When I brought my new Fujifilm GFX 50R medium format camera to this year’s Chinese New Year celebration, I envisioned a particular kind of photo. Here’s that photograph which fully utilizes the impressive capabilities of this 51MP camera with a super-sharp lens.

The other images I made in this series where unexpected bonuses, especially the fast action dragon dance sequences that I featured yesterday. The reality is, I could’ve made those photographs with lower-resolution cameras. Using the GFX was nice, but it probably imposed limitations in some ways. But, I thought the camera would excel at capturing super-detailed scenes with lots of wonderful sub-stories.

The challenge, however, is to show these details to you. At my computer, I have the benefit of seeing the entire 51MP image displayed on my 5K Retina iMac screen. I can revel in the details, which are hard to show in these lower-res web sizes. I hit upon an idea. And, it will give me a chance to point out the sub-stories that I love.

All of the photos below are 5.5MP crops of the image above, selected to highlight the entertaining things I see in the photograph. Note how sharp these are. Each image is just 10% of the resolution of the overall photograph.

I love these three girls in the very front, especially the one on the very right. Obviously, they are very bored, not sharing in the excitement of the premiere event — the lion dance.

My favorite is the boy making an offering to the lion and his accompanying expression.

On the left side, most everyone is focusing on the lion, including the monk.

On the right side, there are at least 6 people taking photographs. Mostly with smartphones, of course.

These are just four of the sub-details from the overall photograph. There are a lot more, and everyone in the frame is in tack-sharp focus, except for that one photographer on the very right. He is outside the plane of focus. This is a crude representation, but I think you get the idea of what this camera can do, and why I’m enjoying it.

I realize that a sharp and detailed photograph doesn’t necessarily make a good photograph. However, for me, I’m particularly loving this camera for the details, the striking color, and high dynamic range. It enables a different kind of image creation.

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