Fujifilm’s Biggest Mistake (Northrup): Medium Format Distraction and Lack of Fast APS-C Zooms to Compete with Full Frame

Tony and Chelsea Norhtrup posted a video about the biggest error the various camera manufacturers do.

  • they don’t offer full frame. You have to jump to medium format
  • they need better autofocus
  • Fujiiflm saw youtube channels comparing their APS-C cameras against FF cameras
  • as a consequence, Fujifilm became too obsessed about sensor size and launched a medium format system
  • but Fujifilm launched their MF system in a time when the whole camera market was going down due to the rise of smartphones
  • by launching a new mount, they split all their R&D and marketing
  • their mounts are not compatible
  • they should have just stick with APS-C at this point and focus all their R&D for their APS-C system, giving us more X mount cameras and lenses
  • Fuji wanted to become a big contender, but they ended up being a niche (a niche the Northrup’s appreciate)
  • but to get work done, they pick a full frame Sony, Canon or Nikon
  • he’d shoot Fuji if they’d offer an XF50-100mmF1.8, as he’d get similar results to a full frame 70-200mmF2.8
  • he wants focusing speed of Sony and Canon, background blur, low light capability
  • all that does not need a bigger sensor, just bigger and faster lenses
  • Fujifilm misunderstood reviewers, and gave us medium format sensor instead of faster APS-C lenses
  • instead of making huge lenses for medium format they should have made huge lenses for APS-C

My own two cents?

GFX – a Distraction?

Offering medium format was a brilliant long term move and I have elaborated why here.

But yeah, I can’t see the future. Nobody can. So Tony’s opinion is just as valid as mine. The future will tell.

Two System, Less Cameras and Lenses for APS-C due to limited R&D

Maybe I am not so much into other brands, but I don’t feel like Fujifilm is releasing less gear than other brands.

The real issue was more that so far not many third party brands released AF lenses for Fujifilm, but that has been solved in the meantime.

But in some way it is true. No GFX system could potentially mean more resources for X mount. But I think this is also why Fujifilm waited so long before offering a second sensor option. They did want to wait that their APS-C lineup is rich in lenses and once well covered, they can free up resources for other projects.

Lack of Fast Lenses

First off, let me say that there are many fast Fujinon XF lenses such as the XF200mmF2, XF8-16mmF2.8, XF50mmF1.0 as well as all the nice f/1.2 and f/1.4 primes.

But what about the f/1.8 zooms he’d wish for the X system? Well, that brings us to the next point.

High ISO

In the past, pushing your digital cameras to high ISO was something we absolutely wanted to avoid, as the performance was so bad. To avoid to go too high with ISO, we did indeed need fast glass for low light photography.

But that was the past. Today, ISO performance on digital cameras is vastly improved, which means you don’t need to try to desperately avoid high ISO with super fast and expensive glass. Nope, you can also push ISO up much higher than you ever could in the past.

What this means is that you can put smaller, lighter and more affordable lenses on your camera, as you can compensate the slower aperture with a higher ISO value.

Down below I will share a video of an extreme low light recovery I made of my wife overlooking the hills of Ronda in Andalusia, Spain (we made our honeymoon there). She basically went from almost invisible black to nicely visible in clean colors (thank you X-Trans for that high color fidelity) and in my eyes also very contained levels of noise, which make the image pleasing and usable.

But what about Bokeh? Let’s talk about it.

Bokeh

Not enough background blur? Well, this one is easy to answer. I’ll just share an image down below. And it’s not even the fastest lens Fujifilm has to offer (you can get even more radical with this one).

Autofocus (and Computational Photography)

True, Sony and Canon have better autofocus. But the point with autofocus is, that once it is near perfect, there is not much to improve anymore. Fujifilm just needs to catch up with Sony and Canon, and then the “autofocus war” will be basically over, since there will be little room for further enhancements.

Where there is much more room for improvement, is computational photography. And this is an area where smaller sensors simply are superior to bigger sensors. In fact, if done wisely, it could be even lead to a Renaissance of the M43 system (as the Panasonic GH6 shows with its terrific high res handheld mode). And certainly APS-C has a potential advantage here over full frame or medium format.

 

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Ein Beitrag geteilt von Fuji_Rumors (@fuji_rumors)

Top 10 Fujifilm X Camera Flops and 10 Errors Fujifilm Should Avoid in Future

Top of the Flops

We did talk about the top 10 most important cameras of Fujifilm in the last 10 years.

But not all was successful that Fujifilm did.

So why did some cameras fail?  Bad timing? Bad specs? Too strong competition? Killed by Kaizen? Complicated usability?

Let’s look into it today, because knowing the errors of the past, will help to avoid to make the same errors in future.

Let’s start!

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Fujifilm X-Pro1 Retrospective – 10 years of Fujifilm X-mount: The Start of X-Trans, Vintage Fun, Film Simulations and More

This month marks the 10th anniversary of the X mount system, so DPRTV takes a fresh look at the Fujifilm X-Pro1, the system’s first camera, to see how it holds up a decade late.

NOTE: we are talking X Mount MILC cameras, not X series cameras in general. The X line started of course with the original Fujifilm X100.

Gosh, what memories came up to me, after all this time.

For example when Jordan highlights how bad the video quality of the X-Pro1 is. True, but when Fujifilm removed an X-Pro1 firmware because of a bug on the video side of things, 99,9999% of X shooters owning an X-Pro1 were like “what, this thing can shoot also video?”

Or all the the glory and struggles related to Fujifilm’s new X-Trans design. Lots of myths and fakes had to be debunked in this regard.

Look, I was always honest to look at the advantages of Bayer vs X-Trans and vice versa, but at the end I am very happy that the Fujifilm X-H2 will have an X-Trans sensor (at least one of the two). And I am not alone, as the vast majority of you guys is happy about this too.

And yes, Kaizen, that’s something the X-Pro1 got lots of. But on the contrary of what many think, still today Fujifilm leads the pack when it comes to updating their cameras. I elaborated it more in depth here.

But most importantly, the joy to use a Fujifilm camera is still the same, also after 10 years. In fact, Chris seems to have loved to shoot the X-Pro1 even more now as opposed to when it came out 10 years ago.

So, with all that said, here is are DPRTV’s impressions after shooting the X-Pro1 again 10 years later.

Little curiosity: I find it cool that Chris took all the pictures using the original XF lens trinity launched along with the X-Pro1.

  • he enjoys using the optical viewfinder (the X-Pro1 has a hybrid viewfinder
  • great vintage look
  • aimed to work best with smaller primes
  • great for street shooters
  • compact camera with compact primes
  • the X-T1 opened the system to lots more people. The whole Fujifilm system grew from there
  • X-Pro1 was the first camera using an X-Trans sensor
  • thanks to X-Trans Fujifilm could get rid of the aliasing filter, which would have removed some sharpness to the images
  • now it is much easier to edit X-Trans files
  • X-Trans avoided a lot of the problems with moire for photos
  • but at that time, it was hard to work with X-Trans files. Adobe struggled with X-Trans files and 10 years later people still complain about this
  • Fujifilm started its reputation for great colors in JPEGs and great details
  • the X-Pro1 did not have many film simulations
  • in 10 years we have gained so many more film simulations. The latest Fujifilm cameras have even more vintage film simulations like Nostalgic Negative and Classic Chrome, etc
  • Chris is impressed but how accurate the optical overlay still is with its frame lines (compensating for parallax)
  • not great AF controls. Best solution: single AF with focus and recompose. It’s pretty snappy used this way
  • terrible camera for video
  • it’s incredible that just 10 years ago Fuji was so bad in video, but now for Jordan Fujifilm cameras are among his favorite cameras to shoot video
  • Chris had a lot of fun shooting the X-Pro1 again
  • even if it is 10 years old, it still felt quite current in a lot of ways
  • X-Pro1 got tons of Kaizen firmware updates
  • maybe Fujifilm does not do Kaizen so much anymore [admin note: I disagree, and I elaborated why here]
  • Fujifilm has come a long way and now dominates APS-C and MF market
  • Fujifilm still holds on on that vintage feel and heritage build up 10 years ago
  • Chris didn’t appreciate the X-Pro1 when it came out, but for some reason he now enjoyed it shooting again
  • X-Trans files of X-Pro1 still have very interesting character

X-Trans Related Articles

Celebrating Fujifilm…

Long live the glorious Fujifilm X-Pro line.

Avatar 2 First Official Photos Taken with Fujifilm X Series Gear

Behind the scenes of 20th Century Studios' AVATAR 2. Photo by Mark Fellman. © 2022 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.
Behind the scenes of 20th Century Studios’ AVATAR 2. Photo by Mark Fellman. © 2022 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

20th Century Studios has published the first official photos of one of the most anticipated movies of 2022: Avatar 2.

Well, if you give a look at the EXIF data, you can see that the images have been taken by Mark Fellman (IG: markfellman) with Fujifilm X series gear (found via the German website n-tv.de)

In the images where the EXIF data is available, the gear used is:

Congratz to Mark for having his images spreading over the entire world to tease one of the most important movies of 2022.

Long times FR-readers know it: Hollywood loves Fujifilm ;).

P.S.: send this article to those moaning about Fujifilm not being Full Frame ;).

Behind the scenes of 20th Century Studios' AVATAR 2. Photo by Mark Fellman. © 2022 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.
Behind the scenes of 20th Century Studios’ AVATAR 2. Photo by Mark Fellman. © 2022 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved

The Guardian Nominates Fujifilm Shooter and WPP Award Winner Yasuyoshi Chiba “Agency Photographer of the Year”

image courtesy - Yasuyoshi Chiba (via The Guardian)
image courtesy – Yasuyoshi Chiba (via The Guardian)

Do you remember when back in 2020, photographers using Fujifilm X and GFX gear creamed off tons of prestigious awards at the World Press Photo Awards, including the top spots for the two most prestigious categories, World Press Photo of the Year and World Press Photo Story of the Year?

Well, Yasuyoshi Chiba, the winner of the World Press Photo of the Year, who took this amazing image with his Fujifilm X-H1, has now been nominated “Agency Photographer of the Year” by The Guardian.

Congratulations again to Yasuyoshi Chiba and make sure to check out his instagram here, where all the images shared so far are taken with the Fujifilm X-H1 and Fujifilm GFX100.

As for the images in this specific reportage from Tigray (Ethiopia), Yasuyoshi Chiba used his GFX gear with the one lens I dream to own for my GFX100S, the Fujinon GF50mm f/3.5.

For the full article check out TheGuardian here.

One more thing:

Yasuyoshi Chiba is planning to do photo exhibition of the images of Tigray from Ethiopia (and Sudan for refugees) in February and March, both at Fuji’s imaging plaza (below is info, in japanese though). Pictures at the exhibition are all taken by GFX100+GF50mm.

Some Fuji Pro Work:

Not enough? Well, then know that photographers using Fujifilm cameras also…

  • won the world wildlife photography award (story here)
  • made the cover of the TIME magazine (story here)
  • won the World Photography Arts&Culture Award 2015 (story here)
  • won the First Prize of the World Press Photo Category “Stories (stroy here)
  • made the front page of the Wall Street Journal (story here)
  • were good enough for God’s work (story here)
  • captured America’s most hated man (story here)
  • distracted a French presidential candidate during his interview (story here)

Hey Jared… are you really sure about that Fuji, LOL? ;)

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Top 7 Critiques on Fujifilm that Are Absolutely Justified

I recently wrote an article, where I list 10 attacks on Fujifilm that do not make any sense.

In that article, I promised that I would also write an article about the exact opposite, meaning sharing a list of critiques on Fujifilm that I totally understand and I agree with.

You can find it down below.

And of course, feel free to add your own critiques on Fujifilm in the comments down below.

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DxO PhotoLab 5 and FilmPack 6 Released with Support for Fujifilm X-Trans Sensor Cameras

DxO has just announced Beta support for Fujifilm cameras sporting an X-Trans sensor with the new DxO PhotoLab 5 and DxO FilmPack 6 (launch discount available).

Down below you’ll find the official press releases.

The supported Fujifilm X-Trans cameras so far are:

  • Fujifilm X-E2 / Fujifilm X-E2S / Fujifilm X-E3 / Fujifilm X-E4 / Fujifilm X-H1 / Fujifilm X-Pro2 / Fujifilm X-Pro3 / Fujifilm X-S10 / Fujifilm X-T1 / Fujifilm X-T2 / Fujifilm X-T20 / Fujifilm X-T3 / Fujifilm X-T30 / Fujifilm X-T4 / Fujifilm X100F / Fujifilm X100T / Fujifilm X100V / Fujifilm X70

All DxO Software

Press Releases for DxO PhotoLab 5 and DxO FilmPack 6

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Top 10 Attacks on Fujifilm (That Don’t Make Sense): Full Frame Desires, GFX Facts Distortion, Kaizen Death, X-Trans Flaws, DOF and more

Criticizing and attacking Fujifilm is quite popular on the internet, and down below I will talk about possible reasons why it is like this.

Sometimes these critiques are justified, but sometimes I feel these attacks are unjustified.

Let’s talk about it now.

10 Critiques To Fujifilm

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Fujifilm X-H2 Coming with New X-Trans Sensor: My Thoughts and Your Vote!

Thanks to our sources, we know it: the Fujifilm X-H2 will feature a new X-Trans sensor!

What we also know, is that the Fujifilm X-H2 will be Fujifilm’s first camera to feature a new sensor and processor.

So here is quickly what I think about it.

Now, both color filter arrays have their strengths and weaknesses. We have written about it more in detail here. In short we could sum it up like this:

  • Bayer Array: better for more features
  • X-Trans Array: better for image quality

Again, this is a brutal simplification. If you want to understand it better, definitely read this article.

My Thoughts

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