20.10.2021

LENS STORIES: Ou Haichun x GF35-70mmF4.5-5.6 WR

The Experience of The New Fujifilm GF35-70 mm Lens

Preface

At the beginning of the FUJIFILM Medium Format appearing in the market, in order to meet the professional needs of professional photographers in certain fields to achieve the ultimate quality, whether it is portrait or landscape, the GF series lenses of professional were created. However, the GF lenses appears to be relatively large for X series users

FUJIFILM’s recent pleasing change must be the introduction of the two cameras, X-T4 and GFX100S. From now on the both APS-C and medium format system have started to share the same model of batteries, which makes it a good news that there is no need for those users, who own both of the two systems, to carry two sets of charging equipment together in the same camera bag. Therefore, the X-T4 users have one more important reason to own the GFX100S camera in order to fulfill their needs of super-high-quality images.

The previous GF lenses are generally much larger than the XF lenses. As the new GF35-70mm lens has been released, I think that it is an entry-level medium format lens prepared for those X-T4 users.

I have recently completed a photographing program with the GFX100S camera and the GF35-70mm lens by traveling around the Qinghai Lake and crossing the no man’s zone in Hoh Xil, Qinghai Province, in 17 days. Traveling all the way up to the altitude of 5100 meters above sea level, I have taken all kinds of images, such as landscape, starry sky, plants, wild animals, documentary, etc. And I’m going to share the experience of the new GF35-70mm lens with you in this article.

GF35-70mm, the best kit lens for medium format by far

What makes a medium format camera product successful is that the photographers are willing to carry this camera in their bags every time they go out for shooting. Thanks to the telescopic design, the GF35-70mm lens looks as small as some 50mm lens when it is switched off, which makes photographers happy to keep it on a medium format body always as a kit lens.

Before the FUJIFILM GFX cameras were introduced, it was a big job for the photographers to carry a medium format system with them. Let alone the weight, such big size of packages makes people annoyed. In the old days, I had to separate the lenses with the body to pack them in my bag nicely in order to give theses expensive gears the best protection as I can. Then every time before I prepared to take pictures, I combine them together. Therefore it makes people think that medium format cameras are designed for the Pros, especially those commercial photographers who mostly work in the studios. They don’t care about the size and the weight very much. As I know, some professional landscape photographers also don’t care about how big and heavy their camera systems are because they always have a team of people to handle the problems of transferring equipment from one place to another.

However, the Pros are always a minority group, and in China there are more and more strong spending power photography enthusiasts are asking for high qualities. Meanwhile, this group of people are always paying good attention to the size of the body and lenses. And now we have this GF35-70mm lens which may be the best seller.

With the closest focusing point of 35cm, the GF35-70mm lens makes your images look like macro photography

Besides it’s easy to carry, a good kit lens must meet most of the daily needs of images taking.  With the 35cm focusing point, plus the 100 million pixels sensor,  your picture may look like a macro work. So I used it to capture some close-up views of wild plants, it was extremely astonishing!  

GFX100S & GF35-70mmF4.5-5.6 WR

The most quiet focusing system

Butterflies are very scared of people, they will fly away when they move a little bit, so I am worried that the focusing sound of the camera will affect the butterfly, so I turned off the beep of auto focus. As a result, I can hardly hear the work of this lens. The sound, the whole process of shooting is extremely quiet, so I looked for lovely butterflies one after another to shoot, coupled with the blessing of the 35cm closest focusing distance of this lens, it is very easy for us to shoot satisfactory insect works!

  • GFX100S & GF35-70mmF4.5-5.6 WR

  • GFX100S & GF35-70mmF4.5-5.6 WR

  • GFX100S & GF35-70mmF4.5-5.6 WR

  • GFX100S & GF35-70mmF4.5-5.6 WR

Weight 390g, easy to cope with street photos

My favorite gear was X-T4 with a 23mm lens when I photograph documentary. The main reason was that it was light and fast focusing. For the previous medium format cameras, street photography was really a weak point. At least it looks so heavy, and unfriendly. It will put pressure on the subject, and it is not convenient for the photographer to carry it. This GF35-70mm lens weighs only 390g. It is already one of the most convenient lenses in the medium format system. With the rotate screen design on GFX100S, documentary photography is much more easy.

GFX100S & GF35-70mmF4.5-5.6 WR

GFX100S & GF35-70mmF4.5-5.6 WR

GFX100S & GF35-70mmF4.5-5.6 WR

Do you believe that it is possible to take a snapshot in a speeding car with a medium format?

It is said that the best scenery is on the road. Some roads cannot be parked at will. You can only take pictures when you see good-looking ones while driving. But when we see beautiful scenery and want to shoot clear picture quality, we have the following requirements for the camera body:

  1. Image stabilization must be sensitive
  2. Focusing must be fast
  3. Its weight cannot be heavy
  4. Zooming quickly

However, the Image stabilization of GFX100S, coupled with the light GF35-70mm lens, is very easy to meet this condition!

GFX100S & GF35-70mmF4.5-5.6 WR

GFX100S & GF35-70mmF4.5-5.6 WR

GFX100S & GF35-70mmF4.5-5.6 WR

GFX100S & GF35-70mmF4.5-5.6 WR

During this journey, we often had to walk some very steep roads with cliffs on the side. Therefore, we didn’t find good places to park our cars. However, we couldn’t let go of it when we saw beautiful animals and scenery. So, pick up the camera, increase the shutter speed and continuous shooting speed, after precise focusing, just take a crazy shots!

Maximum F4.5, which is not too big, but because of GFX100S, makes starry sky photos possible

Why do we say that the GF35-70mm is kit lens, or walk around lens? A kit lens doesn’t need to be great, but it must be useful in different conditions. During the whole journey, I just wanted to use this lens thoroughly. I insisted on not changing the lens in order to find the limits of this lens. To be honest, the GF35-70mm lens is not the best lens for starry sky shooting, but because of the excellent body of the GFX100S camera, this lens can also take a good shot of the stars.

  • GFX100S & GF35-70mmF4.5-5.6 WR

  • GFX100S & GF35-70mmF4.5-5.6 WR

  • GFX100S & GF35-70mmF4.5-5.6 WR

  • GFX100S & GF35-70mmF4.5-5.6 WR

Summary

Before, we used medium format to focus on professional work. We only put the camera in the studio. Now, if you want to take them out to travel around and make medium format a companion, then GF35-70mm lens must be your best choice. During our journey of 5000 meters above the sea level, I took shots of flowers, insects, animals, landscape, starry sky, people, etc. The weight and size of the GF35-70mm lens can always meet my requirements.

Now that GFX100S shares the same model of batteries with X-T4, and the lens is also much lighter than before, the X-T4 users can also consider upgrading to this medium format system. The combination of X-T4 and GFX100S is really great!