Fujifilm X Talk with Sigma: X Mount Sigma Lenses Demand Surprisingly High

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In the latest Fujifilm X Talk episode, Fujifilm manager Ueno talks to Mr. Ozone, general manager of Sigma product planning department.

The automatic YouTube translation is very bad, but luckily the Japanese guys at dclife made a summary, which Google Translate makes a good job to translate.

  • Fujifilm first contacted Sigma 9 years ago
  • Sigma wants to increase mount supports and is grateful Fujifilm opened the X mount protocols
  • Fuji users are used to aperture rings. But changing the current design to implement an aperture ring would have raised the costs of the lenses
  • Sigma released lenses that are already covered by Fujinon XF lenses, so they thought demand would be low. But turns out the demand was surprisingly higher than expected
  • “In addition, the lens configuration of “XF35mmF1.4 R” and MTF curve lens design discussions are exciting, and it is the first part that makes you two really like lenses or have passion.”

Many were skeptical, when Sigma released lenses that are similar to existing Fujinon lenses, and predicted the same debacle of the Zeiss Touit lenses. However, here on FujiRumors we always told you that that won’t be the case for the reasons we explained here.

Next up, the Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8, which will come in December and I expect to become Sigma’s best selling X mount lens by a large margin.

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Fujifilm Financial Results FY2021: Up 16.9% thanks to Instax and High End Gear

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Fujifilm shared its financial results for the fiscal year 2021 (April 1, 2021 – March 31, 2022).

As to expect Instax is King with great sales for the Instax Mini EVO and the Instax Link Wide smartphone printer.

When it comes to their X and GFX series, a special mention goes to the good sales for the Fujifilm GFX100S.

In addition to a steady sales recovery of color photographic paper and broadcast and cinema lenses from the impact of COVID-19, strong sales of newly launched instant photo systems and digital cameras led revenue to increase by 16.9% year-over-year to ¥333.4 billion, and operating income to increase 2.4 times year-over-year to ¥37.0 billion.

In the consumer imaging field, steady sales of instant photo systems, color photographic paper and dry minilabs and materials drove revenue higher. New products launched in 2021 include the instax mini 40, a new entry-model compatible with mini-format film, in April, the instax Link WIDE, a smartphone printer for wide-format, in October and a flagship model instax mini Evo in December. All new products were well received in the market and boosted sales.

In the professional imaging field, we launched the large-format mirrorless digital camera FUJIFILM GFX100S, which realized a high resolution of 102 million pixels, the FUJIFILM GFX50S II equipped with 50 million-pixel image sensor, released in September 2021 as a brother model, and the FUJIFILM X-T30 II mirrorless camera, which is the latest model from the X Series released in November 2021. All products gained high reputations and sales remained strong. Revenue was significantly higher year- over-year as sales of broadcast and cinema lenses, which had been hit by a decline in demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic, turned upward, and sales of lenses in the monitoring /measurement field, including long-range surveillance cameras and machine vision lenses, fared fell.

via Fujifilm

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BREAKING: Fujifilm X-H2S to Offer Animal/Object Autofocus Tracking

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Do you remember the legendary Fujifilm FinePix F80EXR?

No?

Well, the Fujifilm FinePix F80EXR is legendary because it actually was the first digital camera to offer some sort of animal autofocus (limited to cats and dogs and called “pet detection”).

As you can read in the product description here:

For those who enjoy the company of four-legged friends, the F80EXR has Pet Detection, allowing users the ability to detect up to 10 faces of dogs or cats and automatically optimize the focus. The F80EXR is programmed to recognize 57% of the Fédération Cyno Logique Internationale (FCI) Registered Dogs, 80% of the Top 20 Dogs in the American Kennel Club (AKC) Ranking and 60% of The Cat Fancier’s Association (CFA) breeds. Pet Detection works by matching various dog or cat data of facial parts with patterns to detect the dog or cat being photographed.

Yep, Fujifilm was once leading the computational photography innovation with animal autofocus.

However, things have drastically changed.

Not only has a feature, that Fujifilm already developed, completely disappeared from their newest digital cameras, but many other brands are offering animal and object autofocus tracking, with Fujifilm definitely lagging behind in this area.

But that’s going to change.

According to trusted information we have received, the Fujifilm X-H2S will offer animal and object autofocus tracking.

Well, that’s nice, but…

but I would not be overly enthusiastic for now. Sure, the Fujifilm X-H2S with its stacked sensor can truly unlock some computational photography magic, but before rejoicing too much I want to see how these features actually work.

I mean, Fujifilm also offers “real time tracking” a la Sony, but in my experience, especially during the wedding I shot last year, it does not work nearly as good as the Sony version (so far that I rather quickly switched back to zone focus tracking for better results). I guess that’s probably also why Fujifilm does not advertise this feature on their cameras (even though it’s there).

And yet, it’s coming, and I am looking forward to see it at work on May 31.

Remember:

Fujifilm set itself a 3 year plan for huge implementation of computational photography on their cameras. And the release of the Fujifilm X-H2S marks exactly that 3-year deadline that Fujifilm has given itself.

Fujifilm X-H2 rumored specs list:

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Pulitzer Prize Winner Ringo Chiu uses Fujifilm X Gear

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Ringo Chiu won the Pulitzer prize 2021 as part of the awarded photography staff of Associated Press for a collection of photographs from multiple U.S. cities that cohesively captured the country’s response to the death of George Floyd.

Now NBC News just published a video about Ringo Chiu. In the interview, Ringo Chiu’s first sentence is “I just love photography” and then he goes on telling his story that brought him from China to USA and finally to win the Pulitzer prize.

So what has this to do with Fujifilm?

Well, photography lover Ringo, who grabbed one of the most prestigious awards for photojournalism on the planet, also shoots Fujifilm, as we can see multiple times during the video.

So let’s celebrate yet another Fujifilm X shooters who achieved great results thanks to his passion and talent for photography.

And yet, I am pretty sure that somewhere in a basement or fancy loft, a youtuber is already preparing a video with catchy headline declaring that the Fujifilm X system is no good for any professional use ;).

You can see the video above and check out Ringo Chiu’s work at his instagram here and website here. For the Pulitzer price photo series about the Black Live Matters coverage see this link.

Photography Awards

Hollywood Loves Fujifilm

& More

  • Fujifilm image makes the cover of the TIME magazine (story here)
  • Fujifilm images makes the front page of the Wall Street Journal (story here)
  • X gear is good enough for God’s work (story here)
  • X gear captured America’s most hated man (story here)
  • X gear distracted a French presidential candidate during his interview (story here)
image courtesy: Ringo Chiu - Taken on Fujifilm X-T2 with 10-24mm
image courtesy: Ringo Chiu – Taken on Fujifilm X-T2 with 10-24mm
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RUMOR UPDATE: Fujifilm X-H2S Compatible with CFExpress and SD-Cards

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Just very recently I’ve shared the rumor about the Fujifilm X-H2S being compatible with the super fast CFexpress cards.

Well, some readers contacted me asking me if the Fujifilm X-H2S would also still be compatible with SD-Cards and I am happy to report that the X-H2S will take also SD-Cards.

If you plan to shoot lots of massive bursts, then CFExpress is a must. But for example for my personal needs, a nice snappy (and way more affordable) UHS-II SD-Card is more than enough in terms of speed.

  • BH Explora – The Fastest Memory Cards Money Can Buy

Fujifilm X-H2 rumored specs list:

The Fastest Growing Fujifilm Group

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