Out With the Old and In With the New

I guess it was over six years ago when photographers were introduced to the Fujifilm GXF camera line. The GFX 50 was introduced near the end of 2016. It came in as a revolutionary move that shook up the digital medium format world.

Cutting to the chase, I bought A Fuji GFX 50S two weeks ago. It was listed on a used camera website (UsedPhotoPro.com – the used camera division of Roberts Camera in Indianapolis) as Like New minus, with less than 50 shutter actuations. Pictures of the camera body supported the “like new” designation, but less than 50 actuations; are you kidding me? And to make room for the GFX 50S, and enough $$ to facilitate the purchase, I traded three film cameras that had been sitting on the shelf for two or more years. Each camera boasted a partially exposed roll of film, but no evidence of being used for at least 12 months. So those cameras ended up on the trade-in list.

The New: a Fujifilm GFX 50S Medium Format Camera

The lens is 35-70mm and that equates to roughly 28-55mm in full frame terms. The picure of the oranges was taken with the lens set at 35mm and provides a great example of the wide-angle capability of the camera and lens.

This is the actual camera that I purchased. I did get the tilting adapter as shown above and the vertical battery grip to complete the package.

The camera lens is brand new and and is the new kit lens for the Fuji X100S and the Fuji GFX 50S Mark II. It was half price and a real no-brainer decision. I also ordered an adapter for Nikon F/G type lenses so I can use my old Nikkor lenses with the new camera. The crop factor is .79 and we can talk about that later. The sensor is 1.7x larger than full frame and that can have a slightly negative effect on pictures taken with 35mm full frame lenses. More later…

The camera came two days after the lens. After charging the battery, I took the first pictures, and was able to see the actual image quality. Was I satisfied: YES!! I saw the shutter count and learned that the camera had not been used previously – not at all. I shot the first pictures ever taken by this six year old camera. Someone at Roberts had updated the firmware to the latest release but the shutter count was zero. I was blown away. The date and time were set at essentially the release date of the camera – a moment in time back in 2017. I updated the settings to 2023. Now, two weeks later, the shutter count is approaching 500.

So the old cameras are at a dealer and I am awaiting the final quote on the value and the check. The cost of the new camera is (rather, will be) covered, and there is room on the shelf to spread out the gear that remains.