gdanmitchell
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amci4 wrote:
While I agree with you on much of this, I believe their marketshare is about to grow quite a bit.
Why do I say this?
Because that stacked sensor and significantly improved AF speed, has really fixed the biggest issues with shooting Fuji.
What we are seeing when comparing the Fuji X-H2s to other bodies above are…
Canon R6 - Fuji AF is actually proving to have longer reach and higher speed (I would never have guessed that) and resolution are areas where the X-H2s are winning.
Sony A7 IV - Again the X-H2s AF is proving to be better, but now the IBIS is also something that the Sony cannot match, and that doesn’t even factor in poor color from Sony.
Nikon Z6 - while very nice, cannot even match the Sony or Canon here and that means it is largely behind the X-H2s as well.
I think this thing hitting the market with its top of the line -7 EV AF sensitivity and speed, as well as the 7 Stops of IBIS, is going to attract a lot of people who do not want to spend more than $3K for the same features in a Sony, Canon, or Nikon body. I do not believe the 40 MP body will have the same impact.
Personally, I think the Full Frame argument ignores the flaws of the sensor size, like how hard it is to get truly good IBIS, or the slower readout speeds compared to the smaller sensors. The higher incidence of rolling shutter with larger more conventional 35mm sensors. If you’re a landscape photographer or studio photographer, none of this matters, but action it does matter....Show more →
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. A couple of responses:
I've long held that the smaller APS-C sensor is a fine performer for almost all people buying these kinds of cameras today. I use both APS-C and full frame, and I idon't have any problem producing excellent prints at 20" x 30" from carefully shot and post-processed APS-C images. Very few people are printing at such sizes — if at all — and APS-C is excellent for those other, mostly-online uses.
However, the logic of this may have more limited significance in the market that the XH2 bodies target — arguably the high-end where either the camera's operational speed (sports, photojournalism, wildlife, etc) is the most important, or greatest image quality (landscape, architecture, portraits) is the goal. Basically, the XH2 line targets are market where the realities of the average camera-user are arguably less important.
What Fujifilm provides in the XH2 cameras is likely to appeal to some subset of Fujifilm fans, without a doubt. There has clearly been a desire for Fujifilm APS-C cameras that compete with the AF speed and other performance parameters of the best cameras from the Big Companies. The XH2 line appears to move the ball forward in ways that will make Fujifilm users feel that they are closer to competing with Sony, Canon, and Nikon. (But don't forget that those companies also continue to update and improve and introduce new models that will also advance their own performance.)
Many Fujifilm user will like the idea of increasing the sensor resolution, almost certainly without any loss in other aspects of sensor performance. Other users will welcome better and faster AF, higher burst rates, and so forth. And the two "flavors" of the XH2 (XH2 and XH2s) target those respective users.
All of this is potentially useful for keeping Fujifilm people in the fold.
But I'm skeptical that it is going to draw many additional non-Fujifilm users from the other brands. Folks using those there brands have already bought into them, by and large, and already have invested in systems of lenses and other equipment built around rather expensive cameras. They fall into the same two categories as mentioned above — the high resolution folks and the high performance folks.
Among the high resolution folks, a 40MP APS-C camera is unlikely to draw them away from a full frame system with resolution that is already in the 50+MP range and which is going to go higher in upcoming cameras. The larger systems will have higher system resolution, not just higher MP. We can debate whether or not this is necessary, but when all three of the other brands are increasingly settling on FF for their high MP gear, it is hard to argue against this. (The fact that Fujifilm itself touts the larger and higher MP GFX system for the very same reasons reinforces this — and that's where the folks currently using a FF system who might migrate will likely end up, not on a lower resolution 40MP APS-C system.)
The question of the XH2s, with its higher speed and reported improvements in AF and burst and other factors appealing to that subset of camera buyers might seem to attract some folks from the other brands. But the problem here is that when it comes to encouraging brand-shifters, it isn't enough to be as good as the brands/products already in use or even to be an increment better. Because those photographers already are heavily invested in those other brands — cameras, lenses, etc. — the improvement needs to be quite significant to overcome that "investment inertia." Against the perceived minus of the smaller sensor, the real minus of a smaller line of lenses typically used by such photographers, and the costs of switching... it is hard to imagine that there will be that many folks moving to Fujifilm for the XH2 system.
One thing to look out for would be reviews by folks who are not already Fujifilm-centric, in which THEY (current Canon, Nikon, Sony users) tout these new cameras as being worthy of switching.
I think that the XH2 and XH2s look like well-designed, highly effective cameras, and nothing above should be construed to demean Fujifilm's ability to produce excellent cameras. However, for these other reasons I have concerns that in a year or two we'll be talking about the XH2/XH2s in much the same way we spoke of the XH1 a year or two ago...
One bit of good news: When these features find their way into the successors of the X100v, XPro3, XT4, XE4, etc... they will seem significant enough to current users of those (and and earlier versions of those) cameras to upgrade. I am virtually positive that I'd update from my fine XPro2 to a 40MP XPro4 with better AF and other performance improvements, especially if Fujiflm fixes some of the interface oddities from the XPro3 in the process.
We'll see...
Dan
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