Fujifilm Manager Toshihisa Iida Interview: New Fujinon X and G Mount Lens Roadmap in 2019 and 5 to 6 New Lenses in 2020

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Fujifilm Manager Toshihisa Iida Interview

Fujifilm Manager Toshihisa Iida has released an interview to the Japanese website newswitch, which you can read summed up and translated in its main points below.

But before we go ahead, I want to highlight one thing Toshihisa Iida said:

The roadmap is updated once a year

Fujifilm sort of changed the roadmap yesterday, at the Fujifilm X Summit, by scraping the Fujinon XF 33mm f/1.0 from the roadmap and replacing it with the Fujinon XF 50mm f/1.0.

But if we look at the official Fujifilm website, we see that the latest uploaded roadmaps are:

This means that Fujifilm plans to release an updated roadmap within this year, which fits with what we rumored a few days ago here.

But how many lenses can we expect to be announced in 2020? Toshihisa Iida said:

To date, we have announced an average of 5 or 6 new products each year. […] We are not going to slow that pace”

Also in this case, this fits with what we already told you back in 2017, when our sources told us that Fuji’s schedule is to release 2/3 GF lenses and 2/3 X lenses a year.

Now let’s just hope Fujifilm will listen and give us what you guys voted the most wanted X and G mount lenses here.

Interview – The Main Points

Fujifilm GFX System

  • Fujifilm GFX100 orders in the first month were more than twice than expected
  • GFX100 got attention of high-end amateurs
  • The GFX100 has features such as high-pixel, high-sensitivity, and wide-gamut video shooting that can be used in a wide range of applications
  • Weight and slowness are the challenges of cameras equipped with medium-sized or larger image sensors
  • The GFX100 is also valued for its improvement

How to revitalize the market

  • Expanding the APS-C X System
  • evolve the existing models
  • market demand for high-performance products is increasing
  • High end gear is becoming more expensive and heavier
  • It is important to meet the expectations of the high-end customers
  • demand for video will grow
  • smartphones are evolving with computational photography, but for background blur or shooting in a dark place, interchangeable lens cameras are still superior
  • Toshihisa Iida thinks that struggling digital camera sales it is not only because of the popularity of smartphones, but also because there are no products that are more attractive than smartphones. He would like to revitalize the market by creating a popular type of camera that can attractive for smartphone users

How to Overcome Challenges

  • Proceed with efforts to improve production efficiency and reduce costs
  • it is difficult to increase the efficiency of lens production
  • Automation technology is incorporated into the Miyagi factory. Some interchangeable lenses are also automated, but the human eye is absolutely neccessary for the adjustment process

Future Roadmap

  • The roadmap is updated once a year. To date, we have announced an average of 5 or 6 new products each year. We are not going to slow that pace

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via newswitch

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