Jonathan Grado

After months of saying "no I don't need it" I decided "wait no I'm wrong" and got the Fujifilm GFX100s ii, using it for the first time on the Grado HP100 SE headphones.

I've been shooting with Fuji for the last 10 years, starting with the X-T1. I haven't upgraded with every X Series release, but I'm currently using the X-T5 and have taken some of my favorite photos with it. Lately though I've been itching to try something a little different. With the color reproduction and overall experience with Fuji, I wanted to still use one of their cameras. I went back and forth for months and finally decided to try their medium format camera: the GFX100s ii.

Using the GFX100s ii

This is my first digital medium format camera. Over the past year I've been taking photographs with a bit more setup and planning, trying my best to get what I see in my head to be in front of my lens. Half of Happy Hour was actually shot with this medium format camera as well. This is a much slower camera to shoot with, and you can feel each photo being taken (which is a little weird to say). It's not as tripod shaking as the PENTAX 67, but that SLAP is satisfying. Speaking of four uppercase letters, the GFX100s ii has a PSAM setup: Program, Shutter Speed, Aperture, Manual. Admittedly I'm used to, and prefer, all the physical dials of the X-T5 and X100V. So this camera took some getting used to. To turn my stomach into even more knots, I also got the GF55 1.7 lens.

I tested everything off the cuff by putting headphones on different pieces of furniture with whatever light the sun wanted to give me. Real scientific. Each photo is 100 megapixels and take up around 200MB. Jeez. I can see my hard drive sweating. Below are a handful of experimental photos of the Grado Labs HP100 SE headphones. To see some other photos with the GFX100s ii, you can pick them out in Happy Hour.