Fujifilm UK manger Andreas Georghiades returns to the Fujicast postcast.
It’s an almost 1 hour podcast, and if you are in a hurry and can’t listen it all, I provide a summary of everything the manager says, so you can get it all in under 5 minutes.
guest post by Andy Gawlowski – worldwidewax.ch
Back than in 2016 it was FUJIFILM X-Pro2 which I was able to test for my travel photography in Morocco (Article FUJI RUMORS) . I was so impressed by the camera that I sold my entire Canon full frame system and switched to FUJIFILM. The camera was small and light, it looked damn good and took simply great pictures. Especially the compact form factor was an unbeatable argument for my travel photography. One of the pictures I took in the port of Essouira even made it into the Top 50 in the “Travel” category of the Sony World Photography Awards 2017.
In autumn 2019 FUJIFILM released its successor the X-Pro3. The announcement immediately caught my attention. Especially, when I heard about the unusual design concept. At first glance the camera doesn’t have a display on the back where you can review your photos. The X-Pro3 has a rear display that you first “cumbersomely” have to open to see and use it. The intention behind it is relatively clear. FUJIFILM wants to encourage photographers to focus more on the process of taking pictures rather than constantly looking at the display to review their images. This is very reminiscent of the days of analog film photography and is also a concept that was already been tried by Leica. By the way this constant checking of photos is called “chimping” and can lead to losing attention and reference to the scenery in the current photographic moment. It’s something I used to observe with myself for quite a while but was luckily able to turn off. With time you simply get more self-confidence in your abilities and therefore you have to look at the display less often.
FUJIFILM Switzerland was kind enough to lend me the X-Pro3 with the FUJINON 14mm f/2.8 lens for my two-week trip to Sri Lanka. I intentionally limited myself to only one lens in order to give my full attention to the camera itself.
First impression
Fujifilm has now published its fiscal report for the fiscal year 2020 (1 April 2019 – 31 March 2020).
Fellow FR-reader Mistral has summarized it in French over at the French forum chassimages. In short:
Fujifilm as a whole is still doing well even if it has not reached the expected goals given the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic on its last quarter.
Imaging Solutions is the division with the lowest performance.
Fujifilm records a loss in the last quarter. The decline in sales of digital cameras and their lenses has accelerated throughout the year.
The only positive note: the Fujifilm GFX100 keeps up selling strong, as well as the Fujifilm X100V and Fujifilm X-Pro3 are mentioned positively in the various reports.
There is something I do not get (help me out, if I miss something).
When Sony released their “real time tracking”, it rightfully got tons of coverage and praise.
The killer feature?
Sony’s autofocus system switched automatically between subject tracking, face tracking or eye tracking.
Imagine you are face/eye tracking a person with your camera, but then the person either puts her hands in front of its face or just turns around. Well, the camera will keep up tracking whatever “replaced” the person’s face (the hands or the back of the head etc.).
That’s cool, because it means that when the camera loses the face, it will keep up tracking the subject.
I remember DPReview made a couple of videos and articles praising it as “a big leap forward for AF“. All the vloggers and blogs covered it in countless videos and articles.
A massive coverage and well-deserved hype for Sony.
But guess what?
I am playing around with my brand new Fujifilm X-T4 and I notice that my Fujifilm X-T4 can do pretty much the same!
In fact, my Fujifilm X-T4 also switches automatically between subject tracking, face tracking or eye tracking.
I will demonstrate it with a video I just did, tracking my mother, my dog and a car.
To set it up in your camera, do this:
Even in the latest DPReview review of the Fujifilm X-T4 I think I did not read a single line about this feature. And yet, on the Sony, they called this feature a “big leap forward for AF” (video below).
Ignore faces with face detection enabled? I tell you how.
If you put your focus box on an object and half-press the shutter button, and then a face comes into a frame, the X-T4 sticks with the object you chose, but a grey box appears on the new face, just to let you know “Hey, I saw a face, if you want, I can track it“. But it won’t let your chosen object go. Unless you want to.
To switch to the detected face, let the shutter button go press the focus stick, and the camera switches to the face. You don’t want the face again? Press focus stick again, place your focus box on the object you want, and track it, ignoring faces (but always with the grey square around faces, just so the camera let’s you know it is detecting faces).
Down below a short video I just did at midnight here with my wife to demonstrate it.
I select the couch, and even though my wife’s face is in the frame, the X-T4 sticks with the couch, because I told the camera I want so. But there is a grey box around my wife’s face. I toggled to the face doing what I told you above. And then quickly back to the couch.
I am not saying the Fuji AF is as good as Sony. But I say it is at least something they should have mentioned, tested and eventually also compared to Sony.
But don’t worry, I have a plan
I am going to tape a Sony logo over my Fujifilm X-T4 and send it for testing to all possible vloggers and bloggers, so they might notice this amazing feature also on the X-T4 and maybe, who knows, even praise the full frame image quality ;). Just kidding, in these days where all is so heavy and full of bad news, we need a bit of lightness.
Now seriously, as I applauded Sony, when they released that feature in their AF system, I think I should do the same also with Fujifilm now.
And especially, I’d like to let you guys know about it. Sure, Fujifilm came a bit late compared to Sony, but now with the X-T4 we are here, with a real-time tracking that could simplify our tracking experience quite a bit :).
Remains to see, how well it works compared to Sony’s version.
DPReview just published their Fujifilm X-T4 review, and it gets the Gold Award with a rating of 88%.
From their conclusions:
It’s a really good stills camera, it’s a really, really good video camera, but the thing it excels at it switching back and forth between being both. We’re not sure there’s another camera that offers such a strong combination.
The thing that threatens to overshadow the X-T4 is the ~$2000 full frame mirrorless camera
The Sony a7 III and Nikon Z6 both offer in-body stabilization and similarly sized bodies, and are old enough to sell for near the X-T4’s price. Full frame can offer undeniably better image quality if you use lenses that are equivalent or faster, which can’t be ignored. But APS-C offers a different size/weight trade-off, allowing smaller, perhaps more manageable body/lens combinations which don’t necessarily give up too much in image quality. In video, the Fujifilm more than holds its own. If you’re shooting a scene and need to maintain a minimum depth-of-field, the Fujifilm’s 10-bit footage will have similar IQ and be more gradable.
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You can check out the full review at dpreview here.
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