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 p.20 #13 · Fujifilm GFX100RF Discussion and Image Thread | |
highdesertmesa wrote:
I like the top dials of the XT5, though it is the same resolution as the X100VI. My shots over the years do favor telephoto, so that might be a good idea – XT5 with a pancake lens over the 100VI.
Eh, I had a momentary brain freeze and forgot tlhat the X100vi is also 40MP.
A few years back I did a little informal surgery of some west coast landscape photographers and their most used landscape lens on full frame was actually a 70-200mm zoom. The widest FF lens I use is a 16-35, but I’d say that I use if for less than 5% of my photography. I get a lot of use ot of a 100-400 for landscape.
The XT5 with the pancake is a bit larger than the X100vi. But it does let me choose my ideal/most appropriate lens and still have a small camera/lens package and retain the flexibility to use other lenses when necessary.
Even though my most used (by far) configuration with that camera is to just put the 27mm f/2.8 on it, when I travel I like to have at least one longer and one shorter lens. (I’m a big fan of the 14mm f/2.8. The 35mm f/1.4 gives me a relatively small f/1.4 lens. I may take on other longer lens, too.)
But sometimes when I’m doing landscape while On a longer hike I just take the Xt5 with lenses like the 16-5he 100-4005, the 50-140, or even the 100-400. (Today I accompany my wife on one of her macro photography shoots at an area garden, and I’ll just stick the 80mm f/2.8 macro on the thing.)
It is the combination of small size and versatility that does it for me.
kalani_kane wrote:
I agree and also stated my preference for a full-frame "FX100vi" at preorder. I think the compromised 100RF represents the best attempt at a maybe currently-impossible goal in (cropped) medium format every-day-carry. I think the declaration of Fuji that they will never develop a full frame camera, which users clearly desire, even though they continue to manufacture "full frame" 35mm film, is putting them at a disadvantage.
Their coupled decision not to compete at the smallest end with an X70 replacement, makes users like me that had their X70 finally break have to consider moving to the aging Ricoh GRiii/x, Leica 7/8 for an EDC.
Since the 100RF has so many compromises, and now the lens quality is in serious question which is the strength of Fuji's fixed-lens, MF film camera legacy along with Hasselblad collaboration, I feel we are left with an overly compromised product. Had they decided to compete directly in full frame and develop a no-compromised, full-frame FX100vi in two focal lengths, I think they would win and it avoids needing to develop a full line of FF lenses. Even Leica is rumored to develop a M11-V with EVF, and the most direct competitor discussed is Fuji's hybrid OVF of the x100vi, and the Leica body cost will probably be $9.1k+. Alternatively, Nikon ZF is delivering a small package with amazing IQ (and I was a pre-order purchase of the Nikon D200 decades ago...). Fuji could compete in FF, but instead they did their best to pursue a MF EDC, and now we need to decide if the 100RF compromises are acceptable or just too much with current tech. We are seeing repeated examples where the IQ and subject-detect AF may have suffered at the expense, and of course lack of IBIS/OIS. I decided to cancel and wait until more actual users have the 100RF in hand, and am feeling pretty bummed at the missed opportunity for fuji since I really do enjoy the 100, 100sii experience and am intrigued by a GFX EDC. Maybe a GF 35mm 2.8 pancake-ish with IQ matching the stellar 45mm could have been possible instead, or wait for the mkII/III. I look forward to more real-world results, fingers crossed....Show more →
In the past it has been my view that trying to compete in the FF space would not be a great strategy for Fujifilm at this point. I still generally feel that way, though your post makes me be _slightly_ more receptive to the idea.
In the digital camera space, Fujifilm’s successes have come mostly from “zigging where others zag.” In the earlier 2000s, when virtually everyone else (with few exceptions) was doing DSLRs with PASM interfaces, Fujifilm bricked the trend and came out with small, rangefinder-style cameras like the early XPro, the XE1, and the earliest iteration of the X100(.) series.
If Fujifilm had instead tried to go toe-to-toe with Canon and Nikon (then the big two, with Sony’s successes still in the future) they would have been hard pressed to pull buyers away from those brands. For the “little guy” trying to break into a market dominated by established big guys, it isn’t enough to make cameras that are “as good as” or even “a bit less expensive than” the established companies. To get people to move from their familiar brand (and collection of lenses, etc.) you need offer something either WAY better (hard to do, when you all use the same technology) or quite different. And Fujifilm has leveraged the latter strategy with success.
When it comes to the miniMF cameras, I’ve long felt that it would make sense for Fujifilm to keep doing them rather than try a FF play, but to make the miniMF bodies as competitive with the FF products as possible and focus less on the notion that they are sort of like old-school film MF systems. (To their credit, we cold argue that the RF is an attempt at this.) For me that means bodies that are much like modern FF mirrorless designs (they are moving in that direction) with features that FF shooters expect (faster/better AF, faster burst rates, etc.) and a lens line-up that makes FF users feel that they don’t have to give up anything. The idea is to get a certain percentage of FF shooters to see the miniMF systems as “better FF cameras.”
Some will say that this isn’t possible since the miniMF sensor is larger. But it isn’t that much larger, and the systems can be made smaller, and comparable lenses can be produced. If the RF isn’t evidence of that, I don’t know what is.
Long story short: I have felt (and still do) that the the best strategy for Fujifilm to compete with the FF Big Three is not to try to be a fourth FF player, but to make the miniMF systems more like those company’s cameras but with the plus of the larger sensor.
However…
…thinking back to how Fujifilm’s initial entree into the digital market was more or less a one-off APS-C starter that was a great _addition_ for folks shooting DSLRs, I can start to image (even though I don’t think they’ll do it) a one-off, standalone FF fixed lens camera with full manual controls that would have no competitors in the FF space. Hmmm…
There are a lot of additional ramifications/issues with that, of course…
Edited on Mar 25, 2025 at 10:11 AM · View previous versions
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