The Fujifilm GFX 100RF launched to a divided audience. Some people couldn't get past the f/4 lens. Others saw a 102-megapixel medium format camera in a compact body and immediately understood what Fujifilm was going for.
Coming to you from John Branch IV Photography, this candid video covers a full year of real-world use with the GFX 100RF across travel, day-to-day shooting, and wedding work. Branch bought the camera himself after shooting with it before launch, which means this isn't a loaner unit treated gently for a week. One of the first things he addresses is the f/4 controversy. His take is straightforward: the lens needed to stay small, the low-light performance is still solid if you're willing to push ISO, and you can still get pleasing separation at f/4 given the sensor size. It's not the same as f/2 on a smaller format, but it's not a dealbreaker either. He also breaks down how the crop lever and aspect ratio dial change the way you actually shoot, especially for travel, where being able to compose in-camera at different ratios with 102 megapixels behind you gives you far more flexibility than you'd have on a smaller sensor camera.
Where the video gets genuinely interesting is Branch's account of using the GFX 100RF alongside the Fujifilm GFX 100 II at weddings. He shoots the RF as his wide option, typically with the Fujifilm GF 55mm f/1.7 and Fujifilm GF 80mm f/1.7 covering the rest. That pairing works well for documentary-style wedding coverage, but it comes with trade-offs he doesn't gloss over. In dark reception situations, the autofocus hunts. He puts a number on it: out of roughly 25 frames during dancing sequences in low light, he's hitting 10 to 15 keepers. That's a meaningful miss rate if fast-moving subjects in dim light are a regular part of your work.
Branch also ran into two specific hardware issues over the course of the year. The first was a shutter failure mid-wedding, where the leaf shutter closed and stayed closed, producing nothing but black frames until he pulled the battery. He ended up sending the camera in for a full top-unit repair. The second involved the SD card door, which is soft enough that pressing on the side of the camera during a shoot slightly ejected the card, causing the camera to fail to write images to either slot. He missed shots during a bubble exit because of it. He's clear that the SD card issue only happened once and he wasn't able to reproduce it, but it's exactly the kind of thing you don't find out about from a one-week review. Both issues pushed him back toward the Fujifilm X-T5 for his last few weddings.
Outside of wedding-specific stress, his overall verdict is that the GFX 100RF is an exceptional camera for travel, street, landscape, and enthusiast work, and the image quality from those raw files holds up in editing exactly as you'd want. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Branch, including his breakdown of who this camera is and isn't built for.
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