This is a follow-up to my in-depth article FUJIFILM GFX100S II for Music Photography – My Impressions posted back in January 2025. I will refer you to that article for an in-depth review, and my summary is still 100% spot on for me after using the GFX100S II this Summer:
In summary: The FUJIFILM GFX100S II is an incredible camera with spectacular image quality and it is fast enough now to be used as a main camera for music photography. The larger and more epic the concert is, the more the GFX really shines, it loves big stages and big productions (and so do I!)
Thanks to the wonderful people at FUJIFILM Nordic, I was able to borrow a GFX100S II again for the Summer. Let’s kick off with a few GFX pictures from my Summer 2025 festival gigs, and after the gallery you can read about colour grading, perspective correction and why a GFX sensor is so great for wide-angle.
THE MINDS OF 99 – Summer Tour 2025
The Minds of 99 headlined 7 festivals this Summer, and I had a chance to bring the GFX to a couple of them. Big festivals, huge production – this, for me, is where the GFX really shines!
The GFX was particularly amazing for these stage from the stage, and the bursts of fire really demonstrate the dynamic range and colour depth capabilities:
The shallow DOF and smooth falloff of the GFX also adds an extra feel and awesome look to closeups:
GFX really rocks the wide angle view from the pit as well, it is super helpful that the view is much less distorted:
A few more shots from the stage – yes the GFX does fine in rain and fire!
BLAUE BLUME – Syd for Solen Festival 2025
ZAR PAULO – Syd for Solen Festival 2025
Color grading GFX files
You will notice all my pictures have some / a lot of grain, and The Minds of 99 pictures also have a heavy texture overlay. This is all applied in post in Photoshop, and I really like working on and grading the GFX files. There are more details, higher colour depth and better dynamic range so I feel like I can just go even more ‘heavy’ on the grading, grain and texture and it stills looks fantastic.
Perspective correcting/transforming GFX files
Some of the The Minds of 99 tour pictures from stage I made from standing on a platform behind the huge staircase-platform the band is on. And I had to basically stand on my toes, and have the camera over my head to clear most of the platform in front of me – and that means the shots sometimes end up really crooked! This is another area where the 102MP GFX files are amazing, of course you can transform and correct any picture but with GFX there is so much resolution and detail that the resulting corrected photo looks amazing. You can afford to throw away half the pixels in the transformation!
20mm FOV comparison
I love the GFX for my wide angle pictures! It’s simple physics, with a larger sensor you are effectively un-cropping a lens, you see wider at the same focal length! A 20mm GFX lens becomes a 16mm lens in full-frame equivalent and a 10mm lens on APS-C. All 3 lenses have the same field of view, but naturally 20mm is a lot less distorted. And I am talking about the ugly wideangle depth distortion where things close to you are massive and stretched and the middle and background becomes really small as it gets pushed far away. If you watch movies, even wide panoramas are usually filmed at 50mm and up, often at anamorphic lenses to get the same effect as your eyes – see wide at a ‘standard’ focal length!
Check out this graphic for what the different sensors would see with the same 20mm focal length. In short, to see the same width on my X-T5 I need to use a 10mm lens, and while it can look great, anything close to the lens will get a lot more distorted than at 20mm on the GFX.
That’s a wrap for the GFX this Summer! I look forward to some large projects in 2026 where I hope to use the GFX again. Thank you so much FUJIFILM Nordic for the continuing support, and for loaning me the GFX100S II for the Summer.