ReviewSix months printing from the GFX100S II, a few notes

I've printed more from the GFX100S II in the last six months than I did in the two years before it, so I thought I'd write down what I've learned, mostly for my own benefit.

The first thing is that the files are far less forgiving of sloppy technique than people assume. At 102MP the camera shows every bit of tripod wobble on a breezy headland, and I've binned more prints from Rhossili for softness than I'd like to admit. I now shoot on a two second delay and simply wait for the gusts to drop, which on the Gower can take a while.

Second, A2 is where it starts to make sense. At A3 I honestly can't tell my prints apart from the 40MP X-T5 files a friend sends me. At A2 on a matte rag paper, standing a foot away, you can. At 30 by 40 inches, which I had done professionally for a client in Cardiff Bay, it's in a different league altogether.

Third, the IBIS has let me hand-hold the GF 32-64 at 1/15 at dusk, which I'd never have attempted before. Fine for A3. Not for A2.

Reala Ace is a lovely starting point for coastal work, but anything going on a wall still starts from raw.

Nothing groundbreaking. Mostly a reminder to myself that the camera is rarely the weak link in the chain.

That tracks with the math. A3 at 300ppi needs roughly 17MP of actual pixels, so anything past that at A3 is cropping headroom, not visible detail. The variable people skip is the paper profile. A mismatched ICC profile costs you more than an extra 60MP will ever gain you.

This is the post I need to reread every time I open a GFX listing at 1am lol

rawtherapist said:

A mismatched ICC profile costs you more than an extra 60MP will ever gain you

Agreed entirely, and learned the expensive way with a box of Hahnemühle.