Fuji has so far been pretty good about carving out a distinct market for themselves, by coming up with products which are different from the mainstream offerings from Canon/Nikon/Sony and at the same time have been appealing enough to be more than a very small niche. They have also been able to create a branding which has allowed them to charge higher-end prices. Lets see what this new mystery camera turns out to be but I suspect Fuji must have done enough homework to assess that there is a sizable target market for this product.
It’s funny people’s imagination. It turns out to be a 1 inch sensor. What puzzled me is: why is it called a “half frame” sensor? Is it because it’s going to have a vertical aspect ratio? Really twisted use of the term. If it’s vertical, I would just call it a vertical sensor.
curious80 wrote:
Fuji has so far been pretty good about carving out a distinct market for themselves, by coming up with products which are different from the mainstream offerings from Canon/Nikon/Sony and at the same time have been appealing enough to be more than a very small niche. They have also been able to create a branding which has allowed them to charge higher-end prices. Lets see what this new mystery camera turns out to be but I suspect Fuji must have done enough homework to assess that there is a sizable target market for this product.
Fuji has been able (past tense). X-T, X-Pro, X100 line. My feeling is that they have lost that ability. X-H line? If I want an uninspiring product, I take a Sony that comes with much better AF. Same for the X-S line. Fuji has been about the analog feeling and film sims, and the small primes plus the 27 and the Voigtländer 18. Nothing comparable in the Sony camp. A small snesor on portrait mode to emulate the feeling and handling of a phone Come on.
But hey: What if the camera has a phone built in? Let's start a ne rumour :-)
foto16 wrote:
It’s funny people’s imagination. It turns out to be a 1 inch sensor. What puzzled me is: why is it called a “half frame” sensor? Is it because it’s going to have a vertical aspect ratio? Really twisted use of the term. If it’s vertical, I would just call it a vertical sensor.
I reckon it's supposed to evoke the experience of using half-frame film.
So I think it's more a marketing thing than a technical description.
Besides, it would follow the tradition of how we refer to sensors already: by the film stocks that they are based on (APS, full frame/35mm, medium format, etc).
Fuji's share of the digital camera market is not going up very much. It's probably never going to sell much more than half the units of its nearest competitor, Nikon. But revenue wise, the X100 line and the Instax line has allowed Fuji to continue investing in markets that Panasonic and OM can't seem to get a foothold in.
mdude85 wrote:
Besides, it would follow the tradition of how we refer to sensors already: by the film stocks that they are based on (APS, full frame/35mm, medium format, etc).
Format naming is and probably always will be a total mess, often illogical and sometimes contradictory. I’m mostly OK with that.
35mm refers to the width of the film, which makes sense. 645, 6x7, 6x9, and so on do, too — they all use film that is 6 cm wide. Medium format is a problematic term for a bunch of reasons. First, it isn’t just one format but all of those above that start with a “6,” and others that I haven’t listed.
Then there is so-called digital medium format. Pentax started the mess in my view — their interesting and ground-breaking mini medium format (which I think is an accurate description, stick with me) cameras were labeled 645d and then 645z, suggesting that they were digital versions of the 645 film format. But they weren’t. Their size (33mm x 44mm image area) lies midway between 35mm/full-frame and the smallest traditional film “medium format,” 645. To make things even messier, other companies (see Leica) produced cameras with similar image areas (though different aspect ratios) and did NOT call them medium format. Even Fujifilm has been confused, calling their miniMF cameras “medium format” and (!) “large format” in their literature.
And then there are the names of the other digital formats. “Full frame” got its name in a fairly bizarre way. The earliest “serious” digital cameras that were widely marketed typically used one or another of the APS-C formats (1.5x cropped sensor or 1.6x cropped sensor — sigh…) so when sensors that roughly equaled the image area of 35mm film came out they were “full” sized from t hat perspective. Then there is micro four thirds, whose name is based not on image areas size but on aspect ratio!
Don’t get me started on 1” sensors…
I’m getting a headache!
If I were god of the universe (working on it, but so far no luck) I’d probably make everyone simply name formats by metric dimensions: 24 x 36, 33 x 44, and so forth, perhaps abbreviated 2436 and 3344.
They seem to be chasing the hipster/TikTok/Other social media, fandom and cult status that the X100 series have attained.
The film simulation dial on a couple of models, the odd "half frame" mystery camera. I can only imagine it will be a budget offering that those who can't afford an X100 model will be able to buy, and hopefully availability won't be an issue.
I don't see the appeal, but I suspect a lot of the newer breed of photogs/content creators will, maybe the younger people (school age) will take to it if it is affordable and satisfies their needs.
RoamingScott wrote:
A 1 inch sensor will definitely evoke the half-frame-feeling of "I should have spent more to get something better" alright.
You never know. Lots of people think MFT sucks, but I’ve only seen positive things about the IQ of the Leica D-Lux 8, a camera about which people seem to forget it has a MFT sensor.
p.2 #10 · Mysterious "all-new" sensor Fuji in 2025
johnvanr wrote:
You never know. Lots of people think MFT sucks, but I’ve only seen positive things about the IQ of the Leica D-Lux 8, a camera about which people seem to forget it has a MFT sensor.
I'm 100% one of those that think that MFT is a waste of money in the larger market, and I also think a good deal of any positive chatter about Leica is from brainwashed apologists.
Now that we have that out of the way...IF this camera is substantially cheaper than any APS-C type point and shoot (Ricoh, X100, etc) and can deliver decent quality images for social media use, I do think it has a place in the market. I would think if it's priced around ANY APS-C offering from any brand, it's an instant fail, Fuji sims or not.
Rather than being some radical new sensor (portrait mode? half of full frame?) it is just the same smaller sensor that inexpensive cameras have used for years, apparently.
If it can lead to a very basic, inexpensive camera that sells well for Fujifilm, then why not?
Unfortunately, here we go again misappropriating a photographic term that already has a well-understood meaning: half-frame. And, even more, using it instead of the existing and relatively straight-forward (-ish) term that has been around for years: 1” sensor.
Rather than being some radical new sensor (portrait mode? half of full frame?) it is just the same smaller sensor that inexpensive cameras have used for years, apparently.
If it can lead to a very basic, inexpensive camera that sells well for Fujifilm, then why not?
Unfortunately, here we go again misappropriating a photographic term that already has a well-understood meaning: half-frame. And, even more, using it instead of the existing and relatively straight-forward (-ish) term that has been around for years: 1” sensor.
yeah but even a 1" sensor is not actually 1", either in area or linearly.
p.2 #13 · Mysterious "all-new" sensor Fuji in 2025
gdanmitchell wrote:
If I were god of the universe (working on it, but so far no luck) I’d probably make everyone simply name formats by metric dimensions: 24 x 36, 33 x 44, and so forth, perhaps abbreviated 2436 and 3344.
Like that’s going to happen!
I though you Americans regarded the metric system as some sort of communist plot?
p.2 #14 · Mysterious "all-new" sensor Fuji in 2025
gdanmitchell wrote:
Unfortunately, here we go again misappropriating a photographic term that already has a well-understood meaning: half-frame. And, even more, using it instead of the existing and relatively straight-forward (-ish) term that has been around for years: 1” sensor.
Fuji are the best at that. Loving my 'large format' digital camera from them that somehow has a smaller sensor than medium format film.
p.2 #15 · Mysterious "all-new" sensor Fuji in 2025
Geoff D F wrote:
yeah but even a 1" sensor is not actually 1", either in area or linearly.
Indeed! ;-)
Geoff D F wrote:
I thought you Americans regarded the metric system as some sort of communist plot?
Heh. Some Americans do, though in their (slight) defense, the transition/conversion is a challenge for those of us who were brought up on our illogical system. Through travel, I adapted in some ways and can now deal with it pretty well — even becoming comfortable with the system for measuring temperature.
It is funny that we in the US have adapted to some metric measurements. For example, we now often buy 1 liter water bottles rather than 1 quart bottles. I set my kitchen scale to read in grams, and more recipes now come hat way.
We’ll get there… in about two centuries. ;-)
thrice wrote:
Fuji are the best at that. Loving my 'large format' digital camera from them that somehow has a smaller sensor than medium format film.
Yeah. The whole “system” is nuts. We get physical measurements (35mm, 1””, neither of which make any logical sense in the digital world), aspect ratio (four-thirds), attempts at standardization that got corrupted (multiple flavors of APS-C), archaic terms (“half frame”), meaningless terms that once made some obscure reference to something (“full frame” and “cropped sensor”), descriptions of huge ranges of formats (“large format,” “medium format” from film), and misapplications of once-understood terms (Fujifilm’s “large format” and generic digital “medium format”).
p.2 #16 · Mysterious "all-new" sensor Fuji in 2025
Geoff D F wrote:
I though you Americans regarded the metric system as some sort of communist plot?
I lived in the US for thirty years and never figured out inches etc. And I got used thinking about outside temperatures in centigrade and inside in Fahrenheit. I hope I’ll recuperate now that I’m back in Europe. Unfortunately, I brought my cars over and have to remind myself that 60 is really 100…
p.2 #17 · Mysterious "all-new" sensor Fuji in 2025
johnvanr wrote:
I lived in the US for thirty years and never figured out inches etc. And I got used thinking about outside temperatures in centigrade and inside in Fahrenheit. I hope I’ll recuperate now that I’m back in Europe. Unfortunately, I brought my cars over and have to remind myself that 60 is really 100…
Heh. As hard as it is for Americans to adapt to metric measurements, I can only imagine how crazy it must be for people from “metric countries” to make sense out of our absurd system! 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, 5282 (or something) feet in a mile. Water freezes at 32 degrees and boils at 212 degrees? A cup is also a half pint. There are 8 ounces in a cup. 2 cups is a pint. 4 cups is a quart. For quarts is a gallon. It is, I admit, quite nuts.
At least our money is essentially metric!
Of course, we all share an insane calendar. 12 months in a year, but they could be 28 (or maybe 29), 30, or 31 days long…
And with that, the odds of ever streamlining the naming of camera formats is pretty much zero. ;-)
p.2 #19 · Mysterious "all-new" sensor Fuji in 2025
I was a child when Australia converted from imperial to metric, and I remain semi-literate as far as imperial is concerned. Travel got a whole lot quicker following conversion because we could drive at 100 km/h on the highway instead of 60 mph. On the other hand, the weather got worse because in summer it only got to around 38c on a hot day instead of 100f.
I still have no idea whether 4 ounces of corn beef is too much or too little to put into a sandwich.
Come on.