WANTED: New Fujifilm X Mount Roadmap Needed (and Why)!
After the Fujifilm X Summit on May 24, I wrote an article about the 3 biggest disappointments of the Summit.
One of them was the lack of a new X mount roadmap, considering that now with the XF8mmF2.8 R WR out, there is no more lens on the roadmap.
Now, at this point I want to make absolutely clear that this was just my very personal opinion. If you think differently, than that’s totally fine and your opinion has just the same reason to exist as mine.
But I also think what I said was a bit misunderstood, especially in regards the new roadmap, and here is why.
The main critique I got was that I should stop asking for new lenses, that what we have is enough and there is no need to rush out with more lenses.
And yes, we sure have lots of lenses, also considering all the third party AF lenses we now have. And many of us have all their needs covered already.
But that was not the point of what I wanted to say.
What I wanted to say is that, despite everything we already have, there are still some lenses that people wish for and in some cases really need for their photography, as shown by our massive future X mount wishlist survey.
And Fujifilm can only win if they publish a new roadmap. Because:
- people who are currently still missing certain lenses they need and see them on the roadmap, are more likely to stay with Fujifilm and just wait for the lens to come
- photographers, who are interested in the Fujifilm system but are currently not yet using it because it does not offer a certain lens, they might actually start to switch to Fujifilm if they see that the lens they need is on the roadmap. They might to start to look out for good deals, buy into the system, and buy the lens they need later on.
Keeping people in the system and facilitate others to join by publishing roadmaps is a huge advantage that Fujifilm is currently missing out on.
There are only two potential downsides to publishing roadmaps:
- if Fujifilm puts MKII lenses on the roadmap, people will stop buying the older version. But that’s a problem Fujifilm has solved by almost never putting MKII lenses on the roadmap
- Roadmaps are a “promise” that Fujifilm makes to its customers. But it can happen that Fujifilm breaks the promise and makes changes to the roadmap (see XF80mm macro instead of XF120mm macro or XF50mmF1.0 instead of 33mmF1.0). And when changes are done, some customers might feel disappointed by those changes as Fujifilm “broke” the promise they made
But these two downsides are more than compensated by the advantages solid long term roadmaps bring.
And since I love Fujifilm and I want them to succeed, I want Fujifilm to take the best possible decisions for the system. And in this case, in my opinion, Fujifilm would only profit from giving us a new roadmap.
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