Fujifilm Keeps Struggling: X-S20 and X100VI Orders Stopped (Again) in Japan and More Manufacturing Struggles (Instax Wide 300 included)

Fujifilm keeps struggling with the manufacturing of their gear… over and over again.

Just in February, orders for the Fujifilm X-S20 resumed in Japan after an extended period of unavailability. However, recent reports indicate that the camera is once again not available for order.

Also the Fujifilm X100VI is experiencing order suspensions in Japanese stores, despite only recently becoming available for purchase on March 28th.

And this is just the top of the iceberg.

The Fujifilm X-T5 was unavailable for many months in Japan.

Cameras like the Fujifilm X-E4 have been unavailable for most of the time, which makes me wonder why Fujifilm even bothered launching it considering that they discontinued the X-E4 before even being able to ship out lots of units that people actually had on order. The only ones happy with this situation are those who are reselling it at a higher price than its original MSRP.

Lots of lenses also suffered the same shortage (and still do), such as the lovely XF27mmF2.8 R WR and the versatile XF70-300mmF4-5.6.

Also Instax suffers, with Fujifilm announcing the suspension of orders for the INSTAX WIDE 300 in Japan.

Look, not all companies get all things right all the time. And Fujifilm has done (and is doing) its errors too.

But arguably the biggest error that they have done in the last 4 years is not being able to figure out how to ramp up production and make sure to actually be able to deliver products that people order.

Sure, Fujifilm has looked into solution, but they were all insufficient.

Dear Fujifilm: there is no “cheap” solution like Blockchain or whatever. If you want to sell more, you need bigger production capability and more workers. That’s it.

via asobinet (X-S20) via digicame-info (X100VI)

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Fujifilm Announces Major Kaizen Firmware Updates for X-T5, X-H2, X-H2S, X-S20 – Here are All the Details

Pre-Orders

Kaizen Firmware Updates

At the Fujifilm X Summit, Fujifilm has announced the release of major firmware updates for 5th generation gear.

Down below I will list all the details for each camera:

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Resumption of Orders for FUJIFILM X-T5 Silver Body and XF18-55mm kit, but X-S20 Orders Still Suspended in Japan

Good news for fellow X shooters from Japan.

After months in which the Fujifilm X-T5 was not available for order, finally Fujifilm opened up orders again. This time for the Fujifilm X-T5 in silver and the Fujifilm X-T5 with the XF18-55 kit lens. The black X-T5 body orders resumed a few weeks ago.

The bad news: Orders for Fujifilm X-S20 are still suspended.

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The Latest X Series Reviews: Sigma 10-18mmF2.8, Fujinon XF8mmF3.5, Fujifilm X-S20, X-H2, X-H2S, X-T5

In this roundup we are going to cover lots of reviews focusing on the most recent X series gear.

So we will cover:

Lenses:

Cameras:

The Roundup

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Fujifilm Designers Talk X-S20 Camera Body and User Interface (and AI Camera Future)

On a recent visit to Japan, Johnnie had the chance to visit FUJIFILM’s new design center and talk to Aida-san, who designed the Fujifilm X-S20, other cameras as well as the legendary cooling fan, and Nagai-san, who was in charge of designing the camera User Interface.

Above the video (and below some excerpts from it). Check out also the article on CineD here.

  • When the planning for a new product starts, we list all the new features and requirements for improvements on existing features are advised
  • User interface (UI) designers design the UI to make the UI it easy to use
  • the challenge was to keep size small despite using a much larger battery
  • the cooling fan solution was appreciated by the users
  • designing the grip is always difficult. In prototype stage they let several people with different sized hands hold the camera to get to the best shape possible
  • Aida-san is proud of having designed a small camera that achieves a comfortable balance between size and comfort
  • her dream camera to design would be a film camera
  • when asked if it would be possible, thanks to AI, to talk to the camera and dictate the settings to it, Nagai-san said it would be possible. The X series supports 35 languages, so it might be hard to support them all
  • subject detection incorporates the learning effects of AI
  • more AI features will be added in future
  • it’s important to continue to explore the possibilities of AI for photography
  • Nagai-san is particularly proud of designing the menu for the new Vlog mode
  • Fujifilm wants to design a UI that satisfies everyone from first-time camera users to professional photographers

Fuji’s Fifth Generation Gear

Chris & Jordan (PP) Fujifilm X-S20 Review: The Best Midrange Camera? (Spoiler: Yes!)

Chris and Jordan from PetaPixel have now published their Fujifilm X-S20 review.

A full comparison with the Sony A6700 and the Canon R7 will follow, but they did drop a few little spoilers that seem to indicate that the Fujifilm X-S20 is the best pick out of the three.

I won’t make a summary of the full review, because this review comes a little bit late and pretty much everything they say is kind of expected and well known at this point. But I will highlight mostly those parts that mention the X-S20 in comparison to competitors.

  • incredibly competitive price compared to other cameras that offer IBIS
  • there are lots of improvements on the photography side (better buffer, much longer battery, better autofocus, more film simulations, etc)
  • substantially better video capabilities compared to X-S10
  • competitors are Canon R7 and Sony A6700
  • Compared to Canon R7, Chris prefers the handling of the Fujifilm X-S20. He also likes tha Sigma and Tamron now support X mount, which Canon has not
  • vs Sony A6700, the Fujifilm X-S20 looks infinitely sexier and has better handling. The A6700 has better AF, but the X-S20 has definitely improved over the X-S10
  • X-S20 is more affordable than Sony A6700 and Canon R7

Get Yours

Sony A6700 Announced and it Makes the Fujifilm X-S20 Look Even Better ;)

Welcome Sony A6700

And suddenly I started reading headlines about the Sony A6700 like this:

“Sony didn’t hold back”
“It’s the best APS-C camera you can buy”
“The best hybrid camera for the money”

And since a firm believer of the fact that competition is great for customers, I started looking into the Sony A6700 hoping that it would indeed outperform Fujifilm.

Because if the A6700 would really be better than anything Fujifilm offers, then Fujifilm would be forced to catch up for example by releasing tons of Kaizen firmware updates to close the gap, or by speeding up the release of other cameras they have in the pipeline.

But the more I looked into the details (that many influencers – not all – somehow missed out to mention) the more disillusionment kicked in and I came to the preliminary conclusion that the Sony A6700 just shows us even more how amazing the Fujifilm X-S20 actually is.

Let me quickly explain by sharing a few facts.

  • A6700 has no joystick
    X-S20 has a joystick
  • A6700 LCD screen has about half of the resolution of the X-S20
  • A6700 has about half the fps bursts of the X-S20 (11 fps vs 20 fps)
  • A6700 has not the fully automatic subject detection mode
    X-S20 detects all sort of subjects automatically
  • A6700 has no option for external cooling
    X-S20 is compatible with the cooling fan
  • A6700 has few native APS-C lenses, you must buy the more expensive and bigger Full Frame lenses if you want more options
  • A6700 has no 4K DCI, no Open Gate, no 6K
    X-S20 has all of that
  • A6700 has no RAW video output
    X-S20 has it
  • A6700 is more expensive than the X-S20

Of course, these are just comparisons made on paper.

And on paper, there are areas in which the Sony A6700 wins, for example with its 4K/120p (although with a huge crop that reads out a sensor size smaller than Micro Four Thirds).

So before making any final conclusion, we certainly have to wait for real life comparisons.

Let’s just hope that those comparisons will be as objective as possible, even those that come from huge influencers that are not supported at all by Fujifilm (Fuji doesn’t send pre-production gear nor loaners to quite some of the big YouTubers that Sony instead wisely treats very well).

But what I can say for now is that for me the A6700 does not fully match the Fujifilm X-S20 in quite some areas that for many might be important. For example, a dealbreaker for me are the lack of joystick, no lovely film simulations, no internal RAW converter, lack of dedicated APS-C lens selection and so forth.

As opposed to what quite some YouTuber said, I feel that Sony did hold back with the Sony A6700 in order not to compete too strongly with their Full Frame lineup. A problem that Fujifilm luckily does not have, so they can pack it all into their APS-C cameras.

So I am personally disappointed. I was hoping for a stronger APS-C competitor that would put Fujifilm under huge pressure. Sadly the A6700, although a nice camera, is not that.

That’s my very personal opinion that has no pretension to be the truth. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.