In an interview to Petapixel, Sigma’s CEO, Kazuto Yamaki, has expressed personal interest in supporting medium format cameras with the company’s lenses.
While Sigma has focused on building its lens lineup for full-frame mirrorless cameras, Yamaki acknowledges the growing popularity of medium format cameras and the potential for third-party lens manufacturers to enter this market.
Although there are currently no official plans to support medium format, Yamaki stated that it is his personal hope, and he emphasized the need to carefully assess the market and demand.
Here are the relevant quotes from the article:
I [am] personally very much interested in supporting medium format. Again, it’s a small market, but I have some interest.
[…]
So right now we don’t have such plan, but if Sigma wants to be a master of optics, I think we need to support medium format. But that’s just personal hope. But I need to carefully look at the market and demand
Fortunately, the CEO’s personal opinion holds significant influence, perhaps more than any other within the company. These statements indeed inspire optimism.
It’s Christmas time. Time for wishlists and dreams.
And here on FujiRumors this means wishing and dreaming of gear that, if not this year, Santa Claus will hopefully make find us under the Christmas tree for 2024.
So here is a selection of wishes that I have received from FujiRumors community and that I now I am happy to share with all of you. Feel free to let us know if there is something among it that you’d really love to get.
When I shared the list of the top 10 articles for 2022, I noticed that some of the articles gathered huge traffic, but are of limited discussion interest.
Take for example the firmware articles. Sure, they always generate traffic, because many people who own the cameras in “firmware need”, go to FujiRumors to check out the details of the firmware and access the download links through our website. But they are not hot topics per se, meaning topics that generate lots of comments and heated debates.
So I thought we should honour also those articles of 2022, that were the most discussed here on FujiRumors. The ones where you guys decided to invest more time than in other articles.
And despite my warnings telling you not to expect such lenses soon (if ever), there are still a good amount of people who believe these patents are a strong indication for that gear to come soon.
So I will never be tired to make disclaimers: in 99,999% of the cases those patents never see the light of the day in a real product.
In fact, in over a decade of covering patents here on FujiRumors, I have seen 1 patent out of hundreds become real… and that patent was actually found only after Fujifilm released that gear.
Does this mean that covering patents is useless?
Yes… if you see it from the point of view of gear to come in future. You better look at our rumors for that purpose.
Any yet, these patents are a nice way to let us discuss on what Fujifilm should do in future and if such lenses would be appreciated among the Fujifilm community.
So down below are one by one all the latest patents.
Focus Studio Co., Ltd. released the SHOTEN UMS (Universal Mount System) adapters.
The UMS mount adapter has a two-part structure and is a new idea that you can change only the mount part of it so you can mount the adapter on different camera systems.
Down below a video on how it works.
For us GFX shooters these are the adapters of relevance:
M645-FG-U (Mamiya 645 Mount Lens to Fujifilm G-mount)
P645-FG-U (Pentax 645 mount lens to Fujifilm G-mount conversion)
P67-FG-U (Pentax 67 mount lens to Fujifilm G-mount conversion)
HV-FG-U (Hasselblad V-mount lens to Fujifilm G-mount conversion)
You can read about it more at the Shoten website here.
Japanese Fujifilm Mr. Takashi Ueno released an interview to Map Camera on youtube.
It’s all in Japanese, but the guys over at dclife provided a summary of it, which I will share down below.
Fujifilm X-T1 was the first camera to put Fujifilm’s future stake, and luckily it sold very strong
without Fujifilm X-T1 the manager would not make this interview today [meaning Fujifilm would not have continued the X series if the X-T1 would have failed]
Fujifilm deliberately chose not to go full frame
it’s not that by doubling the mounts Fujifilm would have also doubled their R&D resources. The resources remain the same
for those who wanted larger sensors, it was not good for Fujifilm to tell those customers to look for other brands. Customers who liked the Fujifilm colors and concept. So Fujifilm decided to add the GFX system for them
there was a long internal discussion if they should go full frame or medium format [admin note: FujiRumors has the true internal story on the moment that convinced Fujifilm to go Medium Format]
The X series will continue to evolve
“All camera products are the same, but the functions of cameras today are completely different from what they were 10 years ago, and I think the expectations people have for cameras are changing rapidly. On the other hand, I don’t think it’s a good thing to stay the same without changing, and I want to keep the basics in mind, but I want to evolve by properly grasping the needs of users.“.
The X-T series is the one camera that more than any other camera combined determinates Fujifilm success and future. This is why the Fujifilm X-T5 will be crucial.
2022 has been an X series year so far, and therefore we haven’t covered the GFX system as much as for example last year, when the stellar Fujifilm GFX100S and the affordable Fujifilm GFX50SII hit the market.
And let me say this: Fujifilm has no hurry at all to release new GFX cameras, as the Fujifilm GFX100S is a crazy seller, which is still more often out of stock rather than in stock.
So time for FujiRumors to remind us all that there is also the GFX system out there thanks to a dedicated roundup.