Impression of GF110mmF2 R WR – Pål Laukli

When I was a teenager, my only dream was to become a photographer. Photography allows you to express yourself, but also bear witness to other people articulate themselves. You create a space for someone else to shine, and to be seen. To have their moment.

After decades of working as a photographer, and thousands upon thousands of exposures, I’ve always been on the search for that perfect camera, that perfect lens, to capture that perfect moment. The passion I discovered when I first took a picture as a young man, is still there. Only intensified tenfold. It has become everything, It has become a reason to seek adventure. A reason to learn and to gain experience. To become better. Because for me that is what photography is. The moment. Its there, and in the blink of an eye its gone for good, but yet with me forever. The lens becomes like a third eye. An extension of yourself, and a way to tune your view of the world into an image that you are allowed to create as you wish for it to be. Its freedom in the purest sense.

In the beginning, there was the camera. A dream to one day be able to produce something so magical as the masters I so admired. Perhaps I didn’t understand that the camera was just a tool. The image was created in the mind. As time progressed and I gathered experience, I slowly realized that that the two were not mutually exclusive. The camera is the gateway for me to realize the visions I want to project. And now, after more than twenty years I found my tools. I’m at ease now, and the visions of my mind can come interrupted.

The tools I found was the GFX system from Fujifilm. The most sophisticated, yet intuitive and easy to use camera system ever created for the kind of professional work that we do. And for me the star of the system is the GF110mmF2. It has become my go-to lens. On a lot of projects, I start shooting with other optics, but at some point, on every shoot, I ask my assistant: “Get the 110, please.”

It’s sharp, but it also has a soft side to it. And it has a lot of character. And it just basically makes the person I’m photographing look good.  Most people are self-conscious about their own looks, and it’s always nice to show them the screen on the camera, so they can see how good they actually look. Its fantastic to see the expression on the subject’s face when they get to see the how the camera projects them. If we’re doing headshots really close, or full figures, the focal length seems perfectly balanced.  I use it in the studio and on location, and the relatively light weight makes it a perfect lens to shoot handheld with, as well as on a tripod.

The bokeh of the GF110mmF2 is something special. I think it’s really beautiful. For me, when I work, the eyes are always the focal point and on this, I don’t believe that there is any other lens on the market today that can compare to the GF110mmF2.
The combination of face detection, hitting the focus where you want it, every time. It kind of just draws you into the character of the person that you’re working with.  For me, this is exactly what defines a good lens. It does its job perfectly, every time

It’s just a perfect system for my kind of work. If you do a lot of professional studio works, I don’t think you can get anything better. We work for a lot of high-end clients who demand the very best image quality that you can deliver. For me, the GF110mmF2 has just checked all the boxes. It’s a very high-resolution lens. It plays very well with the GFX image sensor, and it has a character that is a something a little bit hard to define but it’s just that I really love what comes out of it. It’s just my go-to lens. I just end up with it all the time.  Sometimes when the shots need more space, I move further away so I can shoot on the 110, instead of moving on to a wider angled lens. To say that I like the GF110mmF2 would be an understatement. My feelings for this lens is stronger than that. I absolutely love it! If I was only allowed to have one lens, one lens to complete all the different types of projects we work on it would be the GF110mmF2!