sebjmatthews
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molson wrote:
Fuji is convinced the only currently viable camera market is YouTube vloggers - so they no longer give a rat's ass about their traditional photography market.That's not true; if it were, they wouldn't have downgraded the X-T5 to a more limited rear screen.
What actually seems to be happening with Fuji is they got caught out between hardware generations with demand they weren't expecting. Fuji often claim that orders for their products are exceeding expectations—which is nonsense most of the time, it's just marketing fluff that many Japanese companies abuse—but in the case of the X100V, it did suddenly happen, and pretty much overnight. Nobody could have predicted how that camera (and following it, the X-E4, X-Pro3, all the older X100s, and Olympus E-P7) was going to become The Hot Thing to be seen carrying.
Cameras start being designed five years, six years, sometimes even longer, before they come out. Whenever you see a manufacturer show a 'roadmap' of releases, it may look like just a year or two of planning to the public, but they'll have had all those products locked down and in development for much longer. That schedule can certainly get delayed, but it always remains the schedule.
Fuji, as we've seen, have had the X-H2 & X-H2S, X-T5, X-S20, and GFX100 II to work on, plus a couple of Instax cameras and a few lenses. They will not have had more runs of X100Vs and X-E4s scheduled, and they can't turn around that schedule easily. Now they've established a new generation (and missed the peak of the X100V trend), and people are expecting new models, it'll be harder to shift a full production run of either, or at least, it'll turn customers against them if they push to sell more X100Vs and X-E4s now, only to release brand new versions within a year.
And don't forget, the XF line barely makes profit, and GFX has yet to break even; Instax is propping them both up. Not only would it be very difficult for Fuji to change their plans and delay new products in order to push out more old ones, but it would cost them a lot of money. It's better for their bottom line to simply keep to their schedule.
To their credit, Fuji have publicly acknowledged that their production capacity is screwed, they haven't met expectations, and they will alter their priorities in the future*. But that's for 2024(maybe), 2025, 2026, and beyond. For 2023... there's no changing track right now.
*I fully expect them to release a cheaper X100V-styled camera next year to capitalise on what is left of the TikTok trend, and I suspect an 'actual' X100V successor will be delayed to 2025 now.
edit: And BTW, don't refer to MPB's pricing for an indication of what is actually selling. MPB have, for quite a while now, been charging much more for Fuji gear than other shops, even pricing a few Fuji products higher than they cost new. And I don't mean rare or out of production models, I'm talking about dirt common things like the XC 35mm f/2. They've been overcharging on all brands for a while now, but Fuji are the most egregiously-priced.
In general, try to remember that just because someone is advertising a product at a price does not mean people are actually buying it at that price. Check out sold listings on eBay, or look in other stores' second hand sections, to see what stuff is actually worth.
Case in point, I recently bought a used X-T30 II from London Camera Exchange for £550, and the XF 14mm from Castle Cameras for £239; both in unmarked condition, only the lens missing the packaging and paperwork. On MPB the lens would be around £300, and the camera would be up to £809 – they're still in stock brand new at LCE for £799!
Edited on Sep 26, 2023 at 11:47 AM · View previous versions
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Unwilling to pay the TikTok premium on the used market for now. My 50R + 50 has filled the gap, for now.