Mamiya 7 and GFX50r

I titled this post “Mamiya 7 and GFX50r” because I did not intend for this to be a film vs digital debate, but rather to show the output from two amazing cameras and how they could be used interchangeably. I know a lot of analog photographers who are now considering moving to digital because of the price and availability of film over the last couple of years. Many of these photographers have considered the GFX50r in particular. Over the last summer, I bought a Fuji GFX50r. I chose the GFX50r along with a 50mm lens because it was about the closest digital camera to my Mamiya 7 with the 80mm lens. The lenses on each of these system have similar fields of view—basically about the same as a full-frame 40mm lens. The Fuji camera design, although not a true rangefinder, has similar characteristics in size and that the eyepiece is placed far on the left side of the camera. The Fuji also has the ability to shoot in 4:5, which matches the frame of the Mamiya.

While working on an ongoing project in the Nevada desert, I brought along both cameras. I shot Kodak Tri-X in the Mamiya and RAW+JPEG Acros in the Fuji. I photographed the same subject with both cameras. I was pretty happy with the way the Fuji JPEG looked when I downloaded it and really couldn’t make it any better from the RAW. When I got the film developed and scanned, I was surprised how similar the images were. There were some differences in them, but I think both would print well.

Here is the Fuji GFX50r photograph.

And here is the Mamiya 7 photograph.

Pretty similar, huh? One of the differences I noticed was that the Fuji was a sharper image overall. The Mamiya is sharp as well, but in a less clinical way. The other difference is that there is much less depth of field with the Mamiya. This is something, at least in this photograph, that I could have controlled. I shot the Mamiya at 1/500 second at f5.6. I could not have increased the shutter speed any further because it doesn’t go any higher and thus, could not use f4 even if I wanted to. With the Fuji, I shot at F5.6 also. I could have easily opened up to the maximum f3.5 on the lens because the camera has a faster top shutter speed. This would have made the depth of field more similar. The difference in the depth of field is most visible if you look at the siding at the back of the house.

Both of these look very similar printed digitally from the digital file or the scan. The difference would become more obvious, in this example, in favor of the Mamiya if the negative was printed optically on Fibre paper.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.