Oren Soffer on Shooting FUJIFILM GFX ETERNA 55 Launch Film “Okay”

by Nino LeitnerSeptember 20^th, 2025

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At FUJIFILM’s camera launch event in Amsterdam’s beautiful Eye Film Museum, Cinematographer Oren Soffer sat down with CineD to unpack how he shot Okay, the emotional launch film for FUJIFILM’s new GFX ETERNA 55. He explains why he mixed formats, how vintage glass informed the look, why he did not miss internal RAW, and what he actually saw regarding rolling shutter.

As context, FUJIFILM’s GFX ETERNA 55 centers on a large-format 44×33 mm sensor, with the “55” in the name pointing to the sensor’s 55 mm image diagonal. Our release coverage video and article detail the concept and positioning behind this camera and how FUJIFILM’s film heritage feeds into the digital color pipeline.

How the project came together

Oren Soffer had previously collaborated with FUJIFILM by shooting stills on The Creator with a GFX-series body, which led to the invitation to make a short for the ETERNA 55 launch. He partnered with writer-director Andrew Kightlinger, who developed a script from a personal experience. The team aimed to put the camera through varied situations, day and night, interior and exterior, while keeping the story grounded in a single location. Production was tight: testing, LUT development, and prep were condensed around a four-day shoot in Portland, Oregon.

Formats and lens choices

Testing pushed the team toward two complementary capture modes. For spherical work, Soffer shot full open-gate 4:3 to showcase the unique rendering of the large sensor with fast vintage glass. He likens the compositions to medium-format stills, only now in motion. For widescreen sequences, the production used 2× anamorphic on the full sensor height and kept the unsqueezed 2.66:1 frame rather than cropping to 2.39, embracing the edge aberrations and extra breadth. Spherical lenses were rehoused Fujinon optics from the 1970s (TLS and Ancient Optics). Anamorphic scenes used Xelmus Apollo primes, with the 75 mm and 100 mm covering the format to his surprise.

Early firmware, eND, and why ProRes 422 HQ was enough

Shooting occurred on early firmware, so the new electronic variable ND was not ready at the time. After trying it on a demo unit later, Oren Soffer called it a particularly useful control for dusk-to-blue-hour work where you ride filtration as exposure drops. On recording formats, he did not miss internal RAW. The production ran ProRes 422 HQ, which he describes as robust for color depth and dynamic range. For the kinds of indie and documentary projects this class of camera targets, he argues internal RAW is often unnecessary, while the option to add an external recorder remains for higher-end needs.

Oren’s rolling-shutter take

Concerns about rolling shutter followed the camera’s development lineage, yet Oren says it never became a practical issue on Okay. Even with dynamic handheld work and assertive pans, he did not find artifacts distracting in context. He stresses that tolerance is subjective and recommends users test the camera or review footage to judge acceptability for their own work.

Who this camera fits

Oren sees the GFX ETERNA 55 as particularly compelling for independent narrative and documentary filmmakers. It can build up for larger sets, yet it also packs a distinctive large-format look into a relatively compact package. He says he would gladly use it again and is eager to try it with more motion rigs, such as steadicams, gimbals, and drones.

For the camera’s positioning and technical background, watch our detailed GFX ETERNA 55 release explainer.

Curious what you think after watching the interview: does the mixed 4:3 and 2.66:1 approach suit the story, or would you have framed it differently?