Photography has always been a part of my life.
Before becoming my profession, it was my greatest passion from the very beginning.
Starting with portrait photography, I moved on to sports photography, but mainly focusing on its more expressive and emotional dimension.
This year, 2024, has great significance for me: exactly 20 years ago my career as a photographer began, while 90 years ago FUJIFILM, the brand I have been working with daily for many years, was founded.
Let’s take a step back 20 years. It was 2004 and I started photographing the first rallies and motor races; then came the time of the big agencies, the first football matches, the Champions League and the Olympics. At that time, the first large-format digital camera backs started to appear, which were mainly intended for photographers doing advertising, still life and other studio work. At that time, the mere thought of using a sensor of that size for action photography was pure madness.
I still remember the first large format camera I bought with my studio partner; we sold it shortly afterwards, because it was impossible to use it with a moving subject, even in the studio with continuous focus. Moreover, due to its weight and large size, it was bulky and impossible to use outdoors.
After those unsuccessful attempts, thanks to my first GFX 50S in 2018, I finally approached the world of sports photography in a realistic way.
Thanks to the quality of the large format, I was very pleased with the results I got, at least when it came to portraiture of athletes.
Thinking back, I could hardly have imagined using a large format combined with a 500mm focal length when I was on the sidelines. When I found out I would have the opportunity to test it thoroughly, I decided not to be soft and to immediately tested it on the field together with the GFX100 II.
I chose one of the most challenging and complex team sports to test the autofocus: American football. I contacted the Torino Giaguari team, which plays in the top Italian American football league. Unlike football – which is the discipline I usually work with – the players are much closer together and the movements are much less orderly and predictable, not to mention the fact that there are many players moving in front of the subject, which makes tracking the camera and lens anything but easy.
After attending a couple of their training sessions to thoroughly understand the movements, and the players and game dynamics, I found myself shooting my first sports competition with a large format. This was finally possible thanks to the GF500mmF5.6.
I am used to the speed of FUJIFILM X-H2S and its rapidity, so it took me a moment to get used to a new way of working. The 8fps are not the 40fps of my X-H2S, but they were still optimal for following the game. And above all, the GF500mmF5.6 is very fast and reliable in terms of autofocus.
I often work at the maximum aperture to isolate the subjects better, and the performance at maximum aperture of the new lens thrilled me from the first use: the blur effect is truly pleasant and allows for perfect isolation of the subject from the background and scene distractions. The 500mm focal lens (400 in 35mm format) is perfect for most sports. In particular, for football and American football, it is the best focal lens one could desire.
Despite the focal lens being very long, it remains extremely lightweight, especially when compared to other 400mm lenses in 35mm format. This makes it very easy to handle throughout the duration of the game. Weather sealing is essential. Working outdoors, it becomes a “must-have” feature for any sports photographer.
However, the best part comes during editing. The files from the GFX100 II, paired with the GF500mmF5.6, are truly stunning. The latitude of exposure is incredible and allows for recovering highlights or shadows that are too closed even using only JPEG. The detail is remarkable, and so is the sharpness. The 102MP of the camera allows for an almost infinite freedom of cropping, and different versions of the same frame can be obtained simply by cropping the image differently, which becomes an additional very useful resource during work delivery.
I chose to work with the Eterna Cinema film simulation. This way, I could take advantage of all the speed of JPEG while maintaining a file rich in detail and extremely workable.
This work represented just the beginning of a long series for me. GF500mmF5.6, together with GFX100 II, opens up a world of possibilities for action photography in various disciplines that I can’t wait to explore.
