4 hours with the Fujifilm GFX100S

Last weekend, Fujifilm Belgium organised a live stream about the newly released GFX100S. Prior to the stream, two of my fellow ambassadors, Pieter D'Hoop and Tom Museeuw, and me were given a GFX100S to play around with for a weekend. While one of us was shooting, the other two acted as assistants, voice activated light stands or sometimes simply as idiots ;-)

Below is a behind the scenes video of my four hours of fame with the GFX100S. It's a hell of a camera and had someone told me less than 5 years ago, when I first laid my hands on a GFX50S, that we'd now have twice the resolution, fast autofocus and IBIS for less than the price of the 50S, I'd declared them nuts. I hope you like the video and if you have any questions about the camera, don't hesitate to comments. I'll try to answer them if I can.

Thanks to Brecht Vercauteren from Becubed for translating our erratic behavious into video so beautifully! And of course also thanks to Riana and Zoë, the two dancers who gave their best, as dancers always do.

This is the gear that I’m using in the video:

• Fujifilm GFX100S

• Fujinon GF32-64 F/4

• Fujinon GF80 F/1.7

• Fujinon GF250 F/4

• Lovegrove Scatterflash

• Godox V1 Fujifilm Speedlight

• Godox AD200 Pro

• Godox AD600

• Godox AK-R1 Accessory set

• SMDV Alpha 110 Softbox

• SMDV Speedbox 70

• SMDV 518 Strip Light

• Scotty II portable smoke machine by Smoke Factory

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Godox AD1200 Pro and AD300 Pro Location Shoot

A few weeks ago, I had my first post-Corona shoot. With how things are looking Corona-wise, it may very well have been my last shoot for a while, too. The aim was to test the new Godox AD300 Pro and AD1200 Pro and make a video about it for Disnet, the Benelux importer of Godox and other cool lighting gear such as SMDV. After months of inactivity, I was quite nervous. I had arranged – thanks Bruno! – to meet up near the Brussels Congress Column with Nabil and Shana, two dancers from Brussels. Below you can see the flashes - and the dancers - in action in the behind-the-scenes video that photographer and filmmaker Bruno Maes made. The camera I used was my trusted GFX 100.

AD1200 Pro

What can I say? This thing is a monster! Even after four hours of shooting, the battery was still at two thirds! The fact that you have 1200 Ws at your fingertips gives you an incredible amount of creative freedom. Below you will find the main specifications of this powerhouse.

• 5 groups & 32 channels

• High Speed Sync support up to 1 / 8000th of a second

• Optical slave modes

• Normal color temperature mode: 5600 K ± 200 K

• Stable color temperature mode: 5600 K ± 75 ° K

• Powerful 40W LED pilot light

• Bowens mount

• 3,5 meter power cable

• Weight: 8.25 kg including flash head, battery and cable

• 1200 Ws

• fan-cooled head

• 0,01 - 1,9 seconden recycle time

• interchangeable 5200 mAh lithium-ion battery. An optional 2600 mAh battery is available if you want to bring the AD1200 Pro along on a plane (the standard battery is too powerful to bring on a plane)

• Power manually adjustable from 1:1 to 1:256

• TTL / M / Multi

• Second curtain sync, front curtain sync

By the way, AD1200 Pro is not the only Godox solution to use 1200 Ws of power on location. Until now, I used two AD600 flashes with the optional H1200B head. In terms of price, you are close to the AD1200 Pro with this combination. The solution with the H1200B head offers the advantage that you are more flexible because you can also use the two flashes separately in a setup with a main light and a kicker light. However, if you often want to shoot at full power, the AD1200 Pro is more convenient to use and moreover it’s a full second faster in terms of recycling time. It’s also more practical to work with one battery pack than with two AD600 flashes that you stuff in a camera bag: with the H1200B and double AD600 combo, it occasionally happened that one of the units in my bag accidentally got into sleep mode (or ran out of power) and that I was actually only working at half power without realizing it.

The AD1200 Pro has a RRP of € 1,699 including VAT. The only alternative known to me is the Elinchrom ELB 1200, but it costs about double that including flash head.
But you shouldn't buy the AD1200 Pro just for its maximum power. Recycle time and battery life can also be an important factor. The full power recycle time is just under two seconds, but that obviously decreases the less power you need, while the battery lasts longer. The AD1200 Pro comes with a roller case that is very similar in concept to the ThinkTank Airport TakeOff: it can be converted into a backpack if necessary via the two carrying straps hidden in the back panel. With some rearranging, there is even room in the trolley for an AD300 Pro, which immediately brings me to the next flash I used on this shoot.

AD300 Pro

As the new top-of-the-bill in the Godox range, the AD1200 Pro is of course somewhat more of a niche product. Although… It apparently sells so well that it is sold out at most Belgian and Dutch retailers. The AD300 Pro on the other hand has everything to become a real best-seller. It is very compact because it comes standard with Godox's own mount and not with the more popular but larger Bowens mount. However, with the new S2 adapter you can easily make it Bowens-compatible. If you’re looking for a more permanent solution, then there is also an adapter that you screw onto the AD300 Pro. This adapter exists in a Bowens, Profoto, Elinchrom and Broncolor version. Handy if you already have numerous light modifiers for one of those brands.

Because of its compact shape, the AD300 Pro is easy to stow away in a camera bag. The battery allows for more than 300 full power flashes and you can even use AD200 & AD200 Pro batteries in it. The AD300 Pro is not only suitable for portrait photography, I recently used it to take real estate photos. I used to use hotshoe flashes like the V860 II for that, but at almost four times the power, the AD300 Pro lets me work faster, and also makes it easier to use bounce and indirect flash to evenly illuminate a large space. Also handy is the LED pilot light whose color temperature is adjustable between 3000 and 6000 Kelvin.

The ideal travel flash?

Thanks to its compact shape, the AD300 Pro seems to be the ideal travel flash when you want a bit more power than a standard hotshoe flash. In combination with an S65 or S85 Godox Softbox that use the compact Godox Mount, you have a compact mini-studio for a total weight of about two kilos. Personally, I still prefer the twice as powerful, but also much larger and heavier AD600 when traveling. That's partly because I like using even bigger softboxes - and the larger the softbox, the more powerful your light needs to be. However, it is mainly because I teach at travel workshops and I need the extra battery capacity of the AD600 for my students. Also, I normally work with Fujifilm's GFX camera line. These have a sync speed of only 1/125th compared to the 1/250th of most other cameras (for example, the X-T4).

The sync speed has an impact on how powerful your flash must be to make a certain photo. For example, with my X-T4, I can work at 1/250th, ISO 100, f/8. To get the same background exposure, I have to work with my GFX on 1/125th and use f/11. However, that aperture only lets in half the amount of flash light compared to f/8. So I have to use a twice as powerful flash to take the same picture with the GFX as with the X-T4. The slower sync speed is basically costing me a stop of flash power that I need to compensate for by using a more powerful flash. Using HSS is possible, but involves a loss of efficiency, so it is not a solution from an efficiency standpoint.

The 'sync speed problem' arises especially when photographing with flash during the day, in full sun, but that's exactly the time of day I want to use flash, to balance the sun. Moral of the story: with an AD300 Pro and a camera with a 'normal' synchro speed of 1/250th second, you can do quite a lot.

I think Godox have a real winner on their hands with the AD300 Pro.

• Normal color temperature range: 5600 K ± 200 K

• Stable color temperature mode: 5600 K ± 100 ° K

• Bi-color LED pilot light (3000 K - 6000 K)

• Godox mount. Optional Bowens, Profoto, Elinchrom & Broncolor adapters available

• USB Type C port for firmware upgrades

• 3,5 mm sync port for manual sync

• Dimensions: 19 x 9,8 x 8,7cm

• Weight: 1,4 kg including battery

• 300 Ws

• 0,01 - 1,5 second recycle time

• interchangeable 14,4 V / 2600 mAh lithium-ion battery. The AD300 Pro also can use AD200 and AD200 Pro batteries.

• Manual power range from full power to 1:256

• TTL / M / Multi

• Rear curtain sync & front curtain sync

• 5 groups & 32 channels

• High Speed Sync support up to 1 / 8000th of a second

• Optical slave mode

Compatibility

As I have been saying for a few years now, the reason why I use Godox is not only their good value for money but especially because Godox offers a complete eco-system where all flashes, from the tiny TT350 to the 30 times heavier (literally and figuratively) ) AD1200 Pro are mutually compatible and work seamlessly and wirelessly. Moreover, Godox has the widest camera compatibility in the market: there are transmitters for Nikon, Canon, Fujifilm, Olympus / Panasonic, Sony and even Pentax! Only Leica users don’t have a dedicated trigger but if they swear by the available light anyway :-)

Resources:

If you want to get better at off-camera flash, have a look at my PDF ebook Pushing Light: at 200 pages, it teaches you all you need to know to work with flash on location. The deluxe edition comes with three bonus videos and 5 bonus Lightroom presets and is available here for only USD 34.95

The color grading of the images in the video was done with my latest Creative Profiles pack for Lightroom Classic, ACR & Photoshop. It’s available here.

The Steampunk Sessions, part 1

I’m connected to a lot of photographers on Facebook from all over the world. And as much as I like these virtual interactions, I like it even more when I get the chance to meet one of these Facebook friends in real life. This happened last week with David. David’s a Belgian photographer who lives in Thailand most of the year. He’s an amazing travel photographer and he popped over to Belgium for a couple of weeks. So we decided to go on a shoot together. I like doing these kinds of spontaneous, last-minute freestyle shoots with other photographers because I think we can all learn from each other.

Steampunk @ the factory

I love shooting in abandoned factories and lately, I’ve been into photographing steampunkers, too. These two subjects are a match made in heaven. So I called up Major TC Theodoricus, one of Belgium’s most passionate steampunkers and we all met up in an old paper factory about an hour’s drive from where I live. Another friend, Frank, came along to make some BTS shots.

Gear-wise, I brought the Fujifilm GFX 50S, the GF 110 mm, GF 32-64 mm and the GF 23 mm. As for lights, I packed my three trusted Godox AD600B flashes, my SMDV Alpha 110 gridded softbox and my two Nicefoto strip lights, which have become an essential part of my lighting kit. Last noteworthy item was my Scotty II portable smoke machine. No steampunk shoot should happen without a smoke machine :-)

I was immediately struck by the vast hall with the cast iron pillars and thought they’d make great compositional elements in the frame. Now I’m a slow shooter and I prefer to get a couple of images that I’m really happy with.

In total, I got seven images I like in about five hours of shooting.

That’s actually a nice harvest for me. Here’s the first two in this blog post. With a dramatic subject and a dramatic backdrop like this, I think the lighting and the postprocessing needs to be dramatic, too. So I used a cross lighting setup and I positioned my main light in a way that The Major would be short-lit. I also wanted a moody, atmosphere so although I could have made the entire scene a lot brighter (I was only at 1/32nd power on the flashes), I went for a low-key look.

As you can see from this setup shot, there are two more lights in this shot: one strip light to the left of The Major, just out of frame and a second one behind him, pointed at the steel pillar. I did that to make the lighting more coherent. Apart from editing out the softbox on the right and adding the flame coming out of the gun in Photoshop, the complete styling and color-grading was done in Lightroom, using the profiles in my Creative Profiles Starter Pack.

This ebook teaches you all you need to know to make dramatically lit images like the ones in this blog post.

The Fujifilm GFX, the ideal camera for this sort of work

Two things I love most about the GFX are the incredible dynamic range, which lets me do quite nice things in postproduction as you can see from the before & after above, and the resolution. In fact, this is a 16:9 crop from the 4:3 original and it is still over 36 megapixel! Having more flexibility in choosing your aspect after the fact is also one of the reasons I’m secretly already lusting for the GFX 100S…

Here’s a 1:1 crop in Lightroom. The detail of the GFX is simply amazing. I just love that camera.

Smoking gun

I personally like the version with the understated gunfire best, but I also played around with a more extreme version, as you can see below. Adding fire like that is simpler than you might think. I used an image from Adobe Stock. If the fire’s been photographed on a black background, in Photoshop, just change the blending mode of the layer to Screen, and you’re good. If you still see some artefacts around the fire, that’s a telltale sign that the background isn’t pure black. Just add a Levels adjustment and click with the black eyedropper on the black of the flame’s background to turn it completely black and in the Screen blending mode, the black will magically vanish!

The image above was shot with the 23 mm, which corresponds to an 18 mm on a fullframe camera. That’s a super wide lens so it takes in a lot of the environment. However, because of it being so wide, and having a relatively slow maximum aperture of f/4, it’s difficult to use shallow depth of field to separate your subject from the background. That’s why I also brought the 110, the bokeh monster of the GF lens lineup.

In the image below, I stitched a couple of vertical shots I took with the GF 110 wide open at f/2 into a panorama using Photoshop. I then colorgraded the image in Lightroom. If you’re on a fullframe camera system, try using an 85 mm 1.4 or 1.8. If you’re on a crop camera, try something like a 50 mm 1.4 or, in the case of Fujifilm, the 56 1.2.

With the GFX, I tend to underexpose more than I used to because there’s so much leeway in bringing up shadow detail.

The result is an image with a wide angle of view but at the same time the super shallow depth of field of a portrait lens. And as a bonus, you get an even crazier resolution. The image below is a whopping 10.860 x 8.145 pixels! That’s almost the resolution of the upcoming GFX 100S!

Fujifilm GFX 50S | GF110mmF2 R LM WR @ 110 mm | 1/125 sec. @ f/2 | ISO 250

Again, other than the merging of the panorama which I had to do in Photoshop because it offers more control, the entire look of the image was created in Lightroom. Below is a 1:1 screenshot.

The controlled lighting and the super shallow depth of field really make the subject stand out from the background.

That’s it for this blog post. If you live in or near Belgium, speak Dutch and you’d like to photograph The Major yourself, you might be interested in the next edition of the Epic Steampunk Workshop, which is held on March 8, 2019. More information here (in Dutch). Ticket sales start January 31, 8 PM Brussels time. Below’s a 90 second impression of that workshop.

Also, don’t forget that until the end of January, you can save 25% on my brand new ‘Learn Lightroom Classic in 2.5 hours’ video course. Check it out here.

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Video review of the Godox AD200 and the AD-B2 dual AD200 bracket

As you may know by now, I'm a big fan of the Godox flash eco system. First of all, because they're the first to truly support High-Speed Sync and TTL with Fujifilm cameras, including my GFX but secondly, because it's a well thought-out, nicely integrated flash system that includes options from small speedlight-style flashes like the TT350 all the way up to the AD600.

Godox' Benelux distributor Disnet was kind enough to send me a review unit of one of the newer flashes, the AD200 and of an interesting accessory, the AD-B2 which lets you turn two AD200 flashes into a 400 Ws, battery powered strobe.

You can find my first impressions in this video:

Want to learn how to work with flash? Then check out my comprehensive eBook Light It Up. It includes 3 bonus videos and a bonus set of Lightroom presets. If you happen to speak Dutch, there's also a Dutch (print and eBook) version called Flash! Flitsfotografie op locatie.

Stepping out of your comfort zone

From short lighting with a big softbox...

[Recommended soundtrack while reading this blog post: Stepping Out by Joe Jackson :-) ]

People are creatures of habit. So are photographers, at least this photographer is. There are areas where we feel more comfortable than others. For me, lighting wise, my comfort zone is flash. I love using flash. I know a lot of you find it complicated but I don't - at least not anymore. [Shameless plug: if you find flash intimidating, I've written a book that will help you overcome your fears. It's available here in English and here in Dutch - end of shameless plug].

The fact that I can reach into my gear bag and whip out my own portable sun is very reassuring to me. Comforting. Within that broad comfort zone of using flash, I have one technique I am more comfortable with than others. If flash is my house, then this technique is my sofa, so to speak... I could perform it on my slippers. In fact, I already have :-)

That go-to technique is the one you see in the image below: it's short-lighting with a relatively big softbox, combined with natural rim-light from the sun. My preferred softboxes are the SMDV Alpha 110 (this thing sets up in less than 15 seconds and breaks down in less than 2) and the Elinchrom Rotalux 175 cm. Generally, I'll be working with a standard to wide angle lens fairly wide open. In this image, the softbox was camera left, almost at a 90 degree angle to the camera. Because the subject has his face slightly turned to his right, the softbox predominantly lights the side of the face that's turned away from the camera, leaving a - in my opinion at least - beautiful Rembrandt triangle on the side of the face that's closest to the camera.

By putting my subject with the back to the sun, I kill two birds with one stone. First of all, I avoid squinting in the eyes and second, the sun gives me a free rim light, which helps to separate him from the background: do you see the narrow white line around the turban (camera right) and his shirt? That's the sun. I'll slightly underexpose the background and then I'll bring my subject back to the desired light level with the flash... I've done a zillion of these photographs and I'll probably do a zillion more, because I just like the look...

FUJIFILM GFX 50S | GX63mmF2.8 R WR @ 63 mm | 1-125 sec. @ f - 2,8 | ISO 500 - Flash was an SMDV BRiHT 360 in an SMDV 85 cm Speedbox

... Over short-lighting with a harsh light source...

The danger of having a preferred style like this, is that you'll use it always and everywhere and that you no longer even consider alternatives that might be better. You might get a nice, safe shot, but not necessarily the one that fits the subject or the situation best. For the shot below, for example, I decided to break my usual routine. The big softbox I normally use, creates soft shadows, but here I wanted the shadow to be a part of the image, probably even the most important part. So I switched out the softbox for a standard reflector in this portrait of dancer Bradley. That's one step away from my comfort zone... But I did keep the short lighting look... We're going to get rid of that, too, in the next image...

FUJIFILM X-T2 | XF18-55mmF2.8-4 R LM OIS @ 31.5 mm | 1-160 sec. @ f - 7,1 | ISO 200 - Flash was a Godox AD200

... Over rim-lighting with a flash...

In this shoot of Barre, a BMX Flatland Rider (www.barrebmx.com) in an abandoned cooling tower, I started out in my comfort zone: two lights. For lack of sun, I used a second flash as a rim light. Both were Godox AD600 flashes. In this blog post, I explain why I am so fond of the Godox eco-system. This setup gave me a decent enough image. With that in my pocket, it was time to step out of the comfort zone.

FUJIFILM GFX 50S | GF32-64mmF4 R LM WR @ 32 mm | 1-60 sec. @ f - 8,0 | ISO 800 - Flashes used: 2 x Godox AD600

I love backlight, I love smoke and I looooove backlit smoke! To that effect, I'll often lug around my Scotty II,  a portable, battery powered smoke machine. It's a totally different shot. Not better or worse, just different. But what matters is that it's a shot that I wouldn't have had if I had stayed in my comfort zone.

FUJIFILM X-T2 | XF18-55mmF2.8-4 R LM OIS @ 31.5 mm | 1-160 sec. bij f - 7,1 | ISO 200

To using natural light only...

One way to get out of your comfort zone in a ... comfortable way, is to team up with a model and another photographer for a TFCD shoot. There's no stress to deliver, so you're free to do what you want and you can learn from the other photographer's handling of light. For this shoot, my buddy and fellow Fujifilm Ambassador Ioannis Tsouloulis (as far as names go, that's not a comfort zone!) and I got to work with Mila, a very talented young model who also happens to be a keen ballet danser. I did my usual wide-angle-big-softbox shot that you can see below.

FUJIFILM GFX 50S | GF23mmF4 R LM WR @ 23 mm | 1-500 sec. bij f - 8,0 | ISO 100-2

And then Ioannis challenged me to work with natural light only, and a reflector. I hate using reflectors (that would be another blog post entirely) and I'm not a big fan of using typical portrait lenses either, but I got one of the best shots from the day by stepping out of my comfort zone.

It also helps to have a stunning model, obviously. Mila probably would still look great with an on-camera flash and a toy camera, I think...

Postprocessing

In case you're wondering, the images above don't come rolling out of the camera like this. At least not out of my camera. There's always some degree of styling and retouching going on. That's not a shame or a bad thing, on the contrary, it can be an equally important part of your style as the actual photography. I do try to get my images more or less right in terms of overall exposure and composition, but then comes the fun part: the postproduction. Unlike many photographers I know, I really love this phase. Especially since I've started shooting with the Fujifilm GFX. Man, those pixels can take a digital beating! Below are some before and after comparisons. My edits are mainly done in Lightroom, using one of my Lightroom preset packs.

I just warmed up this image slightly and gave it a slightly more crispy look with a preset from 'Piet's Power Preset Pack, Vol. I'

I thought the dramatic light would go well with a more dramatic postprocessing that gave a gritty, urban feel to the image. This look was achieved by using one of my favorite presets (I've named it after my son, go figure!) Noah, which you can find in my Colorific Colour Grading bundle.

As Barre was already wearing black and there wasn't much colour in the background either, black and white was a logical choice to process this image. All it took was one click on one of my 'Piet Van den Eynde's Black and White Develop Presets for Lightroom'

I wanted the image to radiate with warmth, so I chose a warming preset from my Power Preset Pack and increased the Exposure some more.