Shooting Full HD video with the Fujifilm GFX 50s

The GFX 50s is such an amazing tool for stills photography that I doubt too many people will consider shooting video with it. But as I was shooting test stills down by the River Thames I could not resist trying out the video capabilities of this medium format mirrorless camera.

It shoots full HD, ie. 1080p, which it records as Quicktime .Mov files using the H264 compression codec. Bit depth is only 8 bits and bit rate is only 36Mbps. I say “only”, those are quite acceptable numbers for full HD recording, but compared to smaller format mirrorless cameras the specification of the GFX for video is underwhelming.

You can shoot stills and video with various Fujifilm film simulations, I tried each one out but very quickly decided to stick with “Pro Neg Std” because it was the least contrasty and least saturated of them all. There is no log profile, you won’t achieve a very flat image with this camera, but I found the footage quite easy to apply a light grading too.

When you shoot JPEG stills on the GFX you have the option to apply varying levels of film grain, but grain is not an option for video so if you want it you will need to apply it yourself in post production using a plug-in or film grain overlay.

Having shot video with full-frame, APS-C and MFT mirrorless cameras for quite a while, and having become used to the incredible in-camera stabilisation that Panasonic and Olympus in particular have perfected, it was a bit of a shock to shoot video with the GFX. Hand-held really does not work, everything I shot was terribly shaky, and I had to resort to stabilising every single clip in post production. Next time I’ll take a tripod!

So what does the video look like? The test footage that I recorded was initially shot in good light but then it started to fade as dusk approached. To my eye, in normal lighting conditions, the video can look a bit over-sharpened and digital, too much like video and not enough like film. There is not much in the way of in-camera settings that you can adjust, I shot all footage with sharpening and contrast turned right down but well-lit scenes still tended to have a mildly uninspiring video look to them. But in low light conditions I think that the GFX’s medium format sensor really starts to shine. I am extremely pleased with the look of the footage from 01:26 onwards; the colours and tonal gradations look really very nice to me.

All footage was shot using a fully manual lens fitted to the GFX with an adapter. The main lens I chose to use was the Helios 85mm f/1.5. Mine has a Nikon mount and it was easy to locate and buy an adapter to fit it to the GFX. Although this lens is meant for full frame, as you can see there is no strong vignetting. In testing I have found a surprising number of full frame lenses that work perfectly well on the GFX. The reason I chose to shoot video with the Helios is that it has bags of character, it is very analog, technically impure, and this all helps to keep the video footage from looking too digital.

I hope you like it.