My Biggest Worry after the Fujifilm GFX Eterna Announcement
Fujifilm recently announced the development of the Fujifilm GFX Eterna.
And look, I have nothing against it.
On the contrary: I know many filmmakers love the GFX 100 megapixel and I am aware that many others asked for a Fujifilm Cinema camera since a long time. So it’s great that Fujifilm now delivers one.
But…
… at the same time I am also a little bit worried.
You see, Fujifilm does not have the largest R&D in the camera industry.
And as we calculated recently, Fujifilm does release about 4 lenses each year (combining X and GF lenses).
Now, it’s nice to hear Fujifilm saying that they are committed to their new cinema camera line and that they will release more lenses besides the Fujinon GF32-90mmT3.5 for it That’s important to know for people, who will invest in this system.
But this is also where my concern arises: with the current pace constrained by R&D limitations, Fujifilm is producing a maximum of four lenses annually. Now, with the launch of a new cinema camera system that requires a dedicated range of lenses as quickly as possible, the situation becomes even more challenging.
Unless Fujifilm expands its R&D efforts for the digital camera segment, we might see fewer than four lenses per year for the photo-focused X and GFX systems.
And quite honestly, with 4 still lenses a year we are already at a minimum. Getting even less than that would be a bummer for me.
I hope Fujifilm has considered this and won’t simply divert resources from their photo-centric systems to the cinema camera lineup. Instead, they should expand their overall R&D efforts to maintain at least the current pace of producing four photo-centric lenses per year.
I will try to investigate this with my sources and if I have any updates I will let you know here on FujiRumors.
