Where Does Fujifilm Go From Here with the GFX System? + Reader Comments
Related: digital sensor, Fujifilm, Fujifilm GFX100 II, Fujifilm medium format, Fujifilm mirrorless, Jason W, medium format, please fix this, please fix this camera, please fix this Fujifilm, reader comment
re: Fujifilm GFX100 II, Fujifilm GFX100S: Standout Lenses that Nail It
re: Attention all Camera Makers: 23.5 Things To Please Your Customers
re: please fix this Fujifilm
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Is it sunset for the Fujifilm GFX system in terms of progress?
The GFX system has matured and the last lens in the Fujifilm lineup is coming soon (Fujifilm GF 500mm f/5.6), according to FujiRumors.com. What next?
Where can Fujifilm go from here?
I see Fujifilm as having gotten a bit lazy in recent years—bugs are not getting fixed like they used to and rollouts are taking too long. Amazingly this obvious stuff does NOT GET DONE and yet it is by far the cheapest route to make the system more attractive. Two things Fujfilm should get its act together on:
- Fix the bugs already.
- Implement useful low hanging fruit like frame averaging, auto-ETTR, non-stupid multi-shot, etc.
- Fire all the people doing the stupid useless shit that no one cares about. Build great products and leave it at that.
Once you have a market, lock it down so no one wants to switch. I can’t figure out why after all this time and now with its dominance that Fujifilm is taking the risks of irking customers like me. Giving customers a reason to consider looking elsewhere is a losing strategy.
Beyond that, we get into things that we might like, but might or might not have good ROI:
- A monochrome Fujifilm GFX100m? Would add uncontested value for anyone already with the system.
- A new or revised lens line with “II” versions that bump up performance that a 100MP sensor needs? Given the roadmap, that seems iffy—there is nothing on it. Sme lenses just are woefully inadequate eg the Fujifilm GF 30mm f/3.5 and most of the zooms.
- An even more aggressive push deep into 35mm-format territory? That’s already there at $2999 and $4399, but cut off another $500 off and/or bring 100MP down to $2999.
- A future 180-megapixel Fujifilm GFX180? The lens lineup is not good enough for such a camera, with few exceptions. It’s not just about sharpness but about being able to place that sharpness eg focus shift and field curvature.
- A wide format panoramic camera? Something on the order of 19240 pixels wide.
- Fixed-lens medium format camera? Ideally with custom-tuned lens for 180MP sensor.
- A camera with a sensor designed for peak image quality, a “PhaseOne killer” so to speak? No PDAF and individually-tuned camera with base ISO 50? I don’t see this coming to pass, though it is my #1 wish for landscape.
Seems to me that we need an aggressive new competitor in the medium format space. An entry by Sony with a 48 X 36mm sensor seems ideal to shake up the 44 X 33mm of Fujifilm, and prompt innovation.
Lens roadmap and performance
Few lenses “scale up” to the demands of the 44 X 33mm sensor.
IMO, what is missing at 100 megapixels is total detail commensurate with 100 megapixels vs 60 megapixels. A 180MP sensor given the limits we already see would help total image quality but I can’t see much more total detail forthcoming. Because on such a sensor the lens has to be at peak performance by f/4.5 with f/5.6 already suffering substantially diffraction with even thinner depth of field.
That is why I hope that Sigma and Voigtlander entry the medium format lens fray.
Fujifilm is at the last lens in the Fujifilm lineup (“as of September 2023”). And I still cannot obtain the 30mm and 110mm shift lenses for review.
Reader Comments
Jason W writes:
As for GFX next steps, Fujifilm already has medium format on lockdown.
If anything, they are victims of their own success. As we've talked about, Hasselblad is near irrelevant except for a certain kind of user, and the pro guys who want more than FF go for the GFX. Fujifilm is a Phase One killer. I don't know how many P1 folks have moved to Fuji, but I bet P1 got hurt.
DIGLLOYD: agreed, Fujifilm’s success and lack of significant competition means that it will not push the platform forward at more than a tepid pace, if at all.
BTW, what I hear is that PhaseOne is apparently doing great by shifting to things like drone photography. I have not confirmed that myself, but it makes sense.
