The Fujifilm Medium-Format Travel Kit: GFX100RF + XT5 for Photographers Who Travel Light

The setup: Medium-format Fujifilm GFX100RF as primary, XT5 as secondary, prime lenses in the 23–50mm range, weather-sealed throughout. Photographer Arlindo Camacho refined this kit through extensive travel across Asia and Africa, arriving at a system that prioritizes weight reduction over focal length coverage.

Purpose: A camera kit optimized for extended travel where lens changes are inconvenient, weather conditions are unpredictable, and minimizing bag weight enables closer engagement with subjects.

Pre-requisites:

• Familiarity with fixed focal lengths and the commitment to work within them
• Comfort shooting in the 23–50mm range (roughly 18–38mm full-frame equivalent on the GFX system, 35–75mm equivalent on the XT5)
• Budget for medium-format glass or an existing X-mount lens library

The Kit

1. Fujifilm GFX100RF (Primary)

The GFX100RF is a medium-format compact — it packs a 102-megapixel back-illuminated sensor into a fixed-lens body with an integrated 35mm f/4 lens (equivalent to 28mm full-frame). Weather sealing makes it reliable in tropical humidity and unexpected rain. The primary advantage for travel is cropping flexibility: 102 megapixels allow aggressive crops that preserve publishable quality, which reduces the pressure to carry longer focal lengths for subject distance.

2. Fujifilm XT5 (Secondary)

The XT5 covers situations where the GFX100RF’s fixed lens creates constraints — street photography requiring a longer reach, or scenarios where the 26.1-megapixel X-Trans sensor’s smaller form factor matters. Camacho recently added a small flash to the XT5 kit specifically for street fill light, a deliberate addition to an otherwise minimalist setup.

Fujifilm X-T5 on Fujifilm’s site

3. Prime Lenses, 23–50mm Range

Both bodies share the philosophy: primes only, nothing outside the 23–50mm range. The constraint forces compositional discipline — rather than zooming to reframe, the photographer moves. Camacho’s framing: “Early in my career I used to carry a lot of lenses that I ended up never using.” The 23mm to 50mm window covers environmental portraits, street, and moderate-scale landscapes without a telephoto.

The Trap

The single pitfall with this kit is treating the GFX100RF’s fixed lens as a limitation rather than a constraint to work within. Photographers accustomed to zoom flexibility will initially fight the system. The correct response is not to add a zoom — it is to use the GFX’s 102MP sensor for cropping distance and the XT5’s compact form factor for situations where mobility matters more than image quality. The two-body system compensates for the missing focal range in a way that a zoom lens with a single body cannot.

Cited References

• Phoblographer What’s In The Bag: Arlindo Camacho
• Fujifilm GFX100RF product page
• Fujifilm X-T5 product page

Source: The Phoblographer

Content created with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy.