The Japanese website phileweb published an interview with Fujifilm managers.
They talk about the momentum the Fujifilm GFX series is experiencing, about the harsh COVID-19 situation, the introduction of the Fujifilm X-S10, the possibilities 5G might offer and more.
Overall, they seem very confident and positive about the future of their imaging division.
Worth to note is the part of the interview, where Fujifilm explains they find it a pity that people just store their images on their phones, and that they try to find ways to motivate people to print.
Once again, statements like these denote the huge photographic culture Fujifilm carries in their DNA, which among the others translates also into a wide variety of ergonomically different cameras that are crafted to be fun to use for different types of photographers.
I feel that for Fujifilm, photography is more than just getting hyperbolic specs on paper. It’s also, and mainly, about cultivating and incentivize our passion and fun for photography.
Down below you’ll find everything summed up, including some parts that I leave exactly like google translated it.
When the ultra fast Fujinon GF80mmF1.7 was launched, some noticed a minimal sign of fringing when pixel peeping into images to ultra detailed pixel level. Something to worry about?
Apparently not.
According to ePHOTOzine, who just published its full technical review, the GF80mmF1.7 is able to contain chromatic aberration extremely well. They write:
CA (Chromatic Aberration) is also very impressive, centrally being close to zero as we stop down slightly. The edges are also kept well under control.
I did play around with the GF80mmF1.7 of my close friend too (he sold all his Nikon Z gear for the GFX system) and quite frankly it’s a stunning performer in terms of optical quality.
Down below you can see the Pros and Cons of the ePHOTOzine review.
I did handle the Fujinon GF100-200mmF5.6 at the store, and was surprised that it is actually so light, hence definitely portable for my hikes in the Dolomites.
However, I did put the purchase of that lens on hold, as in 2021 I already bought the XF80mm, XF27MKII, GFX100S and GF32-64, and it’s getting more and more tricky to convince my wife that we really need yet another lens.
And things have not become easier after Fujifilm launched a massive rebate on guess which lens? Exactly, the GF100-200!
For the sake of my bank account health I am still resisting, but Fujifilm keeps up fighting for my money, this time by dedicating their latest Focus on Glass episode to the Fujinon GF100-200mmF5.6.
Well, I’ve watched the episode, and here is what Fujifilm engineers and managers say about this lens:
Fujifilm wanted to make a tele-zoom suitable for handheld shooting
they needed to develop a smaller and lighter lens
at planing stage, they set their target at 1 kg
the lens has 5 stops OIS
this makes handheld shooting easier
Fujifilm hopes you will use this lens to take images that you have never experienced before with a 35mm format lens
with GF teleconverter it covers up to 221mm (35mm equivalent)
during the development tests, Fujifilm has conducted repeated toughness tests
it is a rugged lens while maintaining lightness and compactness
although it’s a zoom, resolution is superb and able to resolve the high megapixel of GFX cameras over the entire zoom range and even at f/5.6
in order to make the lens brighter and still have higher resolving power, a greater number of elements in the lens are required
but the more elements you use, the more the lens gets bigger
that’s why Fujifilm designed ever lens element to be as thing as possible
every effort to save size and weight was made
the engineer is proud of the final result
you can easily shoot handheld in places where you can bring a tripod
Fujifilm designed a small focus lock mechanism to fit in the lens
toughness test were contacted to overcome weaknesses on by one
But was is triggering my GAS more then what the managers and engineers said, is the photographers and their work shared inside that video. Definitely check it out in the video down below.
ZP productions tested the GFX100S and GF80mmF1.7. He loves both, and owns both.
But there is one note he makes.
He says that when Fujifilm launched the GFX system a few years ago, it had sheer perfect lenses. But he noticed that with the latest lens releases, Fujifilm traded in a bit of that perfection to release less perfect, smaller and more affordable lenses.
In this context, he compares the GF110mmF2 to the GF80mmF1.7, the first one being expressions of Fuji’s perfection, the second one, while still being excellent and he actually totally loves to shoot with it, just not being just as perfect as the GF110mmF2.
I’ll make a summary down below of his 17 minutes long video below and would love to hear what you guys think about it.
Time to update our previous X and GFX gear timeline, which was not only limited to 2021, but lacked of some gear we rumored in the following months.
Also, I’ll include a list of products that will not come as the fake rumors keep spreading and I notice a tendency in forums to believe just everything that is written or talked about somewhere, may it be a monochrome camera, and X-T40 with IBIS coming very soon, the X-H2 coming 2021 and totally random stuff like that.
But luckily there is a 100% efficient anti-fake-rumors-vaccine called FujiRumors, so check out the list down below to know what Fujifilm really plans and when it will come.
FR-reader Moritz made me notice on Twitter here, that a couple of weeks ago MacOS Big Sur added uncompressed RAW support for additional Fujifilm cameras.
This means you can now edit RAW files from Fujifilm X-T4, X-S10 and more in all major image editing apps on iPad as well as apps on macOS that use the RAW engine provided by iOS (Apple Core Image RAW), such as Affinity Photo or one of my favorites, RAW Power.
But also Jim Kasson is covering the Fujinon GF80mmF1.7 brilliantly in his technical tests, which we will share down below.
I did play around with the Fujinon GF80mmF1.7 too (and so did my son) when I met my friend, who sold all his Nikon Z mirrorless gear for the GFX system. So far he does not regret it at all and he is totally thrilled about his switch.
TIPA has worked very hard and made a brutal selection, in which only the very best of the crème de la crème of the top of the top could win their extremely prestigious TIPA award.
Or in other words: camera companies paid again a lot of money to win meaningless awards.
And in order to make it even easier for companies to win (and hence make more money by selling award licenses), they created tons of categories, such as “expert”, “advanced” and “professional”.
According to our sources, Fujifilm has moved the announcement of the upcoming affordable GF zoom lens from the first half 2021 to the second half 2021. Don’t worry, it won’t be delayed further to 2022. It will 100% arrive within 2021.
I don’t know if this delay is related to the shortage of parts announced by Fujifilm. Anyway, I thought it was worth to keep you up to date with the latest developments.
Anyway, it makes little difference to the substance of that rumor, which is that it will be Fuji’s most affordable G mount lens and come soon.
