Fujifilm GFX100S | The Landscape Photography Camera of My Dreams

what's up everybody i am brian meneer and i am here to tell you about something that i've been calling the landscape photography camera of my dreams let me introduce you to the gfx 100s [Music] i have to say that i absolutely love when fujifilm gives me a project like this i feel like i do my best work when i'm under a tight deadline let me start by saying this as is with all of my reviews this isn't going to be a typical camera review right i would much rather tell you my story with this camera over the past couple weeks then sit here and spoon feed you specs like that would just be super boring to me so let me tell you my story so i actually had way more time to plan exactly what i wanted to do for this project i got word that it was going to be coming way back in october and knowing that the winters here are unpredictable um i knew i wanted to try to go somewhere where i was going to be able to really put it through its paces and create the images that i think would do the camera justice i've had it for a couple weeks now and even pre-trip i was lucky enough that the sun broke through the constant permacloud that we've had and i got some interesting shots even here in the snowy landscape of michigan that was really nice because i was able to get acclimated with the camera and really feel it out in you know a landscape [Music] setting [Music] back to the fact that i did need to travel somewhere um you know i was really nervous about getting on a plane for the first time it's been so long and obviously with all the coronavirus stuff going on right now i just was unsure thankfully after talking to a few of my friends who have flown here and there i felt reassured enough that i could book a ticket then it came down to deciding where i wanted to go after thinking about it and and you know looking and researching different coveted restrictions uh from state to state i kind of settled on arizona because i mean really when it's winter time and you want to go somewhere awesome to shoot you pick the desert it just makes sense i cleared a four-day trip with my wife and i got to planning so i did something kind of unique for me i vlogged the entirety of my four-day trip to arizona so you could be right there with me seeing how i'm scouting things how i'm approaching different shots and locations i'm going to drop fully post process images in real time as we go throughout the vlog so you can see what i'm shooting and what i'm coming up with from an output perspective this camera is incredible and i thought it would be awesome for you to be able to experience that all right so before we get into the video i did want to say that i have a full blog post write up it's available at brian.com gfx100s you can go there check it out i have a ton more images than i had time to share in the video i talk a lot more in depth on my trip and i also share more of the technical things that i really enjoy about this camera i do want to touch on a few of those now just really quickly number one just the overall size and you know ergonomics of the camera made it a real standout for me it's it fit in my camera bags right alongside my x-series gear which is just huge for me you know i was a big fan of the gfx 50s and and this feels like a really good combination of the 50s and the gfx100 it feels like really good in hand has those beautiful ergonomics that the 50s had but then a lot of the new modern stylings of the gfx100 number two battery right the the mpw235 battery that the xt4 takes being able to share batteries between cameras i'm never going to be a full-on gfx shooter right i love the size the the just the speed and performance out of the x series so i'm going to be shooting both side by side and the fact that you can now share batteries between the two it just makes it that much simpler and easy for me the next thing has got to go to the pasm dial i wasn't really sure how i was going to feel about it at first until i figured out oh my gosh these custom settings can program everything you know in fujifilm land we're used to custom stuff being limited to jpegs right this can program drive mode metering mode whether the ibis is on or off whether you know along with all of the jpeg settings so for me being able to program different custom settings based on different things that i'm shooting i'd go way in depth in the blog sharing all the different custom mode settings that i had i had just an aperture priority mode a pixel shift mode an astrophotography mode and then also a bracketing mode in case i ever needed a bracket as a photographer that shoots a variety of different things it's really nice to have all of these features available to you at the flip of a switch without having to dig through a menu and turn things on or off manually every time you go to shoot something different lastly is the most obvious one it's got to be the dynamic range and just the resolution off of this sensor it's absolutely mind-blowing and for a landscape photographer the depth of color and tonality that you get off of this medium format sensor are really second to none you pair that with the 100 megapixel resolution and there's there's no other camera that is going to touch what this camera can do especially in this price range and that it alone is the reason that i kind of named it the landscape photography camera of my dreams right because it's a landscape photography camera that is insane and i can actually afford it alright so that's enough about technical specs i told you i wanted to be quick i just want to get into this story let's head to arizona for day one after landing in phoenix and picking up my rental car i drove to watson lake which i mistakenly call lake watson over and over again all right so i'm currently in route to prescott i'm going to lake watson um and all the research that i did for this trip i knew there were a few spots that i wanted to hit i've never been to lake watson but it looks incredible i'm not sure if i'm going to shoot the sunset there or not yet i want to scope it out and scout a little bit um it's just got completely clear blue skies so we'll see this is our view right now mountain desert heaven i'm so excited all right so now we begin i have successfully made it to watson lake and it is amazing the sun is going to set behind us so it's going to kick all kinds of wonderful light onto those rocks so the light is starting to get good i also i'm hoping to stay around after uh the sun goes down and shoot some astro here so for this trip i have three lenses i have the 30 f 3.5 i have the 23 uh f4 and then i have the 120. i'm definitely more partial to telephoto especially for stuff like this i love zooming in and compressing my compositions rather than shooting wide i'll probably do a fair amount of both clear skies which not great for my purposes but i guess clear skies here is better than the two and a half weeks of permacloud i experienced in michigan before i left i got a composition right now and i'm just waiting for the light to get perfect [Music] [Music] so i really don't think they could have gotten any better um this place is freaking incredible i'm gonna stick around and see if i can shoot some astro here my ticket says that it closes at six but i don't see anybody here to kick me out so i'm gonna stay until somebody kicks me out so i did end up shooting a little bit of astro at watson lake um but it was you know it wasn't the darkest spot you could see the light glow which is actually kind of cool but knowing that my tuesday was going to be jam-packed from sunrise through sunset i knew i wanted to get to sedona get in my hotel and sleep as much as i could before the next day it's about 4 45 in the morning could not sleep last night i have no idea why i was really tired but i'm up early to try to catch sunrise on some red rocks before i head to white pocket here we go i did some research last night about where to go i'm torn so we'll see where i end up just a little night hiking it's not creepy at all so i'm currently just hunting for some compositions here scrambling around on rocks there's awesome cactuses everywhere so you know i'm shooting those a lot because we don't have those in michigan and they're beautiful i'm also trying not to slip and die and break this pre-production camera because that would be really bad they're literally just gorgeous compositions everywhere you look [Music] so i have never seen something light up the way that these rocks just did right now so i'm gonna start working my way back around and uh just kind of shooting as i go this uh climb back should be a lot easier in the daytime okay i'm going to admit something i love cactus green i said it i love the color green when it's on a cactus and it is accented by red dirt and rocks it's amazing yeah this uh seems a little more treacherous than it did in the middle of the night and now i can see the car and i'm gonna eat a pop tart and then i'm going to start driving north so after shooting that awesome sunrise i had a little bit of time so i decided to take highway 89a which is kind of the long scenic route between sedona and flagstaff and as it turned out i saw the lake kind of creeping into the valley as i got closer and closer to slide rock state park which i had visited in a prior trip and knowing there's some kind of cool smaller waterfalls there it might be a decent stop [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the light was perfect it was exactly what i wanted i had to pay 10 just to get in for you know whatever i was here for maybe half hour 45 minutes but i think it was worth it in the end so i'm about an hour from a meeting spot and the clouds are sticking around looks like i mean if these stay they're kind of wispy clouds if they stay i'll be very happy all right so i'm going to be honest with you white pocket was really a last-minute addition to this entire trip uh you know after seeing work from people like reuben wu over the years he shot there tons of times it has been on my list for so long now it's just so unique but actually getting out there isn't it exactly as easy as you would think it would be if you don't have access to a four-wheel drive vehicle with you know a little bit of ground clearance it's just a pretty ridiculous road so after deciding that it was against my best interests and largely my wallet to attempt going out to white pocket in my rental car i started researching tour companies that could get me out there safely i ended up finding dreamland safari tours which is based out of kanab utah and i was i mean keep this in mind i was reaching out to them less than a week before i was asking to see if they had any openings thankfully somehow they had an opening and actually it was sunny which is one of the co-owners of the company who's also a photographer herself who was going to be the one to drive me out to white pocket now this is probably the biggest fail of the trip i really do apologize i didn't shoot a lot of footage from white pocket i didn't shoot a lot of the drive out there number one reason why i didn't is because it was really bumpy i mean it the footage would have looked absolutely terrible and number two me and sonny ended up actually talking just chit chatting the whole drive out there just to get to know each other and honestly i would have felt pretty stupid to be like um excuse me could you stop this interesting conversation we're having for a second so i can like grab some vlog footage so i ended up videoing less here than any other point on the trip so i apologize for that in advance but you're just gonna have to enjoy the footage that i did get and then some of the awesome photos that i took along the way [Music] okay so this place this place is insane um i've been walking around wait pocket which you can see is all around me for about two hours now trying to scout where i'm gonna shoot my sunset's from uh my guide sunny is amazing she's been walking me through kind of all the hot spots all of the not so hot spots showing me everything from a conservation standpoint where we should walk where we shouldn't walk it's been awesome and that is one of the reasons that i wanted to come for my first time at least on a guided tour dreamland safari tours has been incredible i have no idea if the visuals that i'm showing you right now are doing this place the textures the colors nuts [Music] now once the sun had set you could tell how cold it was going to get there dreamland actually does overnight trips but they don't do them this time of year just because of how unpredictable the weather can be which is totally understandable so we hopped in the truck and we headed back to my rental car we talked a lot more on the way but it really started setting in at this point just how tired i was and so i started thinking driving back to the grand canyon tonight probably isn't the smartest idea so along the way sunny rattled off just a laundry list of places around kanab that i should come and visit and check out on future trips so one of the spots that she told me about was actually on my way back toward page arizona just maybe five or ten minutes from the spot where i parked to meet her called the toadstools now she was telling me how awesome this place would be to shoot astro and the whole time i'm thinking i would love to shoot astr there but i'm also like falling asleep on myself so i decided to improvise this part of the trip right i as soon as i got service i started looking for a cheap hotel in page i headed directly there so i could get some sleep wake up the next morning and get to a good sunrise spot just around the area changing this up actually made a lot more sense in the scheme of the trip which was really nice i'm awake not quite as early as yesterday i only had a 5 30 alarm today am waiting for a gas station to open to get some excedrin because my head is pounding so i found this lookout point called wall weep lookout and it was pretty close by i thought it's probably best at this point just to keep it simple and do something close by because i had so much driving ahead of me so i get up there it's still completely dark it's freezing um but i start shooting i was there for maybe 20-25 minutes and i start seeing this glow start on the horizon as blue hour was ending decided to go a little easy this morning it doesn't suck i saw these hazy clouds and i thought oh my gosh this could be like the best conditions i get on the entire trip and i would be stupid to waste it here when i've already got the shot that i just showed you a great shot so sunny i heard you know i heard the toadstools go you gotta check out the toadstools knowing that it was about 20 minutes away and then it was i think it's a roughly like a mile hike out to the actual spot i knew i had to book it to get out there and right now it is oh i don't know like 10 minutes before sunrise and i'm trying to sprint out to this spot i see it up ahead but oh am i gonna make it in time that's the question all right i'm huffing and puffing but i made it and before the sunrise so i think i win now figure out where i'm gonna shoot this from so what is amazing to me right now is that i have this place entirely to myself completely blows my mind not a single car in the parking lot i mean it is 22 degrees so i guess that kind of makes sense i'm the only one dumb enough to be out here in the cold but i'm here and it looks like the sunrise is just now getting started [Music] so it's warmed up um a smidge i don't know i took my gloves and hat off and i still have a divot in my head from my headlamp but i'm waiting currently on the sun to come up just over that ridge so i can try to get a sun star behind this giant toadstool monstrosity behind me i love being out in places like this because it just is i don't know it's otherworldly like how does this even exist and exist such a short walk from the car like i don't know it was maybe a mile if that i made it out here i mean i was booking it but i made it out here in like 15 minutes looks like the sun's getting ready to pop up i have my composition set up down here got the 23 on and i just want the sun to pop right there shoot at f32 so i get a nice sun star hopefully a sunstar i mean there's the potential that it's a little too cloudy for the sun to really be concentrated enough for a sunstar but i'm hoping for the best because i feel like that would be the perfect way to end my time in this spot so when i planned this trip uh and for five days five four-ish days um obviously i was trying to maximize the amount of cool spots that i'd hit with a decent uh you know failure rate for terrible weather or whatever um so i didn't expect for things to like continually just get better and better as i go i'm really hoping though that uh this sunrise this morning is a good indicator of what the sunset tonight is going to be like because i'm going to the grand canyon and i love that place so much all right so four hours later here we are arriving back at the grand canyon all right so i made it to the grand canyon and now it's just a matter of driving up hermit road to check out all the vistas and see which one is going to be my winner for sunset [Music] i swear this place is like walking into a postcard it's insane and you know what i don't care how cliche that is because this place is freaking awesome no matter how many times you've been here or how many times he gets photographed it's amazing all right so it's getting close to go time and i am just kind of packing my bag trying to think pretty much every spot that i've been to so far i have uh obviously use the gfx100s as my primary body um and i'm kind of switching between the three lenses that i have um surprising well surprisingly but not surprisingly the 120 has kind of been my most used but i mean i say it's surprising because it's kind of an odd focal length um for me at least um but at the same time it's telephoto and i'm kind of addicted to telephoto so i've been bouncing between that and the 23 which um i'd like a lot more than i thought i would uh usually 18 millimeter equivalent full frame equivalent is kind of um a no man's land for me i like 16 or like 24 and i mean i have used the 30 quite a bit as well but i'd say of all the shots that i've taken the 120 has been my go-to but i'm just trying to decide now if i want to take any other lenses for my b cam which is you the xt4 which i've been using for all my vlog video stuff i've also been switching back and forth between photo and video on that when i need to but i also have the x100v that is i've taken quite a few shots with i've been using this camera to do a few product shots here and there of the gfx100s it should be good to run out i always think it's just absolutely wonderful that places like this just let you walk right up to the edge if this was in michigan it would be roped off like 20 feet back they don't mess around [Music] do and now i'm gonna go sit in the car and i'm probably gonna watch the clone wars because i have it downloaded on disney plus and i'm gonna wait for it to get dark far so good i think in the astro shooting [Music] i'll tell you what walking up to the edge like this and just seeing darkness and not how far down it actually is it's pretty trippy so it's thursday morning like five and it's my last sunrise my last full day here my flight out tomorrow is 6. so i just wanted to share what inevitably every hotel room i get ends up looking like just stuff sprawled about everywhere but it's cold so i'm about to get bundled up somehow it's gotten colder even though the sun is closer to coming up i don't know how that works we're about an hour out now i already see the glow on the horizon so the sunrise was pretty awesome um there was clouds on the horizon still clouds it's pretty diffused late coming in here so it wasn't like streaking bright rays lighting up the walls but uh the colors popped and i can't imagine a better way of spinning my last morning here than uh sitting out on this ledge freezing watching a beautiful sunrise i'm gonna start driving back towards phoenix and hit the superstition mountains tonight for sunset and then wake up ridiculously early to head to the airport yay [Music] all right so i made it to lost dutchman state park i am about two hours before the sun sets on boom superstition mountains and i'm hoping that it's gonna be a colorful one i'm hoping those mountains light up kind of like the grand canyon didn't this morning this would help to validate the four hours i just spent in the car already there's so much here gosh i love the desert all right so here we go golden hour starts now [Music] [Applause] i am looking for some cactuses to shoot to catch this last little bit of light the sunset just does not want to quit thank you so much for tuning in to this vlog it means a ton if you made it this far i hope that i really showed off what this camera can do i also just want to say a huge thank you to dreamland safari tours if you were ever in the southern utah region canal or even northern arizona look them up they do tours all over and they do amazing stuff they're so knowledgeable about the area which is always super awesome for me i love learning about the geology of a particular area and they are really really helpful when it comes to that stuff worth its weight in gold absolutely so thank you dreamland safari and also if you want to see more of my images you can head over to brianmanier.com i have a full blog post right up on the gfx100s where i share a lot of the images that you saw on the video and then so many more drop in the comments let me know what you thought really appreciate it see you later you

Channel: Bryan Minear

Views: 37,442

Keywords: GFX100, GFX100S, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Medium, Format, Large, format, fuji, fujifilm, Color, sony, full, frame, canon, Vlog, size, battery, performance, np-w235, gfx 100s, fujifilm gfx 100s, fujifilm gfx, fujifilm gfx 100, fujifilm gfx100, GF 23mm, GF 30mm, GF 120mm, GF23mm, GF30mm, GF120mm, GF100-200mm

Id: e0ktlEsHheM

Length: 30min 29sec (1829 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 27 2021