Intro

The Fujifilm GFX 100S II is a medium format mirrorless camera with 102 Megapixels, built-in stabilisation and 4k video. Announced in May 2024 and costing $5000 or pounds, it’s the successor to the GFX 100S from 2021. 

Fujifilm’s priced the new version at a lower point than the $6000 or £5500 initial price of the original 100S, although you may now find that model discounted for closer to $4400 or £3500 while stocks last. Either way, it’s considerably cheaper than the current flagship GFX 100 II, which costs $7500 or £7000.

I spent a few days with a final production model and in the review video below will show you around the camera and point out where it differs from its predecessor along with the top model in the series. If you prefer to read the written highlights, keep scrolling!

At first glance, the GFX 100S II looks almost identical to its predecessor, sharing the same dimensions, shape and control layout, but Fujifilm fans will notice the new BISHAMON-TEX finish, inherited from the flagship GFX 100 II.

GFX 100S II: 150x104x87mm (44mm minimum), 883g inc battery

Either way, it’s a solid, weather-sealed camera with a decent grip that feels great in your hands, not dissimilar to an old school DSLR, and at 883g including battery, similar in heft too. Like the original GFX 100S, it’s impressively portable considering the large sensor inside.

In terms of physical controls, there’s a locakable PASM mode dial on the upper left shoulder with six custom positions and a switch to select between stills and movies. The mechanical shutter speed runs between 1/4000 and an impressive 60 minutes

Meanwhile on the upper right shoulder, the GFX 100S II inherits the info screen of the 100S, a 1.8in e-ink display with 303×230 pixels that’s used for context-sensitive shooting information mostly adjusted by the front finger and rear thumb dials, which are both clickable.

Like the 100S before it you can reverse the display so you’re looking at black characters on a white background or vice versa. It also shares the same three views, cycling between detailed information, virtual dials and, my personal favourite, a nice large live brightness histogram.

On the rear there’s an 8-way joystick and focus mode lever, along with a scattering of buttons.

Moving onto composition, Fujifilm’s taken the opportunity to upgrade the electronic viewfinder over its predecessor. So it’s out with the 3.69 million dot panel with 0.77x magnification and in with a more detailed 5.76 million dot panel with larger 0.84x magnification.

While this still falls below the size and resolution of the flagship GFX 100 II, I have to say the viewfinder on the 100S II is still gorgeous in use and a highlight of shooting with the camera. Like other GFX cameras, the squarer native shape of the sensor means you can use the full height of a viewfinder panel, and it really delivers an immersive experience that encourages you to shoot more.

Meanwhile the main monitor remains the same as before: a 3.2in touchscreen with a tri-axial mount that can angle 90 degrees up, 45 degrees down or 60 degrees to the side. Since most owners will stay behind the camera, I don’t feel it misses out on not facing forward.

On the right side inside the substantial grip are twin SD card slots, supporting UHS-II speeds. Meanwhile on the left side are the same ports as the GFX 100S, so from top to bottom you have 3.5mm microphone and headphone jacks, USB-C, Micro HDMI and a PC Sync port.

USB-C can be used to charge the battery in-camera, and now also supports external SSDs to unlock ProRes video recording. I tried it with a SanDisk 1TB drive which was recognised, but like the 100 II, you can’t record to both SSD and SD simultaneously, nor trigger any kind of backup onto the drive later. I recorded 98 mins of 4k 25p in ProRes LT onto an SSD on a single battery charge

The camera also supports USB tethering and can double as a USB webcam if you like – imagine doing a YouTube Live or Zoom call with a medium format system. The HDMI port can output 12 bit ProRes RAW to a compatible recorder, a feature that will delight videographers while they curse whoever chose the tiny Micro port.

There’s also Wifi and Bluetooth, and now support for Frame.io to upload photos or videos to the cloud for backup or collaborative projects. You’ll also notice a menu for connecting to instax printers, but only the discontinued ones with Wifi, sadly not the current ones with Bluetooth, boo.

And finally for the body tour, the GFX 100S II is powered by the same NP-W235 pack as its predecessor – not to mention larger X-series bodies – but by implementing the most recent image processor, power savings have extended its life. Fujifilm quotes 530 versus 460 photos, or 80 mins of 4k video versus 60 mins.

At the heart of the GFX 100S II is a 102 Megapixel sensor which Fujifilm describes as having quicker readout than the previous model, in turn allowing faster bursts and reduced rolling shutter, more about which in a moment. Like other 102 Megapixel models in the series, this captures images with up to 11648×8736 pixels in the native 4:3 shape. Lower resolutions of 51 and 12 Megapixels are also available, and each of the three sizes can be recorded in a choice of six alternative cropped aspect ratios. 

There’s also the choice of Fine, Normal or Superfine compression for JPEG or HEIF images, along with uncompressed, lossless or compressed options for RAW in 14 or 16 bit depth. The sensitivity runs between 80 and 12800 ISO with an extended low setting of 40 ISO, and extended highs up to 102400 ISO.

Whether you’re zooming-in in post or on the camera, it feels like you can just keep getting closer and closer. Like other 102 Megapixel GFX models, it’s a tremendous amount of potential detail under the right conditions, but if you want even more you can try the Pixel Shift mode that records a bunch of RAW files to be combined in software later to generate a new file with up to 400 Megapixels. 

Like other pixel-shift modes though, this requires a static subject to avoid undesirable motion artefacts, and sadly the software wasn’t yet updated to support this camera at the time I made this review. But you can see examples in my earlier GFX reviews if you’re interested.

There’s the latest complement of Film Simulations to choose from, including the most recent REALA ACE, and all of the monochrome, grain, and colour chrome effects you know from previous models.

Like its predecessor, the GFX 100S II has sensor shift stabilisation or IBIS for short, but Fujifilm now claims up to eight stops of compensation versus six on the old model. I managed to take sharp images down to one fifth of a second using the 45mm lens, roughly 35mm equivalent. It’s the slowest speed I could handhold a sharp image with IBIS enabled. In contrast I needed a shutter speed of 1/100 to match the result without IBIS, corresponding to about four and a half stops of compensation.

Now that may be less than the eight stops in the specs, but looking back at my results from the previous GFX 100S, I only managed three stops with the same lens. Obviously conditions change, but in this test, the IBIS was certainly more effective on the new model, and allows you to enjoy the full resolution of the sensor when shooting handheld under a wider variety of conditions.

The latest X-Processor 5 also brings enhancements to the autofocus, including subject detection for animals, birds, cars, bikes, planes or trains. Meanwhile the human face and eye detection remains on a separate menu with the most recent selection overriding the last.

Here’s you can see the GFX 100S II focusing on a fairly close subject with the 45mm lens at f2.8. I used a single area here and you can see it refocusing on the background, but being a bit more hesitant when returning to the closer bottle. 

I should note this only seemed to affect the closest subjects, and in more general use I didn’t find the focusing held me back. It can vary with different lenses and may not be as snappy as the best full-frame or APSC systems, but remains fast for medium format.

Speaking of speed, the GFX 100S II has increased its top mechanical burst speed from five to seven fps, in fact just 1fps slower than the flagship GFX 100 II which was strongly marketed on speed.

In my tests I fired-off 16 uncompressed 14-bit RAW files in 2.22 seconds, corresponding to a speed of 7.2fps and confirming the faster mechanical bursts. It then took 26 seconds to fully empty the buffer onto a UHS-II SD card. To be fair, shooting JPEGs will give you much deeper bursts and shorter write times, but my RAW test does illustrate a limitation of using SD cards to record 100 Megapixel bursts versus the flagship GFX 100 II which has a CF Express slot to exploit faster cards.

So yes, the GFX 100S II can shoot faster than its predecessor and almost as fast as the flagship, but if you’re shooting RAW bursts, be prepared to wait for them to write onto the slower card.

Moving onto video, the GFX 100S II can film 1080 at 24 to 60p, or 4k from 24 to 30p, both in either 16:9 or wider DCi shapes, and with an uncropped horizontal field of view. I managed to record an 81 and 52 min clip of 4k 25p on a single charge

There’s a variety of encoding options including H.264 and H.265 for internal recording onto SD, or ProRes at higher bit rates if you connect a compatible SSD to the USB-C port.

Here’s how the footage looks at 1080 25p, using the 45mm lens.

And now for 1080 at 50p which shares the same uncropped field of view.

And next here’s 4k at 25p, again uncropped and showing more detail than before. Note the flagship 100 II adds 5.8 and 8k, albeit the latter with a crop, along with high-speed 1080 video, all of which are absent on this more affordable model.

But if you are into grading, there is F-Log 1 and 2, as well as the chance to output Atomos or BlackMagic RAW onto an external recorder.

Now for a quick focusing test, again with the 45mm lens at f2.8. Here you can see the camera sometimes nailing the focus-pull, but at other times hesitating, making for a slightly inconsistent experience. I’ve seen this before for video autofocus on GFX, not to mention some X series bodies, and find them best at locking onto mostly static subjects, rather than tracking one that’s moving.

Next for stabilisation on video, starting with a clip filmed using the 45mm without IBIS where the footage is wobbly.

Next here’s the result with IBIS enabled which is much steadier, although there’s still a few minor wobbles visible.

Some improvements can be had by enabling the IBIS plus DIS mode which uses additional digital compensation in return for a crop.

And finally if the subject is mostly static, you could enable the Boost IS mode which does a better job at locking onto the subject. I would say overall though, the IBIS, DIS and Boost modes look a little less effective here than on a modern X-series body. Check out my X-T50 review for an example. 

And finally my test for rolling shutter, starting with 1080 at 25p where there’s a little skewing if you really throw the camera from side to side, but not too bad considering the sensor resolution. It’s also reasonably well-behaved in 1080 50p here. Switch to 4k at 25p though and there looks like a little more visible skewing than at 1080. The sensor readout may be faster than before, but for the best results don’t shake the camera around too much.