Photokina 2014: The Big Sleep

Another Photokina has come and gone and now we can make sense of what was announced. Before I touch on anything, I think it a significant point to recognize how Photokina has lost some of its luster in the past few years. Most big camera announcements do not come at Photokina. Think about it: The Fuji X100 and X Pro were both announced in early spring, as were Sony's A7 cameras. Olympus E-M5, Panasonic GH3 and GH4, Sony RX100: as far as I remember, none of them were announced at Photokina.

Still, it's the only photography-specific show with major, international coverage, so that will always make it something.

So, that said, moving on.

This was a very boring Photokina. Maybe I'm being spoiled by the world of cell phones, tablets, and computers, but I've come to expect some degree of surprise and excitement from big shows. This Photokina isn't a huge letdown, but it's far from exciting. We have Canon playing catch-up two years late. We have Nikon producing capably boring, or boringly capable, products. Panasonic continues its quest to make a m4/3 camera that is somehow smaller than the sensor. Olympus continues to release pro-thusiast gear at a glacial pace. And Leica released some products for prices that make me question the sanity of Leica fans.

The Good:

Panasonic LX100: For me, the star of the show was the Panasonic LX100, which further confirms that camera companies need to stop fucking using X's in their camera names. It has far exceeded the realm of stupid and has entered utterly baffling.

I very much like the Sony RX100 and even bought an RX10, but the images never fully lose that P&S look. The colors are never as rich as a larger sensor, the noise is always visible, and on and on. The 4/3 format is as small as you can go and maintain an image that stands up to pixel peeping, and even then, that is sometimes not true. The LX100's sensor means that this is the most compact, pro-level imaging device that you can buy, besting the Canon G1X by about a centimeter in every dimension.

All is not well with the LX100, though. The camera's viewfinder is underwhelming, and the controls aren't really the best, and it's overpriced by about $200. Also, it's too big to be pocketable, but too small to be usable with gloves, large hands, or with truly professional speed. It is at least progress, though. The Sony RX100 was the first, others copied, and now Panasonic is moving it forward again with more robust video features and a larger sensor.

Panasonic and Olympus have both hinted at the prospect of dropping m4/3 in the future. This is because they want to charge Canon-like prices for their products, but can't because they're products haven't really been all that good. Then Sony comes along with the RX1, A7, A7R, and A7S and can suddenly charge Canon prices while still selling as many cameras as they can make. Just as with the RX1, a good transitionary product for Panasonic could be a fixed-lens camera with serious video chops. It would be expensive, since video requires fantastic optical mechanics, but I bet that it would sell. I see the LX100 as a portent of this future.

The LX100 can be seen as a pocket-sized GH4 in many respects, and that is awesome. The battery is too small for significant video work, but perhaps an extended battery grip will be released. The GH4 is a fantastic product and the only product in Panny's imaging stable that is both impressive and well-priced. Some of its thunder was stolen by the amazing Sony A7S, but even then, the GH4 does many things that A7S cannot do, and does it for $1,000 less. If Panasonic isn't cowardly, they will wedge as many pro-level video features as they can into the LX100. That is the only way they will be able to justify the extreme price.

Otherwise, the $900 will be much better spent on a compact camera with interchangeable lenses.

Canon G7 X: All aboard the X train! Canon finally realizes that their P&S market will continue to erode unless they do something, and the best course of action is to copy Sony! So they did. The G7X is an RX100 with a Canon wrapper, and that's not a bad thing. Canon's wrapper is better than Sony's. It's unfortunate that the camera is priced at a premium, but ah well. Also, I will always trade a bit of size for image quality, and if I were in this market, I'd take the new LX100 over this any day of the week. But, to Canon's credit, I'd probably rather take this over the RX100.

Fuji: Fuji was pretty quiet this show. They released the updated X100T, which is a solid update. If you have the older X100's, I don't see you wanting to upgrade. If I wasn't so interested in video, I would have bought an X100 long ago.

The real progress is in Fuji's ever-growing lens system. They've produced some winners and losers, and these new lenses look like winners. I'm worried about the distortion on the 16mm lens, since Fuji has shown Olympus-like predilections when it comes to dealing with optical problems in software, but I withhold judgment. Also, Fuji appears to be getting a bit too confident as the prices on these lenses are rather high.

All in all, I like Fuji, and these does little to alter my opinion. In fairness to other companies, though, Fuji is able to do this simply because their lens system is small. Canon and Nikon have huge lens systems already and...... you know what? No. I take that back. I'm thinking as I write this, in case you couldn't tell.

Canon and Nikon could do this. They could release updates to their lenses, especially since many of them suck. But instead, they don't. They rest on lenses, some of which were designed in the 80's. So again, kudos to Fuji.

Leica D-Lux: Say wha?!... you may be saying. But yes, the overpriced Leica versions of the LX100 is a fine choice. Basically, it's because you get a license for Adobe Lightroom included with the camera, a $140-ish value. Along with what I consider to be a much more attractive design, the $100 final premium doesn't seem too bad.

Olympus E-PL7: This is almost bad, but I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. Olympus continues to work at the small, feature-packed, mid-range camera segment with good results. None of Olympus' cameras are selling terribly well, and Fuji and Sony are slowly but surely eclipsing the m4/3 format, but they still deserve recognition when they release a decent product.

It's unfortunate, though, because both Sony and Fuji have more impressive products for the price, and in Sony's case, cheaper. Even Olympus offers the E-M10 for only $150 more. I feel that this camera will be stillborn on the market, even though I'm sure it will be fine.

Sigma: Sigma continues to impress with their new lenses for great prices and their innovative Foveon cameras. I talk up Sigma a lot since they are truly innovating. They are truly providing new tools and new experiences, not just rehashes of old ones. Their DP cameras are utterly unique and I think that everyone should own one. And since their DP cameras are such unique tools, the new viewfinder attachments don't seem bulky, they seem like a new form of imaging, because they are. Definitely the domain of deliberate professionals and enthusiasts and all but useless for Soccer Moms/Dads, these cameras have captured my imagination.

The Bad:

Samsung: Samsung continues to plug away at this mysterious product called a cam-ehr-ahh. Nothing they have hitherto produced has been correctly priced or competitive with other companies. Their sensors only very recently entered the same league as Sony, Nikon, and even Micro 4/3. Their lens selection is poor and expensive. Their workflow is poor and slow. Their system is lean. And worse still, serious photogs seem to be a corporate afterthought for a company that is making most of its money from Galaxy cell phones.

The new NX1 is an SLR-styled camera just as SLR style cameras are beginning their long, slow descent into sales Hell. It's APS-C just as Sony, Canon, and Nikon are beginning the rush to fill their product lines with Full Frame. It's among the most expensive APS-C cameras out there, besting everything that Fuji makes and cheaper than only the new, ridiculously over-priced Canon EOS 7D MkII.

The new camera will have only a single, high-end lens, which unsurprisingly is the lens they are releasing with the camera, the new 50-150mm f/2.8. That sounds like a decent lens, except that they will be charging $1,500. This isn't as badly overpriced as Panasonic and Olympus' lenses, but it's close. There is always the possibility that the image quality will be exceptional (for example, the Panasonic 42.5mm lens is priced too high, but at least the images are great) but since this is Samsung, I doubt it.

Moreover, if you are interested in saving money, you can buy very impressive lenses for cheaper than this lens from Sigma for Canon, Nikon, Sony, and even Pentax.

Basically, Samsung has given us no reason to ever consider their cameras, and this show doesn't change that.

Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8: Just as with Samsung, Olympus is releasing a similar lens with a similarly stupid price. Worse for Olympus, they have superior optical designs available in their Zuiko lens line, but they incomprehensibly refuse to release them.

Panasonic GM5: The strange success of the GM1 has of course spawned the GM5. It's slightly larger but has a few more features. Just as with Sony and their bizarre feature swapping with the various versions of the RX100, the GM5 loses the flash of the GM1 and replaces it with a viewfinder and hotshoe. I feel as though Panasonic is chasing the success of the Nikon 1, without realizing that the 1 only succeeded because it was a Nikon. It was actually a terrible camera.

Moreover, to me, this is Panasonic going down a market niche that is already dead. The GM1 was a surprise to me, but it wasn't a huge hit. It was simply a success. This area of the market — compact, fashionable phones — is doomed to die. Cell phone imaging has already reached a point where most people are happy with it for their uses. And as phone companies increasingly focus on their cameras, stylish, small cameras stand no chance.

The Ugly:

Canon EOS 7D: Canon's EOS 7D Mark II was a huge disappointment. The 7D, for reasons I do not fathom, was a legend. It was a huge success, selling millions of units over its five year life. Its sequel is an event. Leave it to Canon to make that event so thoroughly meh. The 7D MkII isn't even terribly competitive with other cameras from last year.

Canon has also spent the past five years showing everyone that it doesn't give a shit about APS-C as a viable professional format. Everyone thought the 7D heralded a new wave of pro-level crop lenses, but these never appeared. We got some in the form of Sigma and Tamron's excellent crop lenses, but none from Canon. Hell, if not for Fuji and Sigma, I would say that APS-C is dead.

Along with that, Canon will cripple its video so as not to step on the toes of their more expensive video equipment. And for the honor of owning this product, you will have to pay almost as much as the Sony A7R, nearly twice as much as a Nikon D7100 or Sony A77, and right about the same price as the Nikon D600 and Canon 6D.

There is only one conclusion to draw: Canon is insane.

The Open Camera Module: Olympus should be proud. They're the only company to make all three lists. Their Open Module display was just silly. To me, this was Olympus saying "Look! We innovate and stuff too! We've got, like, ideas!"

I make this highly negative assessment because even in their presentations they say that they are unsure as to why or how anyone would use this. This is Olympus screwing around and thinking that it was viable for public presentation. It's not. Try making something that people want.

Nikon D750: It seems pretty harsh to place this under ugly, but it's because this camera is much more than just a camera, it reveals the intransigence that still holds sway at Nikon.

Basically, the entire market is changing. Camera sales are dropping. SLR sales are dropping quickly and mirrorless cameras are not picking up the slack effectively, even though their sales are increasing. This state of affairs was predicted by me, certainly, but my many, many others long before I started writing. This isn't news. Lots of people knew this was coming.

So instead of changing with the times, Nikon is doubling down, apparently under the assumption that there are hidden islands of camera-buying demographics that their current product line-up somehow doesn't cover. That is the philosophy behind the D750: there are people for whom the D610 is too cheap and the D810 is too expensive.

I do not believe these people exist. There are people who would buy the D810 if it cost as much as the D750, but Nikon isn't doing that. There are people who would buy the D610 if it had more features, but Nikon isn't doing that. Instead, they are making yet another iteration in between the two and charging a premium for it.

Panasonic CM1: Panasonic's last effort in the cell phone space was two years ago with the Eluga. It had a rather cool commercial that was ruined by five solid seconds of branding and stupid slogans. It was a catastrophe that lost Panasonic a bucket of money. It was a nice cell phone, and was one of the first to be water sealed, but they tried selling it for $700.



The phone underperformed almost every other major phone on the market. If they had sold it for $300, they might have stood a chance, but that trademark Japanese Electronics Company arrogance came out in full force and they tried charging over twice that. And today, Sony is making the news because their own smartphone division is losing buckets of money because Sony continues to try to charge a premium for their products without any actual innovation.

Not to be outdone, Panasonic is back at it, with an even more ridiculous phone at an even more ridiculous price. Since Panasonic skipped the 1" sensor altogether with the LX100, they decided to put one in a phone. A very large phone. Actually, it's not really a phone, it's a camera with a phone in it. In fact, Panasonic is even calling it a smart camera. And they're so unsure of this Frankenstein creation that they're only releasing it in France and Germany... for some reason. Oh, and they're charging 900 Euros for it.

Everything is wrong with this stupid creation. First, before I rip it to shreds, understand that I think cell phone imaging is in need of significant innovation. I thought that Sony's QX cameras were a good start, and I own a Nokia 1020, warts and all. The prospects for imaging in our little, pocket-sized supercomputers are limitless. If they had left the CM1 in the oven for a while longer, it may have come out truly desirable, but in its current form, it's like trying to make a very small layer cake instead of just baking a great cupcake.

I could really go for a cupcake right now.

Setting aside my lack of cupcakes, let's look at this cameraphone the three ways available to us: as a camera with a phone; as a phone with a camera; as a hybrid.

As a camera with a phone, it sucks. It's nothing more than a severely limited P&S in a bulky body. This is irritating because I argue that the first company to release a high-powered product with an Android OS will own the future of imaging. They refuse to do this because that would require opening up their system, and none of them want to do this. They all want to be Canon and Nikon, with their walled gardens filled with their chattle, from whom they can suck blood at will. It's the same blind greed that stops companies from releasing cell phones that are truly open.

So basically, this is a bad camera with what will likely be a mediocre phone attached to it.

Looking at it the other way around is just as problematic. This is a terrible phone. It's wide and bulky and will never fit into a jean pocket. It's nearly twice as expensive as an unlocked iPhone or Galaxy S. No one with their sights set on a phone will give this a second look.

But what about the final way? How about looking at as a unique hybrid. This is undobutedly how Panny would like you to see the phone, since it's the only way this could make sense, but a hybrid is supposed to give you the best of both worlds, not the worst. The CM1 isn't compact like a phone nor feature-rich like a camera. It has the bulk of a camera without the features!

Perhaps Panny thinks they can add features in software, but that requires a company that actually knows software, and Panny doesn't know software at all. If they promised that this will be the first in a long line of CM cameras, developers might, might, fill the breach, but that is highly unlikely when they could instead release software for Android or iOS and reach a far wider market.

For the hybrid angle to work, the CM1 would need to offer something very similar to carrying both a phone and a camera, while offering the ease of a unified body. For 900 Euros (about $1,200), I could buy an iPhone (on contract) and a new LX100 and still have money left over! The iPhone fits easily in my pocket, and I'm quite accustomed to carrying a camera around on a strap. Basically, the CM1 is the answer to a problem no one has.

That doesn't mean I think that it's not a shot in the right direction. It is. But Panasonic has proven quite well that they are not a phone company. They are better at making cameras. And make no mistake, a camera with Android is still the future, but it will only be the future when the letters attached to it are S, L, and R.

All of this is unfortunate, since I would likely buy this camera... phone... Camerhone? Cameroon? Phonera? Who cares. I would likely buy this if it wasn't such a mess and for all for an eye-watering price. I've never owned a "normal" phone. I've always owned a strange phone from a faraway land. Back in the day I was importing Nokia N-series phones for their badass cameras. Before that, I was rocking an Ericsson that was originally on Vodafone in Germany. I have a thing for weird phones, so I am perhaps the person most likely to look upon the CM1 fondly, and I still think that it's stupid.

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And that's that. Another year, come and gone. I'm not seeing the level of competitiveness that I would have hoped for, but even this boring year is way beyond the dreary 2000's, where each year brought nothing in the way of innovation save for more, overpriced Canon and Nikon garbage. That says a lot about the industry where even a bad year is actually pretty good.

It's a good time to take photos.

Fuji Again Impresses With Its Lens Roadmap

Last year, Fuji impressed with its lens roadmap. This year, they're doing it again. I feel safe in saying that Fuji and Sigma are showing every other company how its done, at least as far as lenses go.

We finally get our first glimpse of a super-telephoto zoom that isn't blah like the 55-200mm. We also get our first glimpse of a very interesting 16-55mm, which is the long-missed 24-70mm equivalent zoom, with even more on the long end, extending out to 82mm equivalent. Granted, that zoom extreme will likely be too soft to be of much use.

I very much hope that Sigma gets into the X-mount game. It's not yet a replacement for a giant system like Nikon or Canon, but it is getting there much more quickly than Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, or Olympus. Bravo.

The Epidemic Of Crap Mirrorless Lenses Continues Unabated

I love Fuji. I will probably be buying my first Fuji camera soon, maybe the upcoming X Pro 2, and appreciate their focus on the enthusiast.

That said, even Fuji has partaken of the odd habit in the mirrorless world of designing and building crappy lenses and then correcting those lenses in software. This applies to all aspects of bad lens design: aberrations, distortion, vignetting, and even flare. Micro 4/3 has been the absolute worst, with many of their lenses being full-priced while having distortion and vignetting that would cause a Leica engineer to literally crap their pants. And I mean literally literally. Poop would leave their butt and drop into their pants. This would be amazing because Leica is German, and as we all know, Germans do not poop. They just hold it until they die of old age.

Oh, right. Fuji. Well, Fuji had produced some lenses with less-than-ideal characteristics. The 18mm had noticeably bad distortion, and the 60mm macro had difficult-to-correct pincushion distortion. But Fuji has truly outdone itself with its very own overpriced piece of crap, the 16-50mm.

But, you may ask, how could a $400 lens be overpriced? That's not too expensive. Well, it is. The 16-50mm produced an eye-watering seven-point-two-percent distortion at 16mm. As Photozone points out, that's nearing fish-eye territory. The distortion is so bad that the corrected distortion is nearly 1%. Good god, Fuji!

Perhaps if the resolution was amazing, but it's not. It is decidedly average. And the average in this category includes lenses that cost $200 and are superior in every single way.

This is a major disappointment from a company that has done nothing but innovate and price their products well. I suppose that every company makes a mistake now and then. I just hope that this is Fuji's first and last.

Fuji Announces X-E2. Updates X100. Gets Me Excited All Over Again

I wanted to like Fuji's X Pro 1. I really did. I loved the design, I loved the innovation. I loved that a company was putting out lots of new, interesting products. But good god, the autofocus really was as bad as people say it was.

Also, the menu system and digital controls were designed by someone who was missing some very important part of the brain. The physical aspects were beautiful, and the early lenses were quality, but the cameras were just too quirky to really consider.

Fuji has kept at it over the course of the past two years, though, and has iterated its cameras more quickly than any other company before it, updated software, and continued to refine its design. Fuji deserves massive kudos for being, sadly, unique in the camera industry.

Before I get into Fuji's two new cameras, I want to send some props their way. They have updated the original X100 with new firmware that gives it a big performance boost. I want to stress that no other company has done this before. Even though there is no reason aside from greed, companies almost always tie new software to a new product. You want the newest menu system? Buy the newest camera! Every company does this, to the point of some companies releasing a "new" camera where the only difference is the software.

Fuji has not done this. The act of updating a camera that has been out for years, and superseded by another, newer camera, is unheard of. They have shown that they want to do what they can do to make the user experience as excellent as it can be.

So yeah, now back to your regularly scheduled camera release. The XE-2 is, unsurprisingly, the update to the XE-1. It has the usual bevy of tweaks and bits that most new cameras come with, but it maintains the same basic design. It's disappointing that it doesn't have a new EVF, since its old/current one is inferior to the E-M5... which is inferior to the E-M1.

The headlining feature is the release of a new processor/sensor combo. The processor is important because, as we've seen with comparisons between raw converters, the processing of X-Trans data is critical to a good image. To see this, just compare Aperture or Capture One to Adobe Lightroom with raws from a Fuji camera; the differences are stark.

The sensor sports PDAF focusing points, like seemingly every major mirrorless release these days (to be fair, Fuji was among the first with the X100S), and Fuji is claiming the fastest autofocus of any mirrorless ever. Since Olympus has been claiming this with every camera they release, and since Canon's PDAF-using EOS M still couldn't focus for shit, you should all know by now that this is useless marketing speak. What's important vis-a-vis Fuji, though, is that this is actually Fuji saying "Hey! Our AF doesn't suck anymore!"

That is a big deal. The Fuji X-Trans is a magical sensor when it comes to high-ISO work, but the original autofocus system absolutely fell on its face in anything but bright light, meaning that the camera rendered its own headlining feature pointless. With that problem possibly fixed, there are few reasons to not jump into Fuji's camp.

Fuji also released an "enthusiast compact" called the XQ1. No one cares about this camera.

Oh, and finally, there are rumors that Fuji is planning a full-frame camera in the near future, like 2014-ish. All I have to say about that, is this.

Fuji 14mm f/2.8 Reviewed: Damn-Near No Distortion

One of the things that infuriates me the most out of Micro 4/3 is the space-time-ripping distortion levels on the lenses. They hide this optical flaw in software. Many times, this is invisible, but other times, it is not.

Fuji's lenses likewise have used this trick on a couple of occasions, the 18mm comes to mind, which pissed me off. But Fuji has brought out the big guns for its newest 14mm lens. I'm talking distortion of a nearly-imperceptible 0.22%. Compare that to Olympus' similarly-priced 12mm lens with distortion of a very noticeable 5.4%. The Olympus is faster by a full stop, but the Fuji is wider by 3mm equivalent.

This is a good lens at a fair price. It's a sad day we live in when we must praise a company for simply making a decent product.

Fuji X100S Still Has A Quirk

More photos from the upcoming Fuji X100S are leaking out. The lens appears to definitely be the same as the X100, which is good I guess. It was a decent lens. The few people who have handled the camera also confirm that the autofocus is indeed much better (thank god). What has stood out, for me at least, is that the newest version of the X Trans sensor is retaining, infuriatingly, the same rendering quirks as the X Pro and X-E1.

Notably is the "painting" look that caused landscape photographers reject Fuji's baby in droves. The rendering can be seen most strongly in some field photos taken by Steve Huff, here. I'm not going to steal his images, because he deserves your clicks. Scroll down to the photos of the hanging shoes and look at the bokeh behind the brown boot. It looks awful on the Fuji. This problem was first found in the X Pro 1 and likely has to do with whatever wizardry is taking place to translate the X Trans sensor into an actual picture.

As I said, this is upsetting. Not terribly so, mind you, but upsetting. Fuji is pushing harder than any other company. Every camera generation is a significant upgrade from the previous generation, proving that Fuji understands that in the world of solid-state designs, "good enough" doesn't stay good enough for long.

So while I think it unfortunate that this particular problem has persisted in three generations of the camera, I maintain confidence that Fuji will get it worked out sooner rather than later. Granted, it's one of the reasons why Fuji has yet to receive any of my money... which is actually a pretty massive problem for Fuji now that I think about it... but Fuji remains on my radar in a way that no other company does.

Fuji's First Kit Zoom Is A Home Run

Fuji released along with the XE-1 a new kit zoom, which by nothing more than the virtue of an f/2.8 max aperture. The real question was of course whether the lens would measure up in other metrics, and compliments of a new review and Photozone, we can finally know.

It's very good. Not excellent, but it holds up well in comparison to other kit zooms. The resolution is fantastic, but the distortion at the wide end is significant. Again, it's as though the one thing that other camera companies have taken away from Micro 4/3 is that it is totally acceptable to produce a lens with sky-high distortion since it can be corrected in software. No. That is lazy lens design.

Similarly, the vignetting is pretty high, being well over 1-EV at f/2.8. This isn't a deal-breaker, especially with the Fuji sensor's low shadow noise, allowing the edges to be easily brought up in post. And considering the excellent resolution characteristics, only a fool would reject the lens.

My only criticism is that the lens is only a good deal if you buy it in the kit. As a stand-alone lens, it is still good for the price, $600, but not great. In the kit, it only costs $400, which is a great deal indeed.

Fuji Is Looking Increasingly Attractive

I recently posted about my disillusionment with Sony. I have been one of Sony's biggest boosters for the last two years. Sony essentially obivated every other sensor company on the planet with the release of their new sensors starting in 2009. They up and ripped the mirrorless market from Micro 4/3 in a six-month time frame with the release of the mega-successful NEX-5 and then 5n.¹ Then they did the same thing to the high-end P&S market with the one-two punch of the RX100 then the RX1.

But for each of these glimmering points of innovation, they have been average-to-poor in other areas. Obviously, from an enthusiast's perspective, their lack of work in lenses has been depressing. Both Canon and Nikon have refused to produce APS-C lenses of quality, even after they both released promising pro-thusiast cameras in the form of the EOS 7D and the D7000. Sony seemed content in following the same path.

But where Cankon have massive extant systems, Sony's lens system is small. The aftermarket is equally anemic. One could almost understand this inaction, seeing as despite Sony's best efforts,² they have made little headway in the SLR market against the entrenched duopoly. But they made immediate and significant headway into the pro-thusiast market with the NEX series, especially with the NEX-7.

And yet, we have one lens. one. The Zeiss 24mm. Yes, there are rumors that Zeiss has three more lenses in the pipes, but I will believe that when I see it, and I will also believe that they are indeed worth it when I see it. Zeiss lenses have a tendency to be overpriced for their performance, and combined with Sony's equal penchant to try and trade on their "brand," I do not expect amazing performance for the price. I will not be surprised if they are good -- after all, both companies know what they are doing -- but I don't expect it.

If the three Zeiss lenses are good, I will bite my tongue. The NEX-7 will finally get the lenses that it deserves... a year and a half after it was released. This will fix the material problem, but it doesn't fix the philosophical problem that the actions evinced; it appears that Sony is infected with some of the same germs that currently surge through the corpus of Cankon.

It is that slow speed and pathological desire to only sell lenses of real quality for ultra-premiums prices to the pro market, and thus refusal to make anything for the entry and enthusiast market that may take away from those sales, that makes me seek out another company.³ I think that I see that company in Fuji.

Obviously, the X Pro 1 had many faults, as did the X100 before it. The X10 was laughable in my opinion. But what is important is that Fuji is noticeably evolving with every generation. The X100 had many problems, and the X100S is a big upgrade in many ways. Compare this to the "upgrades" that Cankon produces, where they grind out the same fucking camera year after year.

Even among their disparate models, and not just direct successors, we see fast evolution. The X Pro 1 was released with fixes from the X100, then the X-E1 was released with fixes from the X Pro 1, now the X100S is released with big fixes from all of the previous models. This degree of every year, significant changes is the type of business model that Apple uses. It's the type that I want to see.

The photographic business had grown accustomed to releasing a product and then being able to milk that product for profit for years. In the world of solid-state technology, that no longer works. Iterations and development need to be annual and significant. Moreover, as this happens, prices for everything are going to come down. What was once the high-end will become mid-range, and what was once mid-range will be inside cell phones. Fighting this is not only suicidal from a business perspective, it is infuriating from a consumer perspective because the idiocy of large companies can hold back exciting innovation.

Fuji seems more interested in doing than any other company, and this was only apparent with the announcement of the X100S. Even if it still has tons of problems, it is progress -- progress worth rewarding. 

I am waiting to see what Olympus' next release is, since they've only had one camera since they switched over to Sony sensors: the E-M5. It, along with the stellar 75mm lens, was enough to keep my invested in m4/3, and if the follow-up to the E-M5 is a significant development, it may be worthy of genuine excitement.

Still, as it stands, Fuji needs to be recognized as the only company continually progressing in every way.

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1: Obviously, Micro 4/3 continues to do very well in Japan, but nowhere else. In both Europe and North America, the NEX 5 and 5n are far-and-away the most popular mirrorless cameras.

2: Really, it hasn't been Sony's best effort. Sony still thinks they have some super-valuable brand for which people will pay extra, and as such, when they could undercut the market and really make some sales, they charge a premium and shoot themselves in the foot.

3: This is a pathology that is in every camera company to a degree. They grow so fat on the profits of professional photographers that they are cripplingly terrified of selling anything good to lower markets. Why do you think Olympus refuses to translate any of their good, Zuiko lenses over to Micro 4/3? Greed and stupidity.

Fuji X100S And The Question On Everyone's Mind

Fuji is at CES, along with a number of other companies, and they brought with them the much-anticipated update to the X100: the X100S. It has 100% more S than the previous camera.

The camera appears more or less identical to the original X100 as regards design. The big news is of course the mind-blowing 16Mp sensor for the X Pro and X-E1 is hiding inside. I wonder if they have also upgraded the lens in any way, since it was a bit soft at times on the old 12Mp sensor, and increased resolution would only accentuate these issues. They don't specify anything on their website, so I can only assume that the lens is the same. We can't have everything, I suppose, as $1,300 is a competitive price.

The sensor upgrade was a foregone conclusion. While it is nice, what everyone is really interested in is whether Fuji has fixed the autofocus issues. They claim it is the fastest in the industry. I will believe that when I see it, since almost every camera company on the planet has been able to claim this title at some point in the past couple of years, and it is always a disappointment. That said, I'm sure that it is an upgrade, since Fuji was already among the worst, so they really had nowhere to go but up. And importantly, the AF was really the only critical flaw of Fuji's earlier cameras -- everything else was at least good-- meaning that Fuji is highly motivated to concentrate on it.

The X100S is an interesting camera. It would be a downright exciting camera if not for Fuji's history of poor AF. If they have those issues under control, than the X100S could turn out to be the fixed-lens camera to beat for 2013. Now comparing it to the Sony RX1, which was released in 2012, then things get tricky.

The Fuji X-E1 Is Exciting If and ONLY If...

Fuji announced the new X-E1 today... or yesterday depending what timezone you're in. It looks great, comes with a good lens, and sports that retro-sexiness that has been carrying Fuji quite well since the release of the X100.

I opened this with an if, and it's a big one: autofocus. I know that many people have found the autofocus speed tolerable. I did not. I found it atrocious. It was, all things considered, the thing that made me reject the possibility of buying the X Pro 1. Basically, the XP1 was an absolute marvel in low light. It's low-ISO performance was on par with other APS-C cameras, but past ISO-800, it just started to sing. It was noise performance that I'm not sure I would have ever expected out of an APS-C camera. It was in a different league.

That would make working in high-speed, low-light environments an ideal playground for the XP1. It was not to be, though. The AF speed literally crashes in low-light. Light levels that would require ISO-1600, and the places where I'd want the Fuji sensor, were no-man's land for the XP1.

Fuji is claiming an increase in AF speed, and I hope that's true. $999 for the body is much more tenable of a price and puts this camera right where it belongs: up against the NEX-7 and the E-M5. The Fuji also comes to the fight with what I'm sure will be a vastly superior kit lens that drops down to (heavenly trumpets) f/2.8!

I'd say that the NEX-7 is at the biggest risk, seeing as it is $200 more than the Fuji for the body only. Do not be surprised when the 7 magically has a $200 price drop in the next few weeks. The kit will cost $100 more than the Olympus kit, but that's immaterial at this price range. The Oly kit and the Fuji kit are essentially chasing the same people. What this does is show how ashamed the 4/3 group should be of their lenses, when Fuji can release a premium kit lens on an APS-C sensor, and the smaller 4/3-sensor zooms rarely drop below f/3.5.

This is a great time to be a camera enthusiast. We now have a whole messa'cameras around the $1,000 price point, and they all offer great things. And I'm not just talking about mirrorless, either. The upcoming Nikon D8000 will be here, as will Pentax's K5 successor. And ageing though it is, the Sony A65 is still a great camera. Move up the price spectrum and we can include the sub-$2,000 full-frame cameras that are rumored to be coming out from both Nikon and Sony.

While the $500 range will always represent the greatest number of sales, the $1000-$2000 category has essentially become the most competitive, exciting place to be. It's good to be alive.

P.S. I know that this is a small thing, but have companies just given up on having a flash-sync of 1/250th? The Olympus E-M5 has it, and for that it will always have a nod of respect, but the X-E1 doesn't. Isn't $1,000 enough for that feature? Is it something to do with the mirrorless design? I've noticed that many sub-$1,000 SLR cameras have this. WTF, people!

The Photography World Is Undergoing A Sea Change

So much stuff, so little time. I've been saying that the photography world is undergoing its largest shifts since the changeover to autofocus. The number and quality of competition is skyrocketing, what with Olympus and Panasonic finally putting up a fight, Sony really kicking ass, and Fuji delivering the most groundbreaking sensor since the beginning of digital. And while the video and mirrorless revolutions have not yet specifically unseated Canon and Nikon as the default camera companies, these were the vectors by which other companies have managed to gain footholds.

After the NEX-7, Olympus E-M5, RX100, and Fuji X Pro 1, what could possibly be released to top that? Plenty! First, today, Sony announced the NEX 5R. The successor to the immensely successful NEX 5N, the 5R's key feature is the inclusion of phase-detection pixels on the sensor, which have become the de rigeur technology to have seemingly overnight. What the 5R shows, though, is that Sony is deadly serious about grinding out updates, real updates, on a very rapid basis.

And it's not even the only NEX camera! We know that the NEX 7 will remain the flagship NEX camera for awhile longer, but apparently Sony thinks that there is some room underneath for another model. I'm not sure I agree and don't think that the camera will be a huge hit, but whatev's; Sony's trying. The NEX 6 is going to be rocking a viewfinder, possible the same amazing viewfinder in the NEX 7, but will implement the new 16MP sensor from the 5R instead of the thundering 24MP version in the 7. I said that the NEX series is getting white hot, and that is absolutely still true.

Fuji's sales of the X Pro 1 have flatlined pretty badly, or so I've heard. There was a big rush of interest, for obvious reasons, but that it died much more quickly than cameras usually do. Why this happened is fodder for another post, but Fuji was anticipating this and are not going to let their little sensor that could molder away in a high-priced camera that doesn't sell. As such, they are going to be releasing the X Pro's little brother, the X-E1! It will have the same sensor and a sexy body in its own right, but will be missing some of the X Pro's fancy doodads, like the hybrid viewfinder.

What's interesting though is that some leaked photos indicate that it will have a viewfinder, though, just not hybrid. This is a ballsy move on Fuji's part because it threatens to cannibalize some of the sales of the X Pro 1. Rumors are swirling that the X Pro 2 is only six months away, though, so Fuji may be looking at the Pro 1 as having spent its load.

I'm glad that Fuji is pressing into new price categories, since that's the only thing that's going to put serious pressure on Cankon. But at the same time, the thing that stopped me from buying into the X Pro 1 wasn't the price, it was all of the functional concessions that I would have had to make. The problem was that, aside from the sensor, everything about the Olympus E-M5 and Sony NEX-7 was superior, at times significantly. That's the kind of thing that you can't overlook when laying down $1600 on a camera body. Still, the lower the price, the less the motivation to resist saying "fuck it," and buying in regardless of any reservations.

What I really hope to see soon are the new lenses. The X-E1 is going to be using the same lenses as the X Pro 1, so even though the rumored price of the X-E1 of $1,000 let's me enter the XF system for $600 less, we only really have three lenses, and of those three, only two are worthwhile. The XF series is desperate for some more lenses. I mention this because Olympus just released the 75mm lens, which provides a 150mm equivalent, and it. Is. Amazing. That's very attractive to any enthusiasts and pros looking for compact size. I know that Fuji is going to announce a few lenses before the year is out, and I have high hopes that they are good. Because, man, Fuji's sensor is just unbeatable.

Being a Micro 4/3 man, announcements in that world are always exciting. The Olympus E-M5 was a bit of a disappointment for me in many ways, which is why I am holding out for the Panasonic GH3. Thankfully, the Panasonic AF100 has been a pretty big failure. This means that Panny is going to stop being like Canon and artificially segmenting their products as they did with the GH2 and the AF100. A large number of features that should have been in the GH2 were not, and were only unlocked with one of the firmware hacks that, oh right, everyone ever has, and that's because Panny didn't want to step on the toes of the bigger brother.

And as is frequently the case, when a company artificially segmented its products, it failed. Shocker. So with that bit of blithering stupidity out of their system, Panasonic is going whole-hog with the GH3. It's going to have a new sensor with a lower noise floor, weather sealed pro-level body, a high bit-rate mode, and hopefully enough connectivity to make your eyes pop. The magic of the IBIS on video on the E-M5 make it very attractive, but the lack of serious video functionality limits its appeal. The GH3 could be the the camera for budding videographers.

Finally, the first effects of the competition are being seen on Canon. While the C100 is an otherwise boring camera, the price is very interesting. It was going to be released for $8,000, putting it squarely in competition with the Sony FS700. In fact, this price was so set in stone, that sources and statements on the price up to now have all been quoting the $8k figure. Suddenly, though, pre-order pages are showing prices for £5,000 GBP. This is a last-minute course correction and the first visible sign that Canon even recognizes the existence of other companies and their products.

It's obviously a wan tilt of the hat, and I don't think that it will be enough to counter Canon's hitherto unfettered intransigence, but it is something, and something is more than nothing. Too bad the Blackmagic camera, GH3, whatever the hell Sony is cooking up, and number of other things on the horizon make Canon's products moot. They started going after the RED/ARRI market just as that market was starting to erode from the bottom up.

All in all, we have more competition than ever before, more innovation than ever before, and lower prices than ever before. Everything is looking up.

DPReview Posts, After Much Ado, Its Fuji X10 Review

DPReview finally got its replacement Fuji X10 back and put it through the paces. It does as well as other reviews indicated that it would.

As with every Fuji camera, there are some pretty significant quirks. Autofocus is poor, software is odd, operational speed is hit-&-miss — you should be used to this by now. The biggest issue for me is the price. I do not think that it significantly outperforms the Canon G12, Panasonic LX-5, and Olympus XZ-1, yet it costs hundreds more. And with the Sony RX100 soon widely available, the X10 has been almost completely obviated. The one advantage that it holds is that the lens only drops to f/2.8 at the long end, which is impressive.

DPReview brings up a pretty big operational problem: RAW processing. When playing around with the Fuji X Pro 1, I was disappointed that shooting in RAW gave a performance hit. Only the Jpeg images were able to extract all of the detail that the sensor had to offer. Still, the differences were hard to notice most of the time.

That is not the case with the X10. Shooting RAW is literally not an option, at least not yet. The RAW files look like total crap. It's obvious that the processing software makers have not yet figured out what to do with Fuji's quirky sensor. You can shoot RAW and then process them in-camera — an increasingly popular feature — but no camera will ever come close to what is possible on a dedicated workstation.

I still kinda' want this camera. Just as I still kinda' want both the X100 and X Pro 1. For all of their problems, Fuji has injected a sense of romance and quality into their cameras that other companies just have not managed. I still won't buy it, since the Sony RX100 is a wildly more capable camera for only a bit more money, but I can't help but like this thing. As I have said with every camera that Fuji is making, I hope that they fix the problems in version 2, because I'll absolutely jump on board.

Hurrah! DPReview Posts Fuji X Pro 1 Review.

DPReview has posted its review of the Fuji X Pro 1 aaaaaand pretty much everything that one could expect from a full review has come true.

They love the image quality, the dynamic range, the detail, and the ISO performance. They hate the operational quirks and the autofocus. They also measured something that I wasn't expecting, that all ISO settings are 1/3 to 2/3 low. I assaulted the Olympus E-M5 for having a similar problem — I actually suspect that Olympus did it on purpose to game tests — and the Fuji won't get off easy, either. Having accurate ISO measurements is important. If your camera does not have them, don't fuck around with the sensor, simply rename your sensitivity levels.

This also means that cameras from Sony don't perform quite as badly in comparison, since both the NEX-7 and NEX-5n measure higher, with the NEX-7 measuring 1/3 stop higher than nominal. That means that the NEX-7 is actually exposing a full stop more per ISO setting than the X Pro 1.

That difference is enough to make the Olympus look bad in comparison, which is why I suspect that Oly did it on purpose — also because Oly's last big camera, the E5, was wildly inaccurate, with measured ISO settings being a full stop below nominal. But the Fuji doesn't need to worry about this. It looks fine in comparison! It's still much better than the NEX 7. There is no reason to be inaccurate, so why not be?

Regardless, the camera came out with a mostly good review. If Fuji can fix the AF issues, which may require updated lenses, and functional issues that can likely be done in firmware, they will have a world-beater.

Fuji's Lens Roadmap Is Impressive

The speculation can come to an end! Fuji has announced its lens roadmap for the rest of 2012 and all of 2013 and it is impressive indeed. The odd fixed aperture f/4.0 lenses are no more, replaced with zoom lenses with variable apertures that go all the way down to f/2.8 in the 18-55mm "kit" zoom. The 10-24mm maintains the fixed f/4.0, which considering the competition is rather expected. They are definitely taking advantage of the X Pro 1's exceptional low-light performance and being somewhat conservative in the speed of their lenses. This could be an excellent decision if they instead focus on sharpness and evenness across the frame.

With the lenses confirmed, I think that being somewhat effusive is called for. Sony's NEX system has been around for well over a year with only a single good lens. Micro 4/3 is nearing its fourth birthday and only in the last few months has it finally started releasing some good glass. Fuji's X Pro system will be less than a year old and have eight, count'em eight, lenses available. And if current lenses are any indication, they will be high-quality glass ready for even top-pro applications. Other camera companies should be ashamed.

I wish that the X Pro 1 wasn't such a mess in some truly critical ways, because I would jump on that train in a heartbeat. But as it is, I already have a lot of Micro 4/3 gear, the lenses are finally up-to-snuff, and the new Olympus E-M5 is, FINALLY, the camera that I wanted two years ago as a follow-up to the GF1. Granted, it's how good the GH3 is that will be the final deciding factor in whether I stick with the system, but the E-M5 is a great start.

This is about Fuji, though, and they deserve congratulations. A fantastic start to a nascent system.

Fuji Accelerating Lens Development

Fuji is apparently amping up its lens design in response to the huge success of the Fuji X Pro 1. The rumored lenses generally sound excellent, especially the rumored 14mm lens. As far as I know, that would be the widest-angle prime APS-C lens available. Canon's 10-22mm and Nikon's 10-24mm are available but are zooms, and neither of them are terribly impressive. A max-aperture of f/1.4 is possible, but this is doubtful. Currently, Nikon's 14mm FX prime is only f/2.8 and costs nearly two grand, and Canon's equivalent lens is $2,400! The APS-C sensor size will allow for smaller, and thus cheaper optics — as evidenced by the Pentax 14mm f/2.8 which costs $950 — but they would need Jesus designing and building their lenses to get a 14mm f/1.4 lens for a reasonable price.


The second piece of big news is the likelihood of a zoom lens. It obviously wouldn't be an extreme zoom, and would instead by a walkaround lens of 18-72mm with a constant f/4.0 aperture. The constant f/4.0 is a disappointment for such a conservative focal length, especially considering that Fuji will likely want at least a grand for the lens. f/3.5 would have been desirable considering that both Nikon and Canon have kit zooms that drop to f/3.5 and higher-end APS-C zooms that are f/2.8 constant. I doubt that this zoom will sell very well.


Further down the line brings more zooms, all, curiously, with an f/4.0 constant aperture. The 72-200mm sounds interesting, and the constant f/4.0 would be competitive, but I seriously doubt that it's going to very good. I also seriously doubt the successful implementation of the quasi-RF ergonomics with a 200mm lens. The 28mm pancake sounds exciting and will join Canon's new 40mm f/2.8 pancake in the long-belated chase of the exceptional Panasonic 20mm. The 23mm f/2.0 is just a 35mm equivalent that should have been available at or near the launch. 2013 is rather late.


Other than that, the X Pro 1 lens selection will be essentially complete for general applications after only eighteen months on the market. That is an exceptional achievement for a company that, until recently, had been reduced to even less than an also-ran. Perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself. We must wait to see how the lenses actually perform. But here's hoping.

New Reviews Of Fuji X Pro 1 Lenses

Some real, charted reviews of Fuji's three X Pro 1 lenses have, at long last, been posted. I'm surprised that it took this long, but so be it.

The 18mm lens performs as expected: very sharp in the center and rather poor in the edges. The images were a disappointment and so are these review results. Chromatic aberrations are rather high, to boot. All in all, I would not buy this lens.

Their example of the 35mm performs within the range that was expected. I say that way because it actually performs worse than the example that I used. This is a subjective analysis, obviously, but their charts show the lens performing only adequately up to f/4.0. My experience with the lens had it performing very well at the image edge at f/2.0. Again, subjective.

The 60mm lens performs almost identically to the Canon EF-S 60mm macro as regards resolution and trades wins vis a vis chromatic aberrations and vignetting. There is no complete winner, but I would definitely choose the Canon over the Fuji for its AF that actually works.

The conclusions to be reached were reached some time ago from the various subjective tests released by famous online photographers: the 60mm and 35mm are both very much worth their price, the 18mm is not. Fuji should be proud. Two fantastic lenses at the launch of their system is more than 4/3, Micro 4/3, NEX, and Samsung's NX cameras. Hell, Pentax has had their APS-C cameras out for years and still doesn't have anything world-class. Good show, Fuji.

Now, if you can just fix that AF.

My Very Short Time With the Fuji X Pro 1

I recently had a chance to play around with the Fuji X Pro 1 over the course of a couple of days. I figured that I would add my voice to the cacophony of reviews littering the web. I found that I used the optical viewfinder rarely, so issues with framing lines that many people had were never a problem for me.

Me Likey:

• Image quality is amazing. Review photos barely do it justice. It's not quite up there with a 5D Mark II, but it's very close. Color saturation is excellent. Detail at high-ISO is amazing, but color saturation drops off at about the same point as most other APS-C cameras.
• The body is very light. Some have complained about this, and I get their point, but it's much easier on the arms than a FF camera. Still, I enjoy the feel of my GF1 more.
• The 35mm lens is critically sharp.
• The 60mm macro is a noticeable upgrade in almost all optical ways compared to the Canon 60mm EF-S.
• I found very few interface quirks that I disliked, unlike the X100. To be fair, I only used the X100 before the firmware upgrade.
• The dial and button layout is excellent.

Me No Likey:

• Autofocus is awful. Really, truly, amazingly awful. It's worse than the X100, the Olympus E-P1, and even the crappy point-&-shoot cameras that I had lying around. Compared to newer mirrorless cameras, it's not even a competition. This AF issue kills any advantage that the 60mm macro has over the Canon equivalent. I like to photograph fast-moving bugs with my lens, and the X Pro 1 is useless in that regard. The AF problem also affects my opinion of the lenses, since companies like Samyang are producing amazing glass for dirt-cheap... they just don't have AF. AF is the primary reason to buy within a company's system.
• The 18mm lens is a huge let-down. Early shots seemed very good, and they are not. The other two lenses are worth their price, no doubt in my mind. The 18mm is not.
• RAW converters still seem to be having a hard time figuring out what to do with the X Pro 1's sensor. It's been out for, what, two months and no updates? Currently, the Out Of Camera (OOC) JPEG's do a much better job of extracting fine details than Lightroom or Capture One. I don't know whether to blame the software companies or Fuji.¹
• I didn't encounter the serious metering issues that many did, but the camera did have a hard time getting it right on a few occasions.
• I had some problems with reds not looking right. I don't know what to make of this.
• Yet another mirrorless camera without focus peaking.
• Bad video, but that's not too big of an issue. I have a GH2 for that.
• The camera is still quirky. After coming from the slick, speed-oriented interface and workflow of Canon, it takes some adjustment, some of which I'm not willing to make. I don't need to feel deliberate and methodical to feel self-important about my photography. I shoot bees and my friends. I'm not photographing presidents.
• No image stabilization system.

I wanted to like this camera a lot more than I did. I still am 100% behind it. Fuji is shaking up the industry and boy howdy does it need that. Everything about this camera is very Leica-y, though, and that only works for Leica because they are Leica. They are a prestige product. People don't own Leica because the photos are fundamentally better. They own Leica because of how it makes them feel when they take the shots.

Fuji understands that insofar as they are charging much, much less for their camera than Leica does. But the weird interface issues, slow autofocus, and lens choices make it obvious that Fuji is shooting not just for the enthusiast crowd, but the Leica crowd.

I am not the Leica crowd. I want every element of the workflow and interface to be flawless. I am willing to make concessions for image quality, as I've frequently said, and this camera's images are very impressive... buuuuuut, no. I just found myself, even after only a day, reaching for other cameras when I went out with friends and needed to get shots quickly before my friends had a chance to yell at me for taking photos.

This camera will absolutely be kept on my back burner. I loved so much of it. Unfortunately, Micro 4/3 has gotten very exciting, very quickly, and that did much to temper my excitement over the Fuji. Similarly, Sony's NEX system is growing quickly, providing further competition. I am not saying that they are superior, I'm only saying that they get so much right that the Fuji gets wrong, that it's hard for me to really drool over the Fuji like I did when it was first announced.

UPDATE:

I should have pointed out that I see little difference between this camera and other top APS-C Cameras at low-ISO. Compared to a Pentax K5 and Sony NEX-5n, noise is visible in solid colors like blue sky that is not visible on the Fuji, but that's it. There is no other difference. I wish I had a 24MP Sony sensor to down-res to 16MP in a base-ISO comparison. I suspect that in that comparison, the Sony sensor would actually be superior.

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1: A member of the Fred Miranda forums posted about watercolor artifacts in RAW conversions. He suspects that Fuji is to blame.

X Pro 1, E-M5, NEX-7, and GX1 All Get Compared

A massive comparison of lenses, cameras, processors, and other cool things has popped up. You can view the Google Translated page dealing with the NEX-7 and E-M5 here. The X-Pro 1 comparison is here.

What stands out to me, which was also apparent after viewing the images at Imaging Resource, is that total noise levels below 3200 are very similar between the X Pro 1 and the NEX-5n/7. It's after that where the X Pro 1 shows a remarkable ability to retain fine detail. It must be the new RGB layout, because it is just so damned impressive.

What is disappointing, though, is that this adds further fuel to the assertion that the Olympus E-M5's sensor is nothing more than the GX1/G3 sensor with better pipes. Still... weather sealing; damn it's nice.

More Reviews Of The X Pro 1 Pour In

The Fuji X Pro 1 appear to be marching toward the same unenviable state as the X100 did, namely, it's amazing in some ways and laughably bad in others. Much like the X100, I imagine that when DPReview posts its review, they will write a special page near the end, listing all of the odd quirks and problems with the camera. To my knowledge, the X100 is still the only camera to ever deserve this "honor."

Luminous Landscape continues their rolling review with Part Deux, and the two big points in this review are that, not only does the autofocus suck, but there are tons of bizarre aspects to the camera that defy all logic. For example, you cannot change your focus point. What? This isn't a Canon EOS from 1988. Fuji's implementation of Auto ISO is incomprehensible, as well. Without going into detail, it is rendered useless.

The other point is that disappointment with the 18mm continues unabated. After the first few shots from the lens seemed to show something exceptionally good, it has been revealed to be rather sub-par. Its sharpness is similar to some kit-zooms, and for a prime lens, that is a shocking indictment. The 60mm and 35mm are sharp as hell, but, yet again, their autofocus is terrible. And without any form of focus peaking, I cannot bring myself to use manual focus lenses for any sort of demanding application.

The reviewer focuses, so to speak, on the 35mm and picks it out for exceptional performance. He compares it to his Leica, because, duh, he owns Leica gear. This gives the X cameras their go-to lens. The 60mm is a bit too long and slow to be that. With an effective focal-length that makes the camera Fuji's "fast fifty," it's the lens everyone will buy. It also appears to make it the sharpest fast-fifty lens on the market. Because, lord knows, the fifties from Canon and Nikon are soft as hell when wide-open.

Finally, as we are starting to get accustomed to hearing, they can't sing the praises of the sensor enough. I hope Fuji patches up the issues with the camera, soon, because I'm starting to drool.

Fuji X-Mount Lenses Get Reviewed

The 35mm f/1.4. Sharp as a tack.

ePhotozine has posted reviews of the three Fuji X-mount lenses and assumptions from the most recent test photos have been borne out in the lab.

All three lenses perform very well. Center sharpness in the 35mm is incredible, shooting well off the top of their charts. The 60mm actually performs a bit worse than I expected, but that's to say it performs well as opposed to amazingly well. The evenness across the frame on the macro is excellent, but macro lenses are frequently like that. So what I'm saying is, there are no surprises with it.

The 18mm and 35mm both perform similarly, with the center of frame much sharper than the edges. With the 35mm, that's not much of an issue since the edges are still very good, but on the 18mm, the edges are a bit disappointing. It only achieves a "good" rating on ePhotozine's charts at f/5.6 and doesn't go much further than that. If this test is confirmed by other tests, I don't think the 18mm is worth the premium.

This is disappointing, I was impressed with early test images of the 18mm, and as more and more images came out, the less impressive the lens became. Ah well. The other two lenses are very good and an excellent start for Fuji's nascent system.