Fujifilm Goes Shopping

Really many of you guys have sent me the recent Fujifilm related article at the Wall Street Journal.

And since it seems to be a topic you’d like to discuss, I’m going to share it here on FujiRumors with all of you.

Now, the original article can be found at the Wall Street Journal, but a super-quick summary can be found at finance.yahoo. It says:

“Xerox (XRX) is in talks with Japanese camera maker Fujifilm. According to the Wall Street Journal, Fujifilm would not fully takeover the copier company, but there would be leadership changes at Xerox. Activist investor Carl Icahn, who owns nearly 10% of Xerox, has said the company needs a shakeup in order to boost revenue and launch new products.”

But who is “Xerox”?

Xerox is a 112 year old US-company, that mainly makes printers and copiers. At the moment, Hewlett-Packard is strong market leader in this segment and Xerox has a hard time to compete with them.

Fujifilm is already cooperating with Xerox branches in the Asia-Pacific region, and you might remember the recent accounting irregularities found at Xerox Australia and New Zealand, which “caused a nearly 30% fall in profit at Fujifilm’s documents division in the six months ended September 2017“.

But despite the accounting irregularities, “Fujifilm’s documents division, which includes printers and copiers made by Fuji Xerox, made up 45% of the company’s sales and almost 40% of its operating profit in the six months ended September.”

Well, Fujifilm seems to be interested to further invest into Xerox, but would like to have more influence within Xerox and therefore requested a leadership change.

In another article (Xerox Should Look to Copy Fujifilm’s Success), the Wall Street Journal sees a good chance for Xerox in this deal, since Fujifilm has already survived the film fall by re-inventing its business (a great documentary about Fujifilm’s reinvention can be found here). The WSJ writes:

“Xerox printers and copiers are unlikely to be the future of either company in a world where offices are getting more work done digitally, rather than on paper. Fujifilm, which has survived the death of film photography while its rival Kodak floundered, may be able to provide a lesson in corporate reinvention.”

$4 billion for Acquisitions

And it seems that more investments by Fujifilm could follow. In fact the Wall Street Journal writes:

“Fujifilm has been an active deal maker for years, and it said in August it planned to spend more than $4 billion over the next three years for acquisitions.”

$4 billion over the next three years for acquisitions does not sound bad at all.

Personally, as Fujifilm camera/lens lover, I’d like to see some sort of investment into a sensor manufacturer that is not Sony, in oder to get “sensor independency” from Sony.

Until now, every new sensor Sony releases, can be purchased by Fujifilm only 6 months after Sony has already implemented it in their own cameras, which gives Sony a strategic advantage.

Moreover, Sony can also set the price to their pleasure, and especially the customized X-Trans sensor costs Fujifilm quite a bit.

To be clear: Sony makes fantastic sensors, and in many aspects they are superior to the sensors that Canon makes for example. So Fujifilm should never leave Sony, if the alternative is a worst sensor.

However, there are alternatives out there.

Lately there is a lot of talk about Tower Jazz. But also Samsung had a fantastic 28MP BSI APS-C ISO-invariant sensor with phase detection already 3 years ago for their amazing Samsung NX1, a know-how Fujifilm could decide to invest into for their own cameras, although, I know, it’s hard to see a Japanese and Korean company making any deal together.

And then, speaking of sensor independency from Sony, there is that mythical organic sensor that Fujifilm announced with Panasonic back in June 2013 and which due to some issues we reported here, never saw the light of the day so far (although it did take successfully pictures already). The latest update back in August 2017 here.

So guys, feel free to tell us, where you would recommend Fujifilm to go shopping in the next 3 years with those 4 billion dollar.

And don’t tell us “BEER”, because Fujifilm is already making beer tastier thanks to film technology, as we reported here. :)

have a fantastic weekend,
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Pete Souza and Fujifilm

Pete Souza, one of the most famous and talented photographers of our times, not least because for 8 years he was the official White House photographer of former president Obama, has now been spotted with a Fujifilm X-Pro2 and XF23mmF1.4 at camerabits Instagram page.

“The Camera Bits Team had a lovely time today talking workflow with the talented photojournalist @petesouza! Here you can see Camera Bits founder and President Dennis Walker with Pete going through his Photo Mechanic workflow.”

For long term FujiRumors readers, this won’t really come surprising, as we already reported in this 2016 roundup about what’s inside Pete’s bag, and at that time he was carrying around a lovely Fujifilm X100S, along with a Canon 5D Mark III with Canon 135mm f/2.0 L, Canon 35mm f/1.4 L and Canon 24-70 F/2.8 L II.

And check out @petesouza Instagram to see more of his images (including X-Pro2 pics).

Now he seems to have added the X-Pro2 and 23mmF1.4 to his camera bag…. and there is also a Sony A9 I believe on the same table.

UPDATE: Also White House assistant director Chuck Kennedy used Fujifilm X-Pro2 to photograph Obama. Story here at samuel-zeller.

A Sign of Things to Come?

A superfamous photographer, a Sony and a Fujifilm, all on the same table. Maybe a symbol of what’s to come in the next 3/4 years: a massive exodus of professional photographers from DSLRs to mirrorless, with Fujifilm and Sony leading the market… or maybe not, time will tell :) .

Carlos Saura

But there is more :)

Carlos Saura (wikipedia), a highly awarded film director, writer and photographer, now uses also Fujifilm (X-T1 and X100). In this 4:41 minute video, he will show you his impressive collection of camera and give you a glance behind the scenes of the creation of his latest photography book.

Magnum

We already told you about this project back in October 2017 in this GFX roundup here, but since it fits with this article, I thought to give you guys a reminder.

15 Magnum Photographers will explore the theme of “HOME” for the project. All shot with Fujifilm GFX. Photo exhibitions to take in 7 cities worldwide starting from March. More at home-magnum.

The content is continously updated, so check back the link now and then. They also have a dedicated youtube channel for the project, so feel free to check that one out too.

Welcome to the Fuji X Club… to All of You :)

I doubt Peter Souza and Carlos Saura know of the existence of this little space on the web called FujiRumors, but either way, I would like to welcome these two impressive photographers to the Fuji X Club.

It’s an honour to have you guys on board of the Fujifilm journey :).

But I must also add… when a few months ago I was able to convince a good friend to switch to Fujifilm, I had the same joy that I feel when I see Beyoncé, Annie Leibovitz, Ara Güler or any other well-known person owning Fujifilm cameras. And when last summer I casually met a Fujifilm wedding photographer (and FR-reader) at work, it was one of my best “blogger moments” of 2017.

Famous or not, for me it’s an honour to serve every single one of you guys, who one day decided to try out the Fujifilm system and now chooses to stop here at FujiRumors and to be part of this amazing community. My heart and soul (and tons of time) goes into this blog, and I will always give my best to honour your partecipation as good as I can.

And if you are curious to know which other celebrities own Fujifilm gear, then check out this forum thread… you might be surprised :) .

OUR COMMUNITIY

FujiRumors Communities: FujiRumors Facebook, FujiRumors Twitter, FujiRumors Instagram

Our Facebook groups: Fujifilm X-T User Group, Fujifilm X-Pro User Group, Fujifilm X-E User Group, Fujifilm GFX Group, Fujifilm X100 line Group, Fujifilm X-H (IBIS camera) Group

Fujifilm 2017 Rewinded

2017 was another exciting Fuji X year, and in order to cover it properly, I have shared almost 1,000 blog posts.

A lot of things happened, and maybe some of you might have missed something. So I have checked back all articles and selected some highlights for you. No FujiRumors rumors are included in this list.

It was not easy to pick out a few highlights… but below you can find the list month by month. Let us know what you consider the highlight of 2017.

Firmware Bug

As we reported here on FujiRumors a few days ago, there is a little bug on the latest X-Pro2 firmware ver.4.00. The camera locks up when you shoot advanced filters at lossless compressed + JPEG.

Well, Fujifilm read about the bug you guys reported here on FujiRumors, checked the firmware, and now confirms here that firmware 4 has indeed this issue.

Notice for customers
We have confirmed that X-Pro2 with the upgraded firmware (ver.4.00) released on Dec 22 2017 stops working in certain settings.
We deeply apologize for your inconvenience this may cause. The symptom will happen only when all three conditions below are set at the same time.

1) IMAGE QUALITY : FINE+RAW or NORMAL + RAW
2) RAW RECORDING : LOSSLESS COMPRESSED
3) DRIVE : any of ADVANCED FILTER
* This is not factory setting. If the symptom happens, please remove the battery once for recovery. We are preparing a revised firmware as a solution and plan to release it as soon as possible.

Fujifilm will soon deliver a fix for the bug.

Thanks to the FR-reader for sharing this news with me via email.

Make sure to join our Fujifilm X-Pro facebook group.

• Fujifilm X-T User Group
• Fujifilm X-Pro User Group
• Fujifilm X-E User Group
• Fujifilm GFX Group
• Fujifilm X100 Cameras Group
• Fujifilm X-H (IBIS camera) Group

Merry X mas

First and foremost, merry Christmas to the entire Fujifilm family out there and to every single one of you reading this blog. Make the best out of your holidays and enjoy every moment.

And now the part almost nobody will read, but for me personally it’s very important…

THANK YOU TO….

• ALL SOURCES who helped me also this year with the rumors. Your support was once again incredible. You help us to make being part of the Fuji X community so much more fun :). I hope to hear very often from you again also in 2018.
• ALL READERS who decided to support FujiRumors by commenting the articles, by dropping me a link to interesting content, news, deals and by sharing our content on social media and forums. You allow this blog to be always the very first to break the news and also to be the by far most active Fujifilm community on the web.
• ALL SUPPORTERS who decided to purchase products using our affiliate links, who donated a few bucks and who clicked on the banners on our website. I do put heart and soul into this blog, but without your support to cover the costs of this site, I could close FujiRumors tomorrow morning.
• ALL CONTRIBUTORS who decided to write a guest post for FujiRumors. You do enrich the FR-experience with your great content
• ALL PEOPLE AT FUJIFILM who worked hard to keep up designing, developing and crafting wonderful cameras and lenses and for covering us also in 2017 with Kaizen love

have great holidays… all of you,
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Support for Homeless People

As you might have noticed, here on FujiRumors we are convinced supporters of charity initiatives. In fact, over the last two years, thanks to your support, we collected $5,000 for free education to Cambodian kids, and as you can see above, the kids wanted to say “Thank you” to all of you guys :)

This time, I’d like to bring to your attention a charity initiative launched by our friends at Cosyspeed camera bags.

They have launched a special edition bag, the CAMSLINGER Streetomatic Valerie Jardin bag (Valerie shoots Fuji ;) ), and $25 of each sold bag go to the project #dosomethingfornothing, a project of London based stylist Joshua Coombes who gives free haircuts to homeless people.

Joshs project has grown quickly to 180 thousand followers on Instagram and he was featured in Morgan Freemans show on National Geographic and The Washington Post.

Full details after the video.

Fringer just uploaded a video demo of the Canon EF to Fuji X smart adapter.

You can see how the Sigma 30/1.4 performs on the Fujiflm X-T2 in this youtube video.

Here is a list of smart adapters available or to come soon.

• Techart (Canon EF-GFX)
• Steelsring (Canon EF-Fuji X, Canon EF-GFX, Nikon F-GFX, Nikon F-Fuji X)
• Fringer (Contax 645-GFX, Canon EF-Fuji X)
• Kipon (Canon EF-GFX, Contax 645-GFX)

Fringer writes at fringerdev.strikingly.com

After almost a month’s research and development, Fringer EF-FX smart adapter prototype’s PDAF performance has been further improved.

Unlike Sony E mount cameras, Fujifilm X mount is quite complex in PDAF support. More than two years ago, when A7r2 introduced phase detection AF (PDAF) for adapted lenses for the first time, I spent a night to find out the key mechanism and in very short time let my Contax N-E adapter become world’s first third party smart adapter supporting PDAF on mirrorless. Now I finally find the way to make X cameras do the same when adapting EF lenses. All the PDAF points on CMOS, not only the central one, but also the others around it, are all working properly, whatever the lens is wide or tele, zoom or prime and whatever the aperture is set wide open or stopping down.

Although the firmware of smart adapter for GFX50s can be easily modified to support X mount as what some other smart adapter manufacturer probably is doing , it doesn’t support PDAF. Compared with CDAF (contrast detection AF), PDAF is a performance leap. Thus, I developed the new version specifically for X mount. I made a short video to demo the AF-C zone focusing performance when PDAF is enabled. The lens is Sigma 30/1.4 art (for EF mount) and the camera is X-T2. Remember that S30/1.4A has a bad reputation for its slow AF speed.

In addition to that, I also did some real field tests. Using a EFs 55-250/4.0-5.6 IS STM lens and X-T2 camera, I tried continuous shooting on a moving vehicle towards the camera. I set the AF mode to zone and AF-C, continuous shooting mode to CH, and shutter mode to electronic only. The lens was at 250mm/F5.6.

I shot 34 photos in less than 4 seconds with a rough speed of 10 frames per second.