gdanmitchell
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 Re: What the XproIV needs. | |
pressedbunny wrote:
The movement of IBIS, even at the current industry-leading 8 stops or so, is so miniscule that it is absolutely irrelevant to the scale of any optical viewfinder. In the case of Fuji's latest 40mp sensor, we're talking about a maximum shift in any direction of 6.08µm (two pixels); in common units that's 0.00608mm, or 0.000239". Do you really think you need your viewfinder—optical or electronic—to accommodate a shift of literally six thousandths of a millimetre?
Lens IS for telephotos can be a more drastic and noticeable shift, which an offset OVF (not TTL) can't represent, though I don't think anyone is banking on using an X-Pro with the 400mm f/4.5 OIS.
Anyway, the idea that the Pro line will never be seen again is totally unfounded and bizarre, though you've got to be completely detached from the industry and society in general to think the answer to a successful product is to make it more exclusive. We already saw the X100 and X-E spike in popularity... until the prices went up and 'coincidentally' the trend largely died down. People who want to show off their Leica at the country club aren't going to suddenly be happy with an X-Pro just because the price tag went up a bit. 'Luxury' items are precisely what are selling worse and worse now as people have less and less money to spare and much more important things to buy, and the 1%ers who do want and can buy the flashiest stuff will continue to buy the actual luxury goods, and not an imitation.
What the next X-Pro5/6 (I think they'll jump straight to 5 or 6, as 4 is unlucky and would look outdated) needs, to be successful, is to pick a lane. The 3 tried to be 'quirky' but they half-assed it. Either the next camera needs to step back from the experimental 3 and be a more fully-featured camera, so you're essentially getting an X-T5 with a small premium for the OVF and styling so it stands a chance of selling big numbers, or it needs to lean into the 3's niche even further and be made in smaller quantities so it doesn't have to sell a million units to be considered a success. Personally, I'd prefer the latter; clean up the 3's angles akin to the E5, ditch the secondary mini screen on the back, and put in something like the E5's film sim dial but use an e-ink display so it can be fully customised or reassigned to other functions. The E5 has received some criticism for adopting a grip, so let the Pro be the one with the grip bump to support larger-aperture primes, and the next E can go back to being totally flat.
And finally make it in bright, shining silver. None of this 'dura' or 'graphite' rubbish. Just slap on the same silver paint the other bodies get, it's fine.
Not every product has to break sales records to be successful, and niche products don't have to be only for the unusually wealthy. In fact that's kinda been the X series' whole deal since the very start.
I mostly agree (in some cases strongly) with your comments on the question of a next XPro. I’m in the same camp as you regarding the XPro3. I know that some small segment thinks that crippling the XPro cameras was “innovative” but, as a heavy XPro2 user and a person who was all set to buy the next version of the XPro, the design completely turned me off and the camera impressed me as a cheapened version of its excellent predecessor.
I still see no evidence that we’re going to see another hybrid viewfinder XPro model at this point. There’s no more than the slimmest of hopeful “evidence” that it isn’t completely off the table. The “XE-Pro” idea that I’ve written about for a year or more is a possibility, though there would have to be some interesting marketing gyrations to figure out where it would fit with the existing models.
(Also, while I understand your point about the number 4, Fujifilm did have a… XT4 and a XE4.)
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About a different post and regarding the supposed popularity of film cameras… Well, among those who use film cameras, film cameras are very popular, if you get my drift… ;-)
But if you watch the cameras around you when you are out in the real world, as I often do, you are simply not going to see very many film cameras at all. There are so few, actually, that it is a bit of a novelty to see them. (I suppose that Instax is a kind of film cameras, kinda, sorta… but I see more of them than I see film SLRs and rangefinders.)
I used film cameras for a L O N G time — they are what I learned on, and I’ve used a huge range of them, from literal Brownies (as a kid) through foldable cameras, a Speed Graphic at one point, TLRs from Rollei and Yashica, a Rollei 35, and a bunch of 5mm film cameras. So I’m pretty aware of what they can do… and I left them behind because digital lets me do all of those things better.
(I know a lot of photographers, some fairly well known, who came up in the film era. One (and sort of a second) still do film — though they also do digital. But all of the others, each of whom was highly skilled with film and whose work is and was highly regarded, now work entirely with digital.
That’s not to say that folks who like film shouldn’t do so… but it is to say that the supposed “popularity” of film gear is far more limited than film folks sometimes think.
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To add to the mix about the X-Pro EVF/OVF question: The main reason that I got my XPro2 when it first came out, rather than getting an EVF-only camera, was that EVF displays were pretty poor back then. They had slow refresh rates, too much latency, pretty low resolution, garish colors, they often glitched, and they ate battery power. So when I started using the camera — with small primes — I used the OVF almost 100% of the time.
Then I started slipping. Sometimes it made more sense to use the rear screen to see my subject than to raise the camera to my eyes and look through the viewfinder. The data displayed on the rear screen or EVF can be useful, even critical in some situations. The OVF isn’t that great in poor light. Sometimes extremely accurate framing is critical.
In fact, the big shift came during a visit to NYC when I spent days doing street photography. I recall one evening as the light faded… and I realized that camera performance was good enough to do handheld night street photography and that I could see my subjects way better in the EVF than in the dim OVF. I almost completely shifted to using the OVF for night street photography from then on.
Before long I got completely used to the EVF and found myself using in virtually all the time. And after the XPro3 debacle and waiting in vain for a few more years for Fujifim to update the XPro line… I gave up and moved to the XT5. I don’t miss the XPro at all at this point…
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On manually focusing Fujifilm handheld cameras… I don’t get it. I manually focused for years on cameras that di don’t have AF, and I still manually focus my digital cameras when I work from the tripod. But for street and similar shooting AF is faster and more accurate. As to the “pleasure” of manually focusing in these situations, all I can say — again — is that I don’t get it. ;-)
(As to “focus by wire, it seems to work pretty well on Fujifilm lenses, when you come right down to it.)
And “manual focus only” lenses from Fujifilm? Those would sell like hotcakes! Week old hotcakes. Stale. Left out in the sun… ;-)
Fujifilm did put a “clutch” mechanism on some of the early primes (maybe the 23mm f/1.4?).
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