Today we talk Velvia, one of the most used and appreciated film simulations out there.
But keep in mind: the Velvia we have today, is not the Velvia we had when Fujifilm started its X series journey.
Especially the red tones did tend to get super-saturated, which why when I originally used Velvia on the first generation Fujifilm X series cameras, whenever I had red colors in the frame, I actually decreased the color saturation in-camera.
But that one got fixed with the arrival of the Fujifilm X-Pro2.
Fujifilm did try to get Velvia to work also on X-Pro1 and X-T1, but the processor could not handle the too complex algorithm.
If you want to read the full “Velvia-development” story, check out this article here.
And not only Velvia: pretty much all film simulations get tweaked overtime, when the new processors allow for even more sophisticated color tuning.
The Power of Velvia
And now let’s look at the awesome results one can achieve with Velvia, but not only for landscape photography.
And we’ll do that by sharing the latest video Fuji Guy Francis did, where he brings you into the wonderful Canadian countryside and uses Velvia only to take his images, and also, we will share a stunning series of images that fellow Fujifilm X Simulation group member Antonio has shared at our massive (78,000 members) group here.
1) Fuji Guy Francis
Fuji Guy Francis dedicated this months Film Simulation to Velvia, and it’s a very nice one as he will bring you out in the stunning Canadian countryside to capture its beauty in Velvia.
And I think he is making the best use of Velvia: when a grey day is robbing nature of its wonderful colors and Velvia restores some of that beauty.
2) Antonio
Once a year, the Mexican town of Tultepec becomes the hell on earth and home to the lords of fire and pyrotechnics.
Antonio was present with his Fujifilm X-T3 and XF18-55mm and captured the event.
However, I have excluded all the X-S20 rumors from the list, as at this point it’s not a problem if you missed them, since the real thing is now out and you can get all the details and specs at the dedicated pages.
Interestingly, despite all the rumors and new gear, the most read article was about the new firmware updates, which shows that sometimes we want to get improved what we already have rather than new gear.
May was also my most active month on YouTube so far.
In this case we will include also the rumor related videos, simply because many of them are filmed while I was out on several locations around my home and you might enjoy to watch a bit of the Dolomites, the Road of Wine and so forth.
The goal of the survey was to find out how popular the newest 5th generation X series cameras have become among the FujiRumors community.
The results surprised. And not because the Fujifilm X-T5 sold well. That was to expect. But because despite being launched just a few months ago, the Fujifilm X-T5 is already the most owned Fujifilm X series camera among this community.
And more impressively: this is the first time that any Fujifilm X-T camera has some serious internal competition in the higher end Fujifilm segment thanks to the Fujifilm X-H2. But despite this stiff internal competition, the X-T5 made it to the top as your most owned camera in just a few months.
Speaking of X-H2, it is 7th in the ranking, showing the huge popularity of the 40MP X-Trans V sensor.
In the battle X-H2S and X-H2, the X-H2S wins and grabs the 6th spot, but with only a few votes of advantage.
The first non-XT camera in the ranking is the Fujifilm X100V on the 5th spot, slightly ahead of the X-H2S. The next rangefinder camera is the X-Pro2 on the 9th spot
NOTE: The popularity of camera (lines) on FujiRumors is not indicative for the overall popularity on the worldwide market.
Top 10 Cameras
X-T5
X-T3
X-T4
X-T2
X100V
X-H2S
X-H2
X-T1
X-Pro2
X-H1
Popularity of Camera Lines
X-T* line = 38%
X-H line = 14%
X100 line = 11%
X-E line = 11%
X-Pro line = 9%
X-T** line = 7%
X-S line = 4% (X-S20 missing from survey)
all other X series cameras Fujifilm ever made = 6%
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.
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.
