Everybody Wins

After a couple of mojito’s on a Carribian island, the guys who had the brilliant idea to make tons of money by giving away meaningless awards, came up with enough categories to assign prizes to all companies who were so generous to buy the brag-rights to their past awards.

And if you think I am kidding, of course I am. I mean, to come up with categories that differentiate between “expert” and “professional” you have to take harder stuff than just mojitos :D.

• Can We Trust Any Award – A true Story that Involves Fujifilm

TIPA

After a brutally hard selection and extensive tests, TIPA has selected the winners of their 2023 awards.

Here are the Fujifilm products that won:

• Best Expert APS-C camera
  Fujifilm X-T5
• Best Professional APS-C camera
  Fujifilm X-H2s

RedDot

Also RedDot asked ChatGPT to make an extensive list of random products they can award to make money has tested tons of gear on their design and usability and came up with a list of winners.

Fujifilm was able to gain the humble amount of 23 RedDot Award. The photography related gear is this one:

• Cooling fan “FAN-001”
• FUJIFILM X-T5
• Fujifilm X-H2
• Fujifilm X-H2s
• FUJINON XF150-600mmF5.6-8 R LM OIS WR
• FUJINON XF30mmF2.8 R LM WR Macro
• FUJINON XF 56mmF1.2 R WR
• FUJINON XF18-120mmF4 LM PZ WR
• FUJINON GF 20-35mmF4 R WR
• Tripod grip “TG-BT1”
• Vertical File Transmitter Grip FT-XH
• Vertical Battery Grip VG-XH
• INSTAX mini Link 2
• INSTAX Square Link

Well done Fujifilm. This means you are a very healthy company if you have money to throw away for these awards.

• Fujifilm X-T5: BHphoto / AmazonUS / Adorama / Moment

We already reported about the Fujifilm X-T5 book of Rico Pfirstinger that will be released in July. Rico is also working on the equivalent Fujifilm X-H2 and X-H2s book. That one will come in August.

• The Fujifilm X-T5: 100 X-Pert Tips to Get the Most Out of Your Camera
• The Fujifilm X-H2/X-H2S: 100 X-Pert Tips to Get the Most Out of Your Camera

I have owned a couple of Rico’s books and I can wholeheartedly recommend them.

However, there are of course also other books out there.

Another author that has covered Fujifilm cameras in many books is Tony Phillips. His X-T5 is already available for example at Amazon USA here (and other Amazon countries here).

• The Complete Guide to Fujifilm’s X-T5

At Amazon you’ll find the B&W version of his book. For the full color version you have to purchase it directly at Tony Phillips website here.

[UPDATE: in the description to this book they write the X-T5 is a 26MP camera. So definitely don’t buy this book] Of course there are also other books out there, such as the one of Steven Walryn called “Fujifilm X-T5: A Complete Guide From Beginner To Advanced“, a ultra cheap book compared to the other options. But I am absolutely not familiar with Steven’s work and I personally recommend to stick with Rico or Tony.

I will personally go for the Rico Pfirstinger X-T5 book. I found them brilliantly written and to the point.

• Fujifilm X-T5: BHphoto / AmazonUS / Adorama / Moment

Full disclosure: Tim did not pay FujiRumors to publish this. He started to work on this concept using a Fujifilm X-T1 camera (you see the first prototype here). Feel free to give Tim your feedback in the comments.

There is no way around it: if you want to bring your photography to the next level, then at some point you have to leave the world of “full auto”.

But leaving the “auto” world to go partially or full manual can be intimidating and confusing, and that was the case also for Tim Helweg-Larsen.

When Tim’s son was born, he wanted to really understand his camera and get the most out of it.

In this process, Tim wanted to create a more intuitive way to control the camera.

What he ultimately came up with is Expodo, a new user interface with an exposure donut that is visible on the LCD and EVF of the camera itself.

Expodo takes the essential elements of any exposure (light, time, aperture, sensitivity) and visualizes them in form of an exposure donut, where the length of each coloured arc is proportionate to each of these values.

The exposure donut shows that these four elements all contribute the brightness of your image.

Comeback of an Old Friend

For us long time Fujifilm lovers, Fujifilm manager Toshihisa Iida (the manager who said Fujifilm will NEVER go Full Frame) was arguably the most representative face of the Fujiflm X/GFX series of the last 10 years.

Sadly for us (but congratulations to him), Toshi left the electronic imaging division once he got promoted to President and Managing Director at Fujifilm Europe back in 2020.

I must admit I was a bit worried when the Toshi left, as I felt that the Fujifilm X/GFX series was in safe hands as long as he was in charge.

He did run the business with huge dedication, passion and vision, as can also be seen in this in this brilliant documentary (MUST WATCH !!!), that gives an intimate look into his life and work as imaging director.

I honestly thought it would be hard to replace a manager like Toshihisa Iida.

But if I look at all the crazy stuff Fujifilm has released in 2022, all my worries dissipate.

Under the new management, Fujifilm has not only continued to work hard and believe in its imaging division, but they also gave us the most release intense year I can remember, with three higher end cameras, four XF lenses and one GF lens. Plus some accessories, such as the legendary cooling fan and the TG-BT1 Tripod Grip.

• Fujifilm 2023: Can it Beat the Amazing 2022? A Look at What’s Coming (for sure) and What we Hope for

The Future Seen Through Fujifilm Managers Statements

New Gear vs. New Travel

Something amazing is going to happen in April.

I hear you say: “easy, it’s the huge Fujifilm X Summit with exciting new gear announcements!”

Well yeah, I know Fujifilm officially announced the X Summit for April… but I don’t mean that. It’s something even better than rumors or new gear (at least for me). ;)

In April I will fly together with my wife and 2 year old son to Paris for a couple of days! It’s my wife’s birthday present to me.

No X Summit on earth can stop me to finally visiting Paris for the first time in my life.

And since I guess many of you have already been to Paris (or live in Paris), I thought I could make shameless use of this blog to ask for some advice.

Your Tips

I am aware that we are all in the grips of our busy daily lives. So huge thanks to anybody who can carve out some time from your day to give me some advice.

Gear Questions:

• What was your most used Fujifilm gear on your Paris travel?
• Should I travel with my X gear or GFX gear?
  – Full list of X gear I currently own
  – Full list of GFX gear I currently own
• based on the gear I own, which system do you recommend and which lenses?
• List of some accessories I own for my Fujifilm gear

GFX gear size and weight is not an issue for me. I do multi-day hikes in the Dolomites with it, and I was never bothered by the weight. Trust me, the real problem when hiking is to carry around a toddler in the backpack.

It all comes down to lenses. As I own more X series lenses, I have lots of flexibility there compared to my not yet so extensive GFX collection. But maybe the GFX gear I currently own is enough.

Decisions…. ;)

Tripod:

• I travel only with carry on bag. I plan to travel with my Peak Design Travel Tripod. I am not sure if tripods are allowed as carry on on a plane. Anyone ever tried it and experienced problems?

Photo Tips:

• feel free to share images or links to your images of Paris in the comments down below… as a little inspiration for me :)
• if possible, share details about the location where you took the images and the gear you used

Food:

• What were the best dishes you ate in Paris?
• Any restaurant you can recommend, possibly in Montmartre area, as that’s where we are going to stay

Kids:

• What’s a nice park in Paris to hang out with a 2 year old kid?

X Meeting:

• the schedule is tight, the time little, but I might get an evening or two off, while my wife looks after our son while he sleeps. So I can go out alone in Montmartre to make some late evening/night street photography. I will share on social media when I am free and if anyone wants to spontaneously join me to take some pictures (and drink a glass of red wine), that would be cool
• I will make a post on Facebook here, Twitter here and Instagram here when I will be hitting the streets of Paris alone. Watch out for that.