Dpreview published their CP+ interview with Fujifilm senior executives. Here is the recap from FujiAddict:
GFX and The Market
- Medium Format and Full-Frame will exist side by side
- The GFX50R expanded the medium format audience
- Full-Frame is about 1/3 of the market
- Medium format was 1% of the market and Fujifilm has doubled its size
- No target for the size of the market
- 70% of GFX buyers were coming from other brands DSLRs
- 20% of GFX owners are professionals the other 80% are not
- Fujifilm wants to increase its appeal to professionals
- The GFX100 gives photographers a look at the future of photography
- Full-Frame can probably reach 70-80MP
- GFX lets Fujifilm surpass Full-Frame’s limitations and shows off their glass, which was designed for 100MP
- GFX100 will be released before the end of June
- GF lenses are heavily influenced by X lenses more than their other large format offerings
- GFX100 is targeted at commercial photographers and fashion/landscape, but will also it will help full-frame photographers on other systems see GFX as a serious option for their work
- X Photographers tend to be general purpose and GFX photographers like the look of medium format
- GFX100 is one of the first cameras to have 16-bit RAW but you will only really notice it at low ISO in dark shadow details
- 16-bit RAW has 4x the information and will take longer to edit
- 16-bit isn’t really appropriate for APS-C
APS-C
- Fujifilm plans to keep up with their pace of innovation and will be focused on speed going forward
- X-Series offers speed/size/weight advantages over Full-Frame
- Fujifilm doesn’t consider if their firmware updates harm sales their goal is to support the customer so they trust the brand
Fujifilm on Video
- 4 or 5 years ago Fujifilm ignored video and as they slowly improved the feature customers asked for it on cameras like the X-Pro2 unexpectedly where users wanted 4k instead of 1080p
- Fujifilm might consider a dedicated video camera in the future
- Fujifilm sees a market for their MK glass and they designed it for X and E mount to make it a better investment
- You need good glass designed for video for good video so Fujifilm will continue to support their video features with glass designed for video
- MK lens sales were in line with expectations
- MK lenses are selling to the rental market and directly because of there reasonable prices
Lens Design Discussion
- Fujifilm designs their lenses to minimize digital corrections and maximize optical quality
- This makes their lenses bigger, but any digital correction has an impact on image quality
- Fujifilm only turns to digital corrections if a lens design gets too big or heavy
- The original XF35 f/1.4 had great optical quality, but slow AF because the entire optical assembly had to move to focus
- If Fujifilm released a new XF35 f/1.4 they would take a different approach and balance the optical quality and AF, because they have new actuators and optical tech today
- Fujifilm is using more automation their assembly line now
- First generation X lenses didn’t have Nano GI coatings they also weren’t designed for video
- Fujifilm wants to be a major player in sports and wildlife photography
- Fujifilm is tweaking everything for speed now, which will benefit them
X100
- There are many opinions about how the X100 could be improved
- The top request is probably better optics since they are still using the same lens as the original 12MP X100 with a 24MP sensor
- The second most requested is probably a tilting screen
- Then maybe 4k and weather-sealing
- Photographers just don’t want the style/size of the X100 to change at all
- X100 has a big customer base and Fujifilm doesn’t want to let them down
X-Mount
- No reason to open X-Mount because they already have 31 great lenses
- Fujifilm is not against choice for customers and understands lens makers reverse engineering their mount to make AF lenses
Big in The Future
- Global shutter is one big thing coming
- More computational AI tech in cameras will improve photography too
- Modular GFX joke
- Global shutter would give Fujifilm more freedom to design and no rolling shutter so more shooting possibilities
- AI and deep learning will let photographers just press a button and let the camera do the work
- Cameras without controls could be created with AI and deep learning
Via Dpreview.
