The year of the big lenses: Fuji 200mm f/2.0 priced at $6,000 and Sony 400mm f/2.8 FE at $10,000+

This is the year of the first major expensive lenses for the Fuji X and Sony E-mount system:

1) Fuji will announce the new 200mm f/2.0 which is rumored to cost around $6,000 (Fujirumors).

2) Sony’s new 400mm f/2.8 FE will be launched in September (Bhphoto). The price is rumored to be above the magic $10,000 limit.

If you got rich with Bitcoin you might can buy them :)

Fuji reports staggering +76,1% operating income increase in the imaging market

Fuji released the Q3 financial report. And the results are impressive: +15.6% revenue increase and +76,1 +76,1% operating income increase. Fuji writes:

In the photo imaging business, overall sales increased due to favorable sales, especially in instant photo systems which enable users to enjoy on-the-spot printing of photos, such as the instax series and instax films in the Year-End shopping season. instax SHARE SP-3, smartphone printer, launched in November 2017, adopted the square format, popular for use in SNS. It advocates a new way of photo printing to boost printing demand among smartphone users. In the high-value-added printing businesses, sales expanded thanks to continued business growth from various services, including Wall Decor services that enhance the fun of decorating and displaying photographs by adding panels to the photographs and framing, the new COYOMI service for creating desktop calendars with favorite photographs, and the Year Album service that uses AI-based proprietary technology to automatically arrange the layout of a photo album.
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In the electronic imaging field of the optical device and electronic imaging business, overall sales increased due to strong sales of FUJIFILM X-E3, which is achieving the most compact and lightweight body*, offering outstanding operational comfort and launched in September 2017, X Series such as FUJIFILM X-T20, FUJIFILM X100F which were launched in February 2017, FUJIFILM GFX 50S, a medium format mirrorless digital camera, adopting a big sensor (43.8mm by 32.9mm), and interchangeable lenses. In the optical device field, overall sales increased, reflecting the strong sales of various industrial use lenses such as lenses for and vehicle camera and projector, and MK lenses series were also launched as a new series of cinema camera lenses designed for recording video such as online video, whose market is expanding. Fujifilm announced 24x zoom lense UA24 x7.8BE in September 2017, achieving both small, lightweight body and 4K high-definition. With this introduction, Fujifilm has 8 4K broadcast camera lense products and is seeking to lead the field. * As of January 2017 in the X Series of mirrorless cameras equipped with a viewfinder

So you really CAN do good money in the camera business if you make the right products and take care of your customers. Good work Fuji!

Too good to be true? High-end Samsung APS-C camera based on Exynos 9810 SoC

The NX1 still sells for $2,460 on Amazon

Well it’s years now Samsung NX line is dead. So I was really surprised to get a rumor about a new NX model in my mail box. The rumor comes from an anonymous source. It sounded soo strange that I almost think there is some truth behind this. So read it here:

High-end Samsung APS-C camera based on Exynos 9810 SoC.

I got to play with something insane today. Samsung Mobile (who took over the camera division) retrofitted an NX1 with a new APS-C sensor and Exynos 9810 SoC, which is rumored to launch in the Samsung S9.

30,1 megapixels sensor (6720*4480) which is stacked (3-stack FRS) ISOCELL with Tetracell and dual-pixel AF. Extremely fast readout combined with 4K 120fps h/265 encode capability enable impressive framerates
– Full sensor (6720*4480) @ 30fps
– 5376*3024 @ 60fps
– 3840*2160 @ 120fps
– 2688*1512 @ 240fps
– 1920*1080 @ 480fps
Up to 120fps should be full sensor read-out, 2.7K and 1080p at higher frame-rates is 2×2 pixel binning and then down-sampling (so full width of sensor is used up to 480fps (!).

15fps burst with mechanical shutter, 30fps RAW with electronic shutter. Practically no read-out noise so extremely ISO invariant (thanks to ISOCELL’s deep trench isolation). AF is insane with combination of dual-pixel and ‘Super PD’, which is regular in-sensor phase detection.

All features of Exynos 9810 are enabled (except a small part of GPU), so a huge amount of in-camera processing power, optional LTE-connectivity with eSIM, GNSS (GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou) for location tagging, SD 3.0 with UHS-II support for memory cards (up to 300 MB/s), Bluetooth 5 for continuous low-power connection and 802.11ac with 2×2 MIMO for fast image- and video transfer. USB 3.1 Type-C with DP enabled for uncompressed output up to 5K 30fps and 4K 60fps. There is a PCIe 3.0 x2 bus left if they decide to add something like a CFexpress card-slot, or Thunderbolt 3 or 10GbE.

Very impressive software feature was accelerometer-based shutter. You press the shutter, and the accelerometer registers the G-forces (acceleration). Then it takes a picture when the X- and Y-acceleration are closest to 0 and the Z-acceleration is closest to 1 (natural gravity). Doesn’t work perfect (you can still move without accelerating), but I was able to double to triple my handheld shutter-speed, so that means at least a stop lower ISO. Delay between pressing and shooting is about half a second, so it’s not for sports. They are working to also implement the gyroscopic data to pick the moment with the least amount of roll. This feature makes is probably to the S9.

Like I said, it’s a prototype, based on a NX1, and they don’t know yet if it will ever hit the market, but if it does it will be at least as ground breaking as the original NX1 (they were thinking about a few extra things (variable ND, IBIS, HBM2-buffer), but hey, research is expensive and upper management).

LIke I said before, I have no clue if this info is real or not. That said I would love to see Samsung coming back  to the mirrorless system camera world!

Meike announced the new 50mm f/1.7 Lens for Sony FE, Canon EF-M, Nikon 1, Fujifilm X and MFT


image on the page on Meike

Meike announced a new 50mm f/1.7, 25mm f/2.0 and a new 25mm t/2.2 lens which will be available for Sony FE, Canon EF-M, Nikon 1, Fujifilm X and Micro Four Thirds mount cameras. ePhotozine writes:

The lens is comprised of 12 diaphragm blades and has a 0.11x magnification ratio.  The lens is set to be available in mid-March. 

The lens is yet not available for preorder. But you will soon find it like any other Meike lens on Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE.

Thanks Mistral!

Surprise camera comeback drives Canon earnings rally

Canon released the new financial report and there are some good news. Asian Review writes:

An unexpected revival in cameras and multifunction printers provided Canon with its first upturn in full-year net profit in three years. Even as many abandoned hope for growth in such operations, the digital camera market rose for the first time in five years, aided by people’s desire to shine on the photo-sharing social media platform Instagram. Healthy sales of mirrorless cameras propelled Canon to a 22% operating profit gain in a segment that had been on an uninterrupted decline.

Canon also expects 2018 to be an even better year thanks to double-digit growth in the mirrorless segment.

via CanonWatch (Thanks EdinaMN)