The GFX100RF’s Leaf Shutter Lens Will Remain Unique in the GFX System
Fujifilm says it could not have made an optic like the 35mm f/4 in the GFX100RF as an interchangeable lens for its medium format GFX cameras. Beyond that, the company has no plans to make leaf shutter Fujinon GF lenses either.
“No, unfortunately, from a distance and optical design point of view, it would be quite difficult,” Makoto Oishi, Product Planning Manager at Fujifilm, says, adding that it isn’t possible to make an interchangeable lens that small.
“Even back at the beginning of the GFX system, we used to discuss leaf shutter. So medium format leaf shutter lenses are huge. They are huge and really heavy and really noisy. And fragile.”
When PetaPixel pointed out that studio photographers are the ones who care most about leaf shutter lenses and they wouldn’t care about size, fragility, or noise — leaf shutters allow photographers to synchronize with strobes at any shutter speed, which is especially advantageous for those working in studios — Fujifilm said that was precisely why it created adapters.
“That is why we developed an adapter for H mount. So that was the one solution and even now we think about the leaf shutters, they could be really big. But this one is, as I said, the lens’ construction is totally different from other GF lenses,” he explains.
“To translate that over to a GF lens is not easy. It would be tough,” Oishi says, referring again to the new GFX100RF, adding that the design tradeoffs it would have to make to achieve it were too severe and that doing so was not something it wanted to pursue at this time.
In summary, there are things Fujifilm would have to sacrifice in order to make leaf shutter interchangeable lenses for GFX — and it doesn’t want to make those sacrifices.
Image credits: Photos by Erin Thomson for PetaPixel
