I have heard many camera testers say the FUJIFILM GFX 100 can’t track action very well. In my experience, it certainly isn’t a Nikon D6 or Canon 1DX III, but if set up right, the GFX 100 can deal with action much better than most might imagine. The GFX 100 is a complex camera which...
Thank You very helpful!!
Thank you very much for this article. You saved me a ton of time.
You have no idea how helpfuL this was for me. I shoot a fair bit of dirt bike action and I was struggling with autofocus. This article is just the right thing I wanted. Thank you for sharing this information with us.
It looks rather complicated with the GFX 100 which really is very uch “old (Fuji) school”. With the new Fujifilm 100s you just save all parameters as an C1, and then turn to it whenever needed.
Christian – Yes, indeed. That is one of my new favorite features on the GFX 100S!
Thanks for this post, I’VE BEEN STRUGLING WITH AF-c just tracking walking people towards me! so I’m going to try this out with both GFX100s and XT4. May I ask what setting you use for ‘Face/Eye detection’? And do you leave ‘Zone Area Switching’ to ‘Auto’ in AF-C Custom Settings?
Jeroen – Hello. Thanks for the nice comment. As I said in the article be aware of what lens you are using as some are slower than others–all of the GFX zooms are very fast. Some of the GFX primes are a bit slower and hence for faster moving subjects I choose the appropriate lens (for focus speed) as well as focal length. As for my settings, I just leave the “Face/Eye Detection” in “EYE AUTO” mode 99% of the time. I don’t really use “Face/Eye Detection” for tracking anything that is moving–only for portraits where the subject isn’t moving. If the subject is moving I use a larger square with the “ZONE” or “WIDE/TRACKING” modes and adjust the “AF-C CUSTOM SETTINGS” to match the scenario. Also, the “Zone Area Switching” varies depending on which option you choose in the “AF-C CUSTOM SETTINGS”. I also use a smaller depth of field to give the AF some cushion as well when shooting fast action. I think the key thing to remember is that the GFX cameras have a much shallower depth of field at any given aperture compared to smaller sensors so f/5.6 can still be pretty shallow depth of field with action. I would suggest testing it out on a variety of subjects and seeing what works best for your use case scenarios. Hope his helps.
That’s great additional information, Michael. Thank you so much!
Thank you for these tips! I am trying faster shots for soccer!
Great. Thanks for the tips. I’ve tried to use GFX100 with 110mm lens. the field and track events .. i had a hard time focusing even using AF-C. I’ll try to use the settings that you have suggeted to ‘see’ what difference these make.
The 110mm is not a great choice for anything moving. It is primarily a portrait lens and the autofocus is pretty slow. The zooms are a much better choice for fast AF. I would say the GF20-35, GF32-64, GF45-100 and the GF100-200 are among the fastest focusing lenses in the GFX lineup. In terms of primes, the GF23, GF250 and GF500 are also fairly fast–the rest of the primes are slow in comparison.