Interview with the Director of Marketing of Fuji USA, herself a keen photographer.
Quite interesting. For example, here we get confirmation that the "pro" in the Fuji X-Pro1 is no accident, like I said, they are aiming for full professional quality here. She says their aim was to make the ultimate leisure-time camera for the professional photographer. Lissa;
...take the image quality above and beyond what is considered mirrorless. So we definitely want to stay in a different stratosphere. Look, are we Leica? It's not going to cost you $15,000 to walk out the door with one of these things, but at the same time we have a premium model here that's going to give you premium results.
She claims that this camera should give full-frame quality (resolution and signal to noise ratio) in a smaller camera and sensor, due to the new type of sensor and lack of softening filter ("low-pass"). Verra interesting. If it really lives up to these claims, and they have a very impressive track record, then the price might be compared to full frame cameras rather than M4/3 cameras, and that's rather a different perspective! Especially since the camera is smaller by far than full-frame cameras are. Actually even smaller than reduced-frame DSLRs, due to no space needed for mirrors and prisms. Could be a good deal in some ways.
If one is the type to hate to compromise on quality, but is tired of 2-kilo cameras, and maybe like to have a 28mm lens and a 90mm lens instead of a zoom, then this camera is a worthy candidate for sure. (They may make zooms in 2013 it seems. I wonder how they will attack that, given the compromise-free approach here. Zooms are usually all about compromise, though less so these days.)
Personally, I'm not sure it's for me. I love it in principle and I'm really happy they made it, but the type of premium quality we're talking about here is mainly noticed in really huge prints, and I don't tend to make those. So, while I reserve the right to change my mind every three minutes like usual, I think the X10 is a better fit for me for now.
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UPDATE:
Will said:
Thanks again for your review of the Fuji X10. I've had mine for a few weeks, and I love it. Best camera I've ever had. It's equally good at family snapshots in peculiar lighting conditions (and aren't they always?) and at serious photography (to the extent I'm capable of it). It really hits the sweet spot.
I fully agree, that camera is really a big surprise. If I could only keep one camera, that would be the one.
It's perfect for things like family documenting. I remember trying to take indoors pics of my nephews with my Fuji F10 (which was otherwise ahead of the curve then). But even though it during day, they just got blurry, shaken. (And on-camera flash looks awful usually.) With the X10 that's no longer a problem, if I can see it, the camera can handle it! The stabilization adds at least two stops, and the sensitivity at least another two stops, that's huge. Oh, and the lens is faster too! (OK, the X10 is bigger than the F10, but not huge. Still a good size for travel.)
17 comments:
Thanks again for your review of the X10. I've had mine for a few weeks, and I love it. Best camera I've ever had. It's equally good at family snapshots in peculiar lighting conditions (and aren't they always?) and at serious photography (to the extent I'm capable of it). It really hits the sweet spot.
I fully agree, that camera is really a big surprise. If I could only keep one camera, that would be the one.
It's perfect for things like family documenting. I remember trying to take indoors pics of my nephews with my Fuji F10 (which was otherwise ahead of the curve then). But even though it during day, they just got blurry, shaken. (And on-camera flash looks awful usually.) With the X10 that's no longer a problem, if I can see it, the camera can handle it! The stabilization adds at least two stops, and the sensitivity at least another two stops, that's huge. Oh, and the lens is faster too! (OK, it's bigger, but not huge.)
SOLD! Thanks! :-D (you've had me wondering! :-)
I got to interview Kayce Baker at CES...she knows her stuff for sure. The best part was having a moment to handle the X-Pro1 untethered from its display (wow, does it ever feel nice in the hand).
Ah, that's cool.
For who or what did you interview her?
I work for Crutchfield, a North American electronics retailer, and was dispatched to CES to go around to the booths of products we carry and make quick videos for the website.
We had a simple, three-man crew and a fancy video camera on loan from Canon. Lucky for me, Fuji was on the list. I wanted to spend more time with the X-Pro1, but I'll get some shooting time whenever we take our first delivery.
Geez, I am a bad typist, the real link is Crutchfield. Our CES videos should trickle out over the next four months (we made 102 of them!)
A hundred and two! Holy mofo, yain't afraid of work.
Tell us when the K Baker interview is up.
(It must be hard work also for the representatives to do a gazillion video interviews at CES.)
It was a grind.
But you know what, there were hardly any retailers there doing what we were doing - in fact, we only confirmed one other (figure there were maybe more, but not necessarily).
I got the feeling on Thursday that all the people in the booths were worn out. It's a pretty crazy event.
Crazy, yes. Every article about it starts out by saying that!
Interesting about the retailers. You'd think outfits like B&H would do it. And while it surely is an investment and you need good people to do it, one can only imagine it's good for sales, in that it will attract traffic and make the products more real to potential customers.
But I guess that it's "outside the box" for a retailer, despite the maturity of the web by now.
It's incredible that 150k visitors consists only of folks in the business and journalists!
... I'll bet you could sponsor one of the good freelance journalists in your business (in the Mac biz, Shawn of YourMacLife for instance) for not a lot of money, and get a good personality for your interviews and a lot of content, and it would not cost a lot. Many of them go around just by their lonely selves and a small videocam.
What did the three (including you?) men in your crew do? An interviewer, a videographer, and?
We had one guy who knew how to run the camera, and the other two of us traded on and off.
The on-camera person had the easy job, just say "We're here at Alpine's booth at CES 2012, where so-and-so is about to tell us how Pandora works in their new receivers," then point the mic at the trainer. Most of them were as simple as that.
We had appointments set up ahead of time to maximize efficiency. Probably 2/3 of them were shot on the show floor, with others shot in meeting rooms and hotel suites (a lot of the audio retailers were in suites).
The off-camera person had two jobs: get a signed release, and block traffic. The latter proved difficult at times.
Most of the resulting videos will be in the short attention span YouTube sweet spot of 60-90 seconds. Just a sneak peak, live from the industry cutting edge. Gives our little company some street cred.
Kool.
Was it generally possible for people to be on time for the appointments in such an environment?
Being on time was tough, but we did pretty well. The key was just having someone expecting our arrival.
Ah. I was actually thinking more of your "victims", since they must all have many other people vying for their attention?
Was just looking at this. Seems pretty fun. :-D (wonder when it'll be available. Can't find the app, when I search.)
It's on the iOS app store.
But has mixed reviews. And surely has quite few things coded in yet. But it seems highly promising, thanks.
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