How it’s made: on the factory floor with the monstrous 102MP Fujifilm GFX 100

Ever since Fujifilm introduced the advance of a 100MP digicam at Photokina in 2018, the images international has been abuzz with pleasure. The GFX 100 has now formally made its debut and Fujifilm invited the TechRadar group to its manufacturing unit in Taiwa, situated within the Miyagi Prefecture in Japan, to look precisely how the brand new high-resolution medium layout snapper is made.

It is not simple striking in combination a modern digicam just like the GFX 100. It takes loads of person portions – some so tiny you can want tweezers to pick out them up – that get assembled into 5 sections of the digicam in Fujifilm’s factories world wide. The ones 5 sections, together with spare portions and a few person ins and outs, then get shipped to the corporate’s Taiwa manufacturing unit for the overall meeting.

The GFX 100 is the primary medium layout digicam to characteristic in-body symbol stabilization (or IBIS) at the sensor. Given the sheer dimension of that 102MP sensor – which is set 70% better than a 35mm complete body model – Fujifilm needed to construct the biggest IBIS housing it’s ever created so as to stay the sensor secure sufficient for hand held capturing.

The slender strip that’s the height plate of the GFX 100 has 180 person portions that want to be assembled by way of hand. However, not like maximum different Fujifilm cameras, the standard keep watch over dials are long gone, having been changed by way of a brand new Force mode button to the left of the digital viewfinder, and a 1.8-inch sub LCD display screen to the proper. This top-plate show will also be set to show “digital dials” for ISO and shutter pace, including a complete new size of digicam controls.

320 ins and outs move into making the entrance panel of the GFX 100 by myself. Once more, Fujifilm depends upon people, no longer robots, to position all of it in combination, together with the lens mount ring at the magnesium alloy physique, the copper touch wires and the already assembled IBIS and sensor housing.

With such a lot of portions – some simple to maintain, others so tiny you wish to have a magnifying glass to look them – to position in combination, the workers on the Fujifilm manufacturing unit need to be applauded for his or her dexterity. Each and every element is punctiliously positioned, then checked, then checked once more, prior to the assembled phase strikes on down the road.

After the again panel has been added to the meeting and the GFX 100 is near to able for trying out, it must be dressed up. That signature leather-based protecting of cameras is not simple to position on. We had been instructed it may well take a educated particular person as much as 20 mins to use the leather-based quilt over the magnesium alloy physique, however from what we noticed, the workers on the manufacturing unit did it inside of a couple of mins and made it glance actual simple. 

On the other hand, an indication by way of any other worker on an X-series digicam made our jaws drop – she finished the method in beneath two mins. We had been invited to check out dressing up the entrance of the X-series digicam in leather-based and maximum people took neatly over 5 mins and struggled to make it glance neat and tidy.

When it is all come in combination, the GFX 100 undergoes rigorous trying out. If a unit fails even one take a look at, it is going again to the meeting line to be refitted. Fujifilm is meticulous concerning the high quality of the goods it ships to shoppers, such a lot in order that as soon as it is been previous the product specialist at the store ground, the corporate exams random items once more at the packaging ground.

Fujifilm instructed us that the trying out procedure for each and every GFX 100 assembled within the Taiwa manufacturing unit is so rigorous, the group may just simply injury the ports at the facet of the digicam by way of continuously placing and pulling out cables. To verify the ports stay logo new, Fujifilm makes use of an attachment that continues to be plugged into the microUSB port all through all of the trying out procedure to attenuate port injury.

A digicam is not anything with no excellent lens, and Fujifilm’s hand-assembled GF optics are meticulously put in combination in a blank room. We needed to put on protecting clothes, coated from head to toe, and take away digicam straps (to get rid of stray fibers), prior to being allowed access into the GF lens store ground. Every glass is wiped clean a couple of occasions – and a few of that particles continuously analyzed in any other a part of the manufacturing unit so third-party providers will also be wondered for grimy or misguided items – prior to being assembled within the tube.

Despite the fact that there have been many spaces of the manufacturing unit we weren’t allowed to {photograph}, it used to be attention-grabbing to look the GFX 100 being assembled and examined prior to being despatched for packaging. We were given to spend slightly time with one of the vital new prototypes on the manufacturing unit, in addition to the overall GFX 100 on the authentic release in Tokyo. You’ll learn our preliminary impressions of the GFX 100 in our hands-on assessment – and naturally, we’ll have a complete, in-depth write up (and verdict) once we’ve had some trying out time with a last assessment unit.