Looks like the ILC space is getting heated with some unconventional players! Who would have guessed that Sony and Fuji would be out innovating Nikon and Canon in the digital camera space in 2011 and 2012. I'm lukewarm about Nikon's somewhat ugly and underwhelming offering although I hate it less now after reading Huff's impressions.
I do love the hybrid viewfinder in the X100, seeing the framelines is actually very useful for street photog to see what kind of action will happen.
Perhaps the Fuji X will be for street shooters and the Nex-7 for product and landscape photographers.
I'm guessing the Fuji X will have the same or improved sensor used in the excellent X100. I sure do hope that EV dial is much firmer. It was my biggest pet peeve and one of the reasons I sold my X100, the EV dial would move on it own in my bag and messed up my shots 50% of the time.
FlyPenFly wrote:
I'm lukewarm about Nikon's somewhat ugly and underwhelming offering although I hate it less now after reading Huff's impressions.
Why would you hate any camera
Finding a camera ugly ? Sure, I can see that, as does being underwhelmed with a feature set that clearly doesn't appeal, nor was meant to be marketed towards you, but actually hating it ?
Is your life somehow made worse because of the existence of the Nikon 1 ?? Are you going to curl you lip and clench your fist in rage if you ever happen to see someone out shooting one ? Are you being forced to buy or shoot with one ?
I know people in this forum can often be a bit different and unique in their viewpoints but wow, now we actually are hating inanimate objects such as certain makes of camera ?
I think the camera looks good in a retro kind of way. I'm very curios to sensor size. The lenses indicate 1.3 or 1.5. But 18, 35 and 60 works for fullframe too I guess. (1.3 would be 24, 45-ish and 80, 1.5: 27, 52 and 90).
It looks a little too similar to X100. The lenses are in my preferred range, and I trust Fujinon lenses. But, the main gripe might be the viewfinder - what if it is the same type as in the X100? Then it is clearly not for me. Too many drawbacks.
It will be almost like having a digital Contax G2 - which would be awesome - except for the viewfinder. The G2 viewfinder was the weakest part of the camera. I don't think I would be happy with a X100 based hybrid finder - not after getting the Sony OLED finder which is the first electronic viewfinder I have found adequate.
A "stepped" hybrid viewfinder would mean no adapted lenses, Fuji only. I could live with the three lenses for sure - but another excellent camera with a ghastly viewfinder? Nooooo...
Awesome, awesome, awesome. Please Fuji give it a lightning fast AF and 1080p video w/full manual control so I can say adios to my 5d2, my Nex 5n and my x100. I'll be first in line -- and I'll buy 2. The three Fuji lenses for (assuming APS-c sensor and the FL's discussed) and my current Zeiss lenses adapted for video work ... I'm good to go.
I love my x100 for stills (despite its shortcomings) and the Nex is a nice B cam/backup to the 5d2 when shooting video, but I still can't find something that can match the 5d2 for both stills and video in one package.
ulrikft2 wrote:
I think the camera looks good in a retro kind of way. I'm very curios to sensor size. The lenses indicate 1.3 or 1.5. But 18, 35 and 60 works for fullframe too I guess. (1.3 would be 24, 45-ish and 80, 1.5: 27, 52 and 90).
Controls look good too.
I would guess APS-C and a trio of 28, 50 and 90mm equivalent lenses would make sense. It would be a pretty standard rangefinder kit IMO. Not sure how common APS-H sensors are on the market if Fuji isn't making their own.
Shall we start guessing price range? I'll guess at $1500 for the body, $500-800 ea. for the lenses.
A big question (for me) will be adaptability of M mount lenses and image quality with wider than 28mm lenses.
There was an estimate on a $1400 street price on one of the informed rumor mills. It would be more of a knock out camera if it was APS-H, than APS-C.
Ulrik: controls look pretty good. More buttons on the back than I had expected to see.
I will contain my excitement until I find out more about the viewfinder. It would be sad to see yet one more "almost there" camera.
If adapted lenses are out, chances are much higher I won't be interested in the camera. For all we know Fujifilm will implement leaf shutters in their lenses as another method to lock enthusiasts out, although they could implement an electronic shutter as a backup.
Either Fujifilm has a better EVF that can stand on its own, or they'll go the OVF/EVF hybrid again. Either way their EVF has to improve.
I'm less than 24 hours in to experiencing the NEX-5N and optional OLED EVF but even that short experience has convinced me that I could not go back to the existing X100 EVF.
While Fuji has an earned reputation for lenses, I was not hugely impressed with the 23mm in the X100. I had two different copies and both I found merely adequate. Put another way, I liked their sensor implementation in the X100 much more than the lens. Since they'll be using another sensor in this X-ILC, they'll have to earn fans again, much like Sony is having to with its new sensor.
Other things they'd need to improve for me: data transfer rates and the camera architecture to support faster transfer without blocking so much of the camera's functionality.
AF must be improved. What a breath of fresh air it is using the NEX AF compared to the X100. That said I'm not going to be using AF all that much but still want decent performance in this area for a do-all sort of compact-ish camera.
Speaking of AF, manual focus in their new lens implementation must be improved, and they'd be wise to take pages from Ricoh and Sony when it comes to providing focusing aids even for their own lenses. Ignoring the poor feel of the focus by wire setup for the X100's lens, often times manual focus was an exercise in frustration although this was in no small way due to the poor magnification support provided in the X100's EVF - improvements there would pay dividends for direct manual focus of the Fuji lenses.
I'd also like to see them address bugs and easy to fix issues in the firmware for the X100 on a more regular basis than the schedule they've adopted, in order to prove to me that they won't make the same sort of mistakes on the X-ILC and be slow to address them.
What I do like about the X100 and presumably would like about the X-ILC is that it feels more substantial. I worry about the NEX-5N; the X100 I worried less about when it came to physical abuse although it is prone to dust and liquid infiltration. I think the NEX-7 would address my concern over robustness though.
alwang wrote:
Has the world ever seen an 18/2 full-frame lens? Let alone a "pancake"? That would seem to guarantee this is some sort of crop sensor.
This has me very curious as well. In fact, I'm even starting to doubt aps-c, because that would be a tough lens design even for the aps-c sensor size. Fuji makes fantastic lenses, and, if anyone could do it, I wouldn't put it past them, but this is very optimistic...assuming the rumored lenses are for real.
I don't remember the specifics of the original press release. Did Fuji say "sensor as large or larger than aps-c," or did they say "performance as good as aps-c or larger?"
