One and a half years after, the lens was announced in China. It will be available in Fujifilm X, MFT and Sony E mounts. The Chinese price is ￥3.980 ($565 / €515 excl. VAT).
Thanks Mistral for passing me the news, that has been published a few days ago at info.xitek here. Image via landscapegear.
In a follow up post, we had a vivid discussion on which gear I should use, which to buy and also other things, like how I should deal with the official photographer and much more.
Due to COVID-19, my friend decided to postpone his wedding to June 2021. That’s a pity, but also a fully understandable decision he made. He surely does not want his guests to go around with masks and be afraid of shaking hands on his wedding.
And my X-T4?
Sure, I won’t photograph my friends’ wedding in June, but I also won’t stop photographing!
The first lens to be sold is the Viltrox 33mm f/1.4 for 1,799 Chinese Yuan ($250) and it will ship April 21. The other lenses will be released later on.
Viltrox already sells the successful and much loved Viltrox 85mm f/1.8 autofocus lens for Fuji X, but as opposed to the Viltrox 85mm f/1.8, these new Viltrox lenses have an aperture ring.
News is news, so I share it. But I wrote a very informative piece about these awards in the past. So, if you want to read how the business around (some of these) awards goes, check out this article.
Fujifilm wins the internationally prestigious Red Dot Design Award with 23 products
– In recognition of good design quality and functionality in products of various business fields – High precision lens film for inkjet printing is awarded the “Innovative Product Award,” given to products with outstanding innovation potential
Lensbaby Velvet 28 is a 28mm, f/2.5 all-metal, hand-crafted art lens that captures tack-sharp detail beneath a layer of radiant glow. Velvet 28 also features exceptional 1:2 macro capabilities with a close focus distance of 2” from the front of the lens. Built with landscape, adventure, travel, and street photographers & videographers in mind, the Velvet 28 offers Lensbaby’s popular variable glow effects at a wide 28mm focal length. Lensbaby’s Velvet effect lenses add an ethereal mood to scenes. This unique, in-camera creative effect elevates imagery with depth, dimension and soulful expression. The Velvet 28’s close-focus capabilities, combined with effects varying from impressionistic at bright apertures to just a touch of velvety smoothness at darker apertures, provides a set of visual tools that will help creative shooters expand their vision of the world. One of Velvet 28’s key features is its 1:2 macro capability. It is an ideal in-camera effects lens for photographers & videographers who like to shoot wide, while also offering the versatility to capture closer details. The lens allows image makers to move seamlessly from shooting street scenes or capturing landscape, adventure & travel images to capturing details such as a subject’s clothing or wildflower blooms and butterflies in an alpine meadow.
You can also find a blog post about it on Cinema5D here, where they say:
It’s a remarkable achievement not only for the price. The lens is very sharp, even when shooting wide open at f/1.8, which was totally unexpected for me. It’s well built from metal, and I can see this show up on a lot of low-budget anamorphic productions everywhere. Right now it’s a shame that there isn’t another focal length available, I would love to see a full set of these out now, but we are hoping that they will come.
Gimbal / Drone support (*)
This firmware adds the following function to complement the current support for still image shooting via USB communications:
・Starting and ending video recording
・Adjusting exposure settings (exposure mode, shutter speed, aperture, ISO sensitivity, exposure compensation) for video recording
・Making manual focus adjustments for video recording
*This is the function via USB communication. About supported gimbals and drones, refer to support information not only on our website but also manufacturers’ websites.
Enhanced autofocus.
*Improving the tracking performance of the eye AF frame, making it easier to attain accurate autofocus on the eyes.
*Improving face-detection performance when there are faces of different sizes within the same frame, making it easier to attain accurate autofocus.
*Improving autofocus capability on a foreground subject even when there is a mixture of foreground and background subjects within a AF frame, causing the foreground subject to go out of focus, e.g. when shooting flowers against a busy background.
Capability to save up to 9,999 pictures in each folder.
Until now, the number of pictures that can be saved in a folder on an SD card was limited to 999. This update will raise the limit by ten times to 9,999 pictures.
Fixed compatibility issues with X-T200 camera. Be noted, since X-T200 is equipped with a non X-Trans CMOS, its AF performance is poorer when using EF mount lenses. Please use MF mode if necessary.
Please download the firmware file and release notes from Fringer official website.
For old version, i.e. Gen.1 products EF-FX Pro and EF-FX, the new firmware (v3.30) only fixes XT200 compatiblity issue. Because the hardware resources have been used up, there won’t be any update including new lens data.e
Here is a roundup about photographers, who are switching from full frame Sony, Canon and Nikon to Fujifilm X.
Mostly they say that the difference in image quality compared to full frame is negligible. But the difference in ergonomics, functionality, menu system, look, size, beautiful lenses, color science etc is much more significant. These aspects make the real difference and worth it to go with Fujifilm APS-C.
At the end, the most important thing is getting into a system that makes you want to shoot more, and Fujifilm is, for some, the best choice for that. As one of the them said:
There is something about Fujifilm, where they want you to get the most for what you pay for.
And to be clear: if you shoot any other brand, and are happy with it, then you did everything right, and you should not care about what the people below say. You have your needs, and you are right to ignore Fujifilm.
But here we are on a Fujifilm blog, so we talk about people, who shoot Fujifilm.
EOS M50: nice quality camera. Best grip. Wonderful touch screen interface
X-T200: beautiful. Very customizable. Feels cheap holding in the hands. No AF-ON button. Handles well, grip improved
A6100: same old design
Display
X-T200: similar EVF like Canon. 16:9 aspect ration LCD
EOS M50: best EVF. Fully articulating screen
A6100: too low res viewfinder. Fully articulating screen would have been better
Image Quality
X-T200: easy win. modern sensor. Very good ISO performance. Great Fujifilm JPEG. Fastest sensor scan rate
A6100: better high ISO than Canon. Rolling shutter issue
EOS M50: oldest sensor. 24MP. Slow scan rate
Autofocus
A6100: easy win. Sony’s eye and face AF is fantastic. Great tracking. Intuitive to use. Highest hit rate. You get the same advanced AF as their Pro bodies
EOS M50: dual pixel AF. Great touch screen interface. Sticky tracking
X-T200: much better than X-T100. But other cameras have a bit better interface. X-T200 has very short buffer
Video
X-T200: 16:9 flippy screen. You can monitor audio via USB-C adapter. Beautiful 4K and nice slow motion
A6100: best AF, usable 4K. Pretty severe rolling shutter. Screen tilt upwards. If you use microphone on hot shoe, it blocks the screen
EOS M50: 4K has huge crop and no longer dual pixel AF
Lenses
X-T200: Fujifilm continues to dominate in having the best and most lenses available. No big third party support, though. But probably there is not really the need for it. It’s hard for third party manufacturers to come and compete with a company, who makes very affordable zooms, affordable primes like the XC 35mm f/2, kit lenses are often better then some of the Pro lenses other manufacturers make. Lots of Pro lenses, too
EOS M50: opposite of Sony. No higher end lenses. You need an adapter and adapt EF lenses. Not much third party support. Canon has affordable good quality lenses for users starting out. The kit lens is way better than the Sony kit lens
Sony: lots of third party support. Excellent and expensive E mount lenses. But this is an entry level camera, and needs affordable lenses. Sony lacks of such lenses
Conclusion
X-T200: well deserved win. Great AF, excellent video, sexy body, very customizable, lenses, etc. It fixes all the issues they had with the X-T100
EOS M50: affordable, capable, versatile
A6100: lack of lenses. Not sexy cameras. Autofocus is great
