Fujifilm, Panasonic & Toshiba to make common announcement before mid-September: New Sensor to be Announced?

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There is a rumor relating to Fujifilm, from the Chinese forum dc.home (translation). It has been spread by joofei, whom you probably still remember from the Wild Rumor Series (wild rumors 1, wild rumors 2 and wild rumors 3).

Joofei says, that Fujifilm, Panasonic & Toshiba are going to announce something before mid-September 2015… and once more, wild guesses started, related to organic sensor or the rumored Medium Format camera.

Everything joofei shared so far, has still be verified. So take it with the mandatory grain of salt.

WHAT WE KNOW

TOSHIBA: Fujifilm is already cooperating with Toshiba… they make the Fuji X-Trans 2/3 sensors

PANASONIC: Fujifilm is cooperating with Panasonic on the Organic Sensor

WHAT COULD BE

Is it possible, that these 3 companies joined forces to break Sony’s sensor hegemony? I don’t know, and we will probably soon see if joofei is reliable or not.

But today I want to share with you an older rumor, which I never shared in the past (yeah, I know, my obsession for beeing as reliable as possible ;) ).

The rumor I’ve received said, that the next generation of X-Trans sensor will be made by Toshiba (until now, Fuji’s APS-C sensors are made by Sony). This partnership change should be the reason for the delay of the X-PRO2.

It’s anonymous, so take it with a grain of salt. I share it today, because it could be another element of discussion in addition to what joofei said at the Forum. Anyway, since I’ve shared the Toshiba rumor, I’ll include it now into my big rumor check.

So, time again for wild specualtions !

stay tuned,
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Sony A7000 coming soon: with RGBW + New Backlit sensor for Best in class low light performance! – X-PRO2 specs?

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PREFACE

1) Current APS-C Fuji cameras feature a Sony sensor (with special Fuji X-Trans design).
2) Fuji can use the latest generation of Sony sensors only about half a year after Sony itself implemented it in one of their cameras.
3) Therefore, any Sony A7000 sensor rumor could potentially be interesting also for the X-PRO2
4) No rumor until now says, that Fuji is going to use the Sony A7000 sensor for their X-PRO2

The Rumor

Ok, then let’s talk about the rumor SonyAlphaRumors just shared. According to the rumor of SAR, the Sony A6000 successor will hit the market soon…. very soon, maybe on the first half of September.

And here are the sensor specs:

– Best in class low light performance (backlit sensor and RGBW pixel array)
– internal 4k video recording with full sensor readout in 60fps
– extremly fast autofocus system

There is a Sony press-release of 2012 that explains how the RGBW Coding works.

The built-in “RGBW Coding” function which adds W (White) pixels to the conventional range of RGB (Red-Green-Blue) pixels has realized higher sensitivity, enabling high-quality shooting with low noise even in dark indoor or night settings. While the addition of W (White) pixels improves sensitivity, it has the problem of degrading image quality. However, Sony’s own device technology and signal processing realizes superior sensitivity without hurting image quality.

Also a Fuji patent of 2012 shows a sensor with enlarged green and  white pixels (see here). So Fujifilm at least investigated the possibility to make it. If it will become true soon, we will see.

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CONCLUSION

– If it’s true, that the X-PRO2 will feature the same sensor of the A7000 (just with special X-Trans array)
– If it’s true, that Fuji has to wait about half a year before being able to use that sensor
– If it’s true that the A7000 will be announced early September

then this means that the Fuji X-PRO2 could hit the market around February/March.

stay tuned,
Fuji X Forum, Facebook, Google+, RSS-feed and Twitter

Fuji Flash delayed to first half of 2016 (New Source)

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A new source shares with us the following information: the long rumored new Fuji flash will be released only in the first half of 2016.

I remind you how very early rumors said, that the new Fuji flash was planed to be made by Metz and come in spring 2015. However, the Metz insolvency changed Fuji’s plans and they had to delay its release.

Fuji started looking for another partner (like Sunpak).

FYI, it’s recent news, that the new owner of the Metz flash branch (the Daum Group), relaunched the flashes and is opening again factories in Germany.

Flash Photography with Fuji X at the Fuji X Forum

No Full Frame for Fuji X100T successor? New Source says: “Same sensor of Fuji X-PRO2”

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A New Source told me, that the X100T successor will have the same sensor of the Fujifilm X-PRO2 (which is rumored to feature an APS-C sensor).

So, no switch to a Full Frame sensor for the X100 line, at least not with the X100T successor. Some rumors shared in the past (by other sites), suggested a Fuji X200 with a FF sensor, and I believe that they even might have been right at the time when they were shared. But, if the New Source is right, Fujifilm dropped those plans and the competitor of the Leica Q and Sony RX1 will sport the next generation of Fujifilm’s APS-C sensor!

Sure, it would have been relatively uncomplicated for Fujifilm to switch from APS-C to FF with their fixed lens camera line (no need to launch a whole new series of lenses). But it seems that Fujifilm is firmly convinced of the virtues of the upcoming X-PRO2 sensor.

And indeed, the rumored sensor specs look very promising and exciting: phase detection pixels all over the frame, 24MP ASP-C sensor, X-Trans III, back-illuminated Sensor, maybe even native on sensor HDR for a higher dynamic range than any camera of the FF SonyA7 line… sounds good ;)

Ok, this new rumor marks the beginning of a probably very long X100T successor rumor story… and here is Chapter 1 of the rumored specs list:

Fuji X100T successor rumored specs
– same sensor of X-PRO2

And remember: stay tuned on FR to get the news & rumors for first – Fuji X Forum, Facebook, Google+, RSS-feed + Twitter

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Kaizen Again? Fuji X-T1 will get another Firmware update this year! (AS) – Which New Features would you like to get?

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According to an anonymous source (thanks!) the Fujifilm X-T1 Kaizen love is not over. In fact, Fujifilm plans to release another Firmware update this year (probably called “Firmware 5”).

Which new features will it bring? This is still unknown, but I hope some kind source can help me out with this soon. In the meantime, you can start dreaming in the comments and in this FXF thread.

To this source: Thanks a lot…. and about the other tidbit you shared, I need a bit of time to check it. If you want, you can contact me via email (fujirumor [at ] gmail [dot] com) to discuss about it (you can create a fake email account, if you want). But even if you use your personal email, I can guarantee you’ll remain 100% anonymous.

If you like the rumor, then feel free to share it on your website (and put a link back to FR)… and if you think it’s just the usual BS (as every rumor I share), just ignore it. Nobody forces you to continuously copy&paste and discuss my BS rumors on your websites (mostly without any link back to FR).

Ok, now I hope I can confirm the rumor ASAP… and any help is appreciated, thanks.
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