There is a sentence that comes up unfailingly whenever an expensive camera is discussed: “For that price, I’d just buy a Leica.” It’s almost a conditioned reflex rather than a line of reasoning—as if price alone were enough to move an object onto a different symbolic plane. Put that way, it sounds a bit like saying that if I’m going to spend a lot to go to Japan, then I might as well go to Germany. Both are important journeys, of course, but profoundly different in direction, culture, and expectations.
The Fujifilm GFX100RF is not a failed Leica, nor an answer to Leica. It is another itinerary, another way of thinking about photography, even before it is another product. What is most interesting is that this camera does not try to persuade, does not promise to be perfect, does not present itself as a universal solution, nor does it build its narrative around the idea of doing everything better than the others. It is far more honest: it simply says, “This is who I am,” and then leaves it to the user to decide whether it is the journey they want to take.
What Fujifilm proposes is an idea that, until recently, seemed almost impossible: taking medium format out of the realm of exception, of the studio, of the carefully planned project, and bringing it closer to a more everyday dimension. Not in the sense of trivializing it, but of making it physically and mentally more accessible. A camera you can truly carry with you, without having to justify the effort every time you go out to photograph.
Using it, you quickly realize that this is not a camera that pushes you to shoot more. On the contrary, it encourages you to slow down – not because it is slow or complex, but because the quality in your hands demands attention. Not technical attention, but human attention: looking more carefully, choosing more calmly, being more present. With many cameras you shoot first and decide later. There is nothing wrong with that, especially when work is frenetic and it becomes almost inevitable. With the GFX100RF, the opposite happens: first you decide, then you shoot. It is a subtle but profound shift, one that brings photography back into a more conscious space – not out of nostalgia, but out of clarity.
Even the way it invites you to think about image format moves in exactly this direction. Choosing the aspect ratio before pressing the shutter is not an aesthetic exercise or a creative game; it is a statement of intent. It means asking yourself in advance how to tell a scene, what balance to give to the elements, where to let the image breathe. It is a question that, in the years of “we’ll fix it in post,” we had gradually stopped asking ourselves. Here, instead, it becomes central again.
It is interesting to note how this same idea is articulated, from another perspective, by Yukio Uchida in Fujifilm’s X-Stories. Uchida compares the choice of aspect ratio to changing clothes according to the occasion: there is no absolutely “right” format, only a format that is more suitable for what is in front of you. The 5:4 ratio dialogues naturally with Japanese architecture; the shift between 4:3 and 3:2 changes the perception of movement and depth; the square format, devoid of direction, introduces a silent tension when the image becomes a physical object; the panoramic 65:24 is not a simple crop, but a choice to be made at the moment of shooting, to concentrate space and emotion into a single vision.
The same reasoning applies to the fixed lens. It is a declared limitation and, like all limitations, it can be intimidating. Yet it is also a form of freedom: a single point of view, with some ability to tighten the frame when needed, without the illusion of being able to do everything. This is not a camera that follows you wherever you want to go; you are the one who must decide where to go with it. For some, this is a renunciation; for others, a liberation.
On the occasion of the presentation of the winning photographs of World Press Photo 2025 in Bologna, I had the opportunity to interview the Mexican photographer Musuk Nolte. At a certain point, speaking outside the formal interview about his recent work, he told me something very simple – almost shyly – but extremely revealing: photographing with the GFX100RF had simplified his work. Not because it “does more,” but because it removed weight, literally and mentally. Previously he used a Fujifilm X-T4 with interchangeable lenses, an excellent system but inevitably more cumbersome, however compact. With the GFX100RF, he told me, he found an operational lightness that allowed him to focus on images rather than equipment. And indeed, when you “wear” it, you hardly feel it: it is light, silent, never intrusive. This is not a matter of competition between segments or internal rivalry; they are different tools, designed for different approaches. This observation says a lot: sometimes a camera that on paper seems “bigger” becomes, in practice, simpler. And when that happens, the work flows better.
In this sense, once again, Uchida’s words find further resonance. His discourse goes beyond aesthetics and touches on time, presence, and the very meaning of photographing. To photograph means entrusting what we see today—the light, the wind, the clouds—to who we will be tomorrow or to someone far away. If we do not give value to the present, photography loses its meaning. When he defines as “revolutionary” the possibility of bringing a GFX into everyday life, even on a bicycle, he is not speaking of portability in a technical sense, but of mental freedom. This is where his thinking fits naturally into Fujifilm’s philosophy: photography first, then technology. Not as a slogan, but as a practice.
After the initial enthusiasm, the most important question always remains: what happens when time passes?
My first test with the GFX100RF lasted just twenty-four hours, on the occasion of the launch in Venice. An extraordinary context, certainly, but too brief to go beyond first impressions. A full month, instead, is another story: enough time for a camera to stop being a novelty and begin to become a habit. During this second, longer and quieter test, in November 2025, I made a precise choice: to seek out places where the GFX100RF could truly express itself. Natural landscapes, urban landscapes, open spaces, architecture. Not to test it in a technical sense, but to put it in the right conditions—places where the choice of format would not be a stylistic exercise, but a real decision tied to how that space could be told.
Shooting while already thinking about the format changes everything. It changes the way you move, the point from which you look, the time you devote to framing. It is no longer “we’ll see what works best later,” but “this scene will be told this way.” Here photography returns to being an intentional act, one that does not defer understanding to post-production.
As the days passed, I realized something else, perhaps even more significant: this camera allowed me to get to know places and, above all, to return to them. Not to remake the same photograph, but to see them again with different eyes—changing light, changing format, changing distance. In this sense, the GFX100RF creates a positive habit: it invites you to frequent spaces, not to consume them.
What I did not expect, however, was an incredible coincidence: precisely during my period of use, Fujifilm presented a limited edition of this camera, called Fragmenta. And once again, the most interesting aspect was not so much the object itself as what accompanied it. Not a new function, not a technical update, but the presentation of the first true recipe. Not a film simulation in the traditional sense, but a digital film with no direct counterpart in the analog world. Fujifilm called it Fragmenta Black & White, a variation on the already splendid ACROS, but with an autonomous character, more interpretive than descriptive. Owners – happily – of the limited edition find it natively integrated into the camera; everyone else, if they wish to use it, must recreate it as a custom preset. This is far from a minor choice, because it reinforces the idea that this is not a simple effect to be selected, but a conscious decision, capable of influencing the very way one looks – just as the philosophy of Recipes intends. This film is surprising: poetic, dense, capable of softening even the most rational architectures without sweetening them. It demonstrates how a film – or a recipe – can transform a scene not only in tone, but in the gaze that precedes it.
FRAGMENTA B&W
At this point it is inevitable to speak of limitations as well. They exist, and it is right to acknowledge them without dramatizing. There is no stabilization; it is not a camera designed to resolve every lighting situation without compromise; it is not made for those who are always looking for the easiest shortcut. But these limitations are not mistakes: they are the result of a precise choice, coherent with the idea of remaining compact, portable, present.
The problem arises when these aspects are judged from afar. Around this camera a great deal of noise has been created, often fueled by those who view it as a list of things that are missing. It is understandable, but it is also the greatest limitation of the way we talk about photography today, because there are things that do not pass through a spec sheet: weight, balance, the desire to take it with you the next day. Those who truly try it almost always change their attitude: less absolute, more concrete, closer to experience than comparison.
Finally, there is one passage that deserves to be addressed not as a promotional note, but as a natural continuation of the discourse: printing. With a camera like the GFX100RF, printing is not an option; it is a necessary step. It is there that one truly understands what it means to work with a medium-format sensor. It is no coincidence that Yukio Uchida, in the X-Stories video, chooses to speak about aspect ratios by showing prints. He places them side by side, each with a different format, and observes them with a slow, measured, almost shy movement. There is no emphasis, no didactic explanation: there is silence, time, attention. It is in the passage from hand to paper, more than in words, that it becomes evident how format is not an abstract option, but a decision that takes on substance. Those prints are not meant to demonstrate a technical difference; they serve to remind us that when an image leaves the screen, it changes status. It becomes object, presence, occupied space; only then does the aspect ratio cease to be a menu choice and become an integral part of the narrative. On a monitor many differences flatten out; on paper they do not. On paper emerge tridimensionality, the depth of tonal transitions, the sense of space between planes. Printing images made with the GFX100RF, one realizes that it is not only a matter of detail or resolution, but of presence. The images hold, they stand on their own, without asking for explanations.
Perhaps, then, the point is not to establish whether the Fujifilm GFX100RF is right or wrong. The point is to remember that some cameras cannot be understood by reading. They can only be understood by taking them in hand, looking through the viewfinder, making a couple of frames without the urgency of having an opinion. It is a simple invitation, but today more necessary than ever: to return to trying cameras. Because choosing with the body, as well as with the head, is often the only way to understand whether an object truly resembles us.
In the end, the GFX100RF does not ask to be defended. It only asks to be encountered. And if that happens, you may discover that it is not a camera that makes more noise than others, but one that discreetly invites you to make a little less of it, to look better, and then—finally—to press the shutter.
Federico Emmi