Voigtlander ULTRON 27mm F2 Available for Pre-Order (+ Reviews) and Voigtlander NOKTON 35mm F0.9 Release in August

Back in February, Cosina said they’ll launch the following two lenses for the Fujifilm X mount

Now, the Voigtländer ULTRON 27mm F2 is available at BHphoto here and soon at Amazon here and Adorama here. First (and very positive) reviews about this lens can be found down below.

As far as the Voigtländer NOKTON 35mm f/0.9, today Cosina has announced they will released it in August. All the main specs about this lens can be read here and down below you’ll find the press release.

So we now have 5 lenses from Cosina with electronic contacts.

Press Release

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Sony A6700 Announced and it Makes the Fujifilm X-S20 Look Even Better ;)

Welcome Sony A6700

And suddenly I started reading headlines about the Sony A6700 like this:

“Sony didn’t hold back”
“It’s the best APS-C camera you can buy”
“The best hybrid camera for the money”

And since a firm believer of the fact that competition is great for customers, I started looking into the Sony A6700 hoping that it would indeed outperform Fujifilm.

Because if the A6700 would really be better than anything Fujifilm offers, then Fujifilm would be forced to catch up for example by releasing tons of Kaizen firmware updates to close the gap, or by speeding up the release of other cameras they have in the pipeline.

But the more I looked into the details (that many influencers – not all – somehow missed out to mention) the more disillusionment kicked in and I came to the preliminary conclusion that the Sony A6700 just shows us even more how amazing the Fujifilm X-S20 actually is.

Let me quickly explain by sharing a few facts.

  • A6700 has no joystick
    X-S20 has a joystick
  • A6700 LCD screen has about half of the resolution of the X-S20
  • A6700 has about half the fps bursts of the X-S20 (11 fps vs 20 fps)
  • A6700 has not the fully automatic subject detection mode
    X-S20 detects all sort of subjects automatically
  • A6700 has no option for external cooling
    X-S20 is compatible with the cooling fan
  • A6700 has few native APS-C lenses, you must buy the more expensive and bigger Full Frame lenses if you want more options
  • A6700 has no 4K DCI, no Open Gate, no 6K
    X-S20 has all of that
  • A6700 has no RAW video output
    X-S20 has it
  • A6700 is more expensive than the X-S20

Of course, these are just comparisons made on paper.

And on paper, there are areas in which the Sony A6700 wins, for example with its 4K/120p (although with a huge crop that reads out a sensor size smaller than Micro Four Thirds).

So before making any final conclusion, we certainly have to wait for real life comparisons.

Let’s just hope that those comparisons will be as objective as possible, even those that come from huge influencers that are not supported at all by Fujifilm (Fuji doesn’t send pre-production gear nor loaners to quite some of the big YouTubers that Sony instead wisely treats very well).

But what I can say for now is that for me the A6700 does not fully match the Fujifilm X-S20 in quite some areas that for many might be important. For example, a dealbreaker for me are the lack of joystick, no lovely film simulations, no internal RAW converter, lack of dedicated APS-C lens selection and so forth.

As opposed to what quite some YouTuber said, I feel that Sony did hold back with the Sony A6700 in order not to compete too strongly with their Full Frame lineup. A problem that Fujifilm luckily does not have, so they can pack it all into their APS-C cameras.

So I am personally disappointed. I was hoping for a stronger APS-C competitor that would put Fujifilm under huge pressure. Sadly the A6700, although a nice camera, is not that.

That’s my very personal opinion that has no pretension to be the truth. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

Top 5 Great Things You Might have Missed about the Fujifilm X-S20 and LOTS of X-S20 Media Slides

So, the Fujifilm X-S20 was launched a few weeks ago.

And as usual at launch day, there was a lot of buzz.

But in all that buzz, some stuff tends to go under that should actually get way more attention, and some stuff for some reason Fujifilm did not mention at all.

So, in order to celebrate this little wonderful camera, let me tell you the 5 things you might have missed about it.

Top 5 Things

  1. Double the internal memory of X-S10
    This allows for longer bursts over the X-S10
  2. Smoother EVF than X-H2 and X-T5
    The Fujifilm X-S20 can shoot up to 30fps (faster than X-H2 and X-T5). And, so I have been told, as opposed to the X-T5 and X-H2, at the respective highest fps the EVF runs even smoother than its higher end siblings showing no signs of jerkiness at all , and of course also no blackout (with full 100fps live-view). One of the advantages of coupling the new X Processor 5 with the fast to read out 26MP X-Trans IV sensor and a decent, but lower resolution viewfinder than the X-T5 and X-H2
  3. LCD Boost
    Compared the the X-S10, the X-S20 sports an almost twice as high resolution on the LCD (1,04 vs 1,84 million dots)
  4. 6K 3:2 Open gate
    The X-S20 can shoot 6K 3:2 Open Gate, which is not possible on the Fujifilm X-T5 and X-H2 for example
  5. Optional Fan
    Extends filming duration at more than twice the time. note that CineD and other reviews got great heat management performance also without the fan (at CineD the battery died before the camera even was able to overheat). But under tough conditions, the fan will help and extend recording time for more than twice, as we can see from the media slides I will share below.

So, down below (or at my dropbox) are the media slides. These are screenshots I took during the Fujifilm USA Tech Talk. There might be some data in there you might find interesting. Enjoy :).

How good is FUJIFILM’s Camera-to-Cloud? A CineD Documentary

CineD tested the Frame.io Camera to Cloud integration on the field.

The video is 17 minutes long but so pleasing to watch, that I strongly invite you to check it out right now.

As for how well it worked, I will only say:

  • in a very busy WiFi environments (the NAB show) with thousands of people connecting to all sorts of different WiFi networks, the connections struggles to be stable
  • in less busy WiFi environments or if you use your cellphone LTE for the upload, it works flawlessly even in remote locations (they tested it in the Las Vegas desert)

Fujifilm manager Victor Ha, also present in this CineD docu-review, said that he tested the C2C Frame.io integration over many months under all sorts of conditions, and that the one of the NAB show was definitely the most challenging by far.

I can imagine that those, who use it as an instant backup during a wedding or for an on-set video production, hence will not have thousands of people getting access to hundreds of WiFi networks simultaneously, will definitely have a much smoother experience.

In fact, the CineD team is overall positive and says it takes away a lot of the “legwork” now that their team in Argentina, Italy and elsewhere can edit videos immediately and this that this Adobe-Fujifilm cooperation gives us a glimpse into the future.

So it’s not perfect for now, but in a less challenging environment than the NAB show, the system seems to work well.

We remind you that the system only works with the Fujifilm X-H2 and Fujifilm X-H2S when used with the FT-XH file transmitter grip.