I borrowed the same Fujifilm GFX 50 SII from my earlier post again this last weekend ... I'm trying to find a medium format (MF) digital camera that I can mount my beautiful analogue MF film lenses on - I have a couple of Hasselblad lenses (see previous post) and a Pentax 67 lens, the legendary 105mm f/2.4.
The GFX 50 isn't the answer I'm looking for*, but its IBIS (In Body Image Stabilisation) is really interesting.
I've not played with an IBIS camera before, my Canon 5D Mk IV doesn't have it, nor does the Fujifilm X-pro 3 that I own.
As the name implies, IBIS produces in body stabilisation, in the case of the GFX, it's 6.5 stops. But WTAF does that mean?
It means the camera provides 6.5 stops of stabilisation, what do you think it means?
Here's the real-world example: I was in Warburton last weekend with the camera and thought "I'd like to capture the Yarra's fast flowing waters with a longer exposure time to give the water that smoothing effect". My nearest tripod? 90 minutes drive away. So I decided to see what the IBIS would do.
Step 1: drop the ISO to 100
Step 2: start creating the same image with ever smaller apertures and corresponding longer shutter speeds to see what happens.
And the result I've posted is f/32 and 1/2 second. Handheld. To me, that's an effective shutter speed of about 1/125 (6 stops: 1/4, 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125) - which, even with a heavy camera like the GFX is a comfortable speed to handhold at.
Is the grass 'pin sharp'? The trees? Probably not, but unless you want to pixel peep or you're going to print the image on an A1 page, I reckon it's bloody close. And I didn't have to carry a tripod around all day "just in case".
*For my uses, it'd be an expensive one-trick pony - I have no commercial use (yet?) for the camera, so it would be purely for pleasure. This means for the time being, I'll keep shooting MF on film cameras.
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