & Fujifilm GFX 100S II

An exciting day is ahead of us, today Fujifilm presented a great variety of products! With a total of four new products, 3 of which we were able to test beforehand. You can find out more in our blog article below.

The new Fujifilm X-T50

Finally, the wait for a successor to the Fujifilm X-T30 II has come to an end, the successor is secured, with the X-T50! The little sister of the X-T5 comes with few technical compromises and therefore also offers the well-known 40 megapixel BSI sensor which also has the powerful X-Processor 5 built in and therefore offers the very good focus performance that we already know from the X-T5 and Co. The deep learning technology also comes into play here and enables precise and reliable object recognition.

The camera is aimed at ambitious amateur photographers who may not need all the functions, but will be delighted with the smaller form factor.

A little more about the sensor & image processor

If you are not yet familiar with the X-T5 and X100VI, then the following information will be of particular interest to you. Thanks to the new built-in sensor, the camera now has 40 megapixels, with an IBIS and an exposure time of 1/4000s is possible on the X-T50. The image processor enables the simulation of various film simulations, including the new Reala Ace simulation, which was introduced on the GFX 100 II and the X100 VI.

The new image processor is not only more powerful, but has also become more efficient, which in terms of battery life has remained with the old, smaller battery from previous generations. However, this smaller battery has a perfectly acceptable runtime, as we were able to test in our short hands-on, but a second battery should definitely be planned for. In our test, we also had the camera record for 50 minutes at 6.2K before the battery ran out of power and without overheating. We should also mention that the fan of the Fuji X-H2 is not compatible.

Selector wheel for film simulations

The ingenious thing about this camera is the new mode dial, which offers various film simulations for quick selection and also provides space for three custom presets. The new film simulation dial has replaced the mode dial, which we really like because film simulation has become part of Fujifilm's DNA. At the same time, it limits the user somewhat in the maximum number of presets that can be stored in the camera, as you are limited by the three "C" fields.

Video with the Fujifilm X-T50

Fujifilm has made no compromises here and offers up to 6.2K! But 4K at 60fps with 4:2:2 and up to 10-bit color sampling are also possible here in the smaller body. Since the X-T50 only offers one SD card slot, it has actually received SSD support for the larger data volumes, we hope that this function will also find its way into the other models via an upcoming firmware update.

The small medium format: Fujifilm GFX 100S II

Now that we have introduced the APS-C newcomer segment, we are going one Fujifilm sensor size larger: medium format!

The new GFX 100S II is the cheaper, more compact version of the GFX 100 II, so you basically know the inner workings and its functions so far. Click here for our test of the Fujifilm GFX 100 II:

Test report GFX 100 II

The compactness is ensured by the body of its predecessor, the GFX 100S, with the new surface structure on the rubber grip. But let's take a look at the other differences between the GFX 100S II and the GFX 100 II, which are not really that many, but still keep the price well below that of the 100 II. For example, the smaller sister only takes 7 instead of 8 pictures per second in the series, which is probably more justifiable ;) However, the camera is mainly limited in the area of video functions, the camera only manages 4K30p here, but perhaps the camera is simply better suited for photographers.

The powerful Ibis and the good autofocus system have also found their way here, the IBIS stabilizes up to 8 f-stops and also offers the Pixel Shift 400 megapixel shots.

Due to the significantly lower price, the camera is of course even closer to full format and raises the question: Is it worth getting into medium format now? Perhaps a personal word, here from Markus, who also tested the camera and from whom a few photos follow below:

"The Fujifilm GFX 100S II was a lot of fun during my shoot in an arcade hall, i.e. under a low-light situation, until now I haven't had the pleasure of picking up a medium format camera and doing a shoot with it. It's amazing to see that you can set the ISO here half as low as it is in full format, like with my Lumix S5IIX. But what I personally also liked very much was the high-resolution flip-up display and the fine color nuances, which enable a very pleasant color transition of the skin, especially in people photography. Of course, the format was also unusual, because we have a 4:3 sensor here, like in an MFT camera, only much larger and with fewer disadvantages in all respects."

Conclusion:

We start the day at Fujifilm with four new products and find the two new cameras particularly interesting. We think it's perhaps only a matter of time before we have to ask ourselves whether full-frame format is enough for us and whether we want to switch to medium format after all. Fujifilm has been doing everything right here recently and has also recognized the trend towards less image processing and is relying on its own hobbyhorse here: film simulation!

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