What should Sony learn from the Fuji X100?
Sony delayed the A35 and NEX-C3 announcements and there is still a bit to wait before we can see the new Sony A77 and NEX-7 in July. But also Nikon (a part the Nikon D5100), Canon, Olympus and Panasonic didn’t announce any new camera. The only camera manufacturer that is getting a lot of attentions around the web is Fuji. Since months every website is talking about the Fuji X100. The question I have to all SonyAlphaRumors readers is:
Loading ...I think the X100 is an “overstimated” camera. The hybrid viewfinder is a bit a pain to use (see focusing problems) and the fixed lens is quite a limitation if you consider the price of the camera. What I really like is the build quality and the manual controls. But I am curious to see what you think about the X100!
P.S: Check the Fuji X100 price and availability at Amazon, Adorama, B&H, J&R, eBay.
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Comment from stevie: Sony should do remakes on Minolta TC-1, ...
Comment from SonyA77: Small margin, high volume bodies will ea...
Comment from Carl: Of bodies, but not of lenses. Lenses hav...- Comment from Carl: Rangefinders only have framelines coveri...
michel v
2 years ago |Interesting that you like the build quality and dismiss the viewfinder.
I’ve had the opportunity to test the camera in Japan.
I liked the viewfinder, except the display of photos in it as they really appear as a soup of pixels.
However my girlfriend and I were really disappointed in the build quality. The fake leather around the camera (that is actually rigid plastic) feels awful, and the metal alliage used for the top of the camera manages to feel plasticky too.
These defects alone were enough to prevent us from spending money on it (we’ll see for the next generation…).
A. Non
2 years ago |People love the idea of the X100 because it combines three crucial elements: large sensor with great low light performance, fast high quality lens, and compact body. That’s what Sony and every other manufacturer should learn from the X100, as they should have already learned long ago from the success of the LX3. Sony understood the large sensor/compact body part, but they completely missed out on the other critical element (fast high quality lens).
Mufti
2 years ago |Nikon did announce a new camera, D5100.
admin
2 years ago |Forgot that. Added to the text! Thanks!
Gunnar
2 years ago |i actually prefer all aspects of my NEX 5! hope they keep something like it for the future lineup. i need no viewfinder. i thought i needed tons of manual control buttons but i dont need them either.
Gunnar
2 years ago |only thing i noticed is that the control wheel on the NEX could be of better/sturdier quality.. it starts making noises and getting wobbly now.
pancanikonpus
2 years ago |simple, fix lens sell at $1099. interchangeable lens camera sell at $1599 minimum. good luck!
SVOR
2 years ago |A USD 1,200 camera with a fixed lens that looks like it was designed in the 1960′s? I could not imagine anything less like Sony if I tried. Sony has resolutely resisted aping legacy styling possibly to their cost; Panasonic does it well and inspires a wealthy affluent but conservative following as a result.
I don’t think there is so much for Sony to learn from Fuji who have always produced interesting but very expensive niche cameras. I certainly don’t think the hybrid viewfinder offers anything over a high quality EVF except brightness. Against that parallax errors, cost and complexity (especially with interchangeable lenses) and that is just for starters.
Please Sony, don’t copy the X100 styling, pricing or viewfinder! It is in every way the antithesis of the NEX.
Mark
2 years ago |Agree..Sony alway been the top of innovation, dont think they will copy x100. Just give us a super high res EVF. Still I dont know why so many people dont like EVF. How many time have you take a shoot a found its too dark or too bright or the DR is right. Isn’t it good to see the result of your shot before you even take the shot? I know OVF is clear, non pixelated, but that is old technology. Time to move on…Sony please give us a ground breaking EVF!!!
pancanikonpus
2 years ago |bcos their eyes suck
SonyA77
2 years ago |You eyes don’t see what the sensor sees. When you look through an OVF the resulting image is not the same as what you saw!
Vlad
2 years ago |I’m all for EVF, but it just sucks the battery. In general you take around 3 times less photos with an EVF, and that is without counting that you can frame and focus without even starting the camera with an OVF.
SonyA77
2 years ago |Well you used to have to change the film every 24/36 shots, is it really a big deal to change the battery? They are dirt cheap on eBay too.
Vlad
2 years ago |Certainly not a big deal, but an annoyance. For me, one of the advantages for having an EVF is carrying a smaller and lighter camera. Mark asked why many people don’t like EVF. That is one reason for me. There are other reasons for other people. The problem, as I see it, is that today we have EVF which has certain advantages over OVF and OVF which has advantages over EVF, but we must choose one or the other. It is not like when AF was introduced and we were keeping MF.
As much as I like having seeing the exposure of the scene in the EVF, when I go shooting outside by -30C the OVF is the better choice.
Vlad
2 years ago |You concentrated completely on the exterior styling, while there is quite much more to it.
Paul W
2 years ago |The hybrid sensor in this form only works because it is fixed lens – I don’t want a fixed lens rangefinder
I would like to see a NEX7 with
a high quality optional 2-3MP evf (take it off – it’s still compact)
some fast pancakes and a 16-70 f2.8 zoom
a top plate more like the Canon G12
in body ISS fir e-mount alpha mount lenses with slightly deeper body to accommodate
most e-mount lenses with lens stabilisation also for video
piero d
2 years ago |It should learn to remove the low pass (anti moire) filter as Leica and Fuji have done.
SVOR
2 years ago |Why? Especially why with a 24M Pixel sensor (as rumoured) would you want to risk moire/aliasing that is irremovable? Despite the fatally flawed decision by the antediluvian Leica company and now Fuji to drop the filter I have to tell you this is actually a terrible trend. Nothing is more likely to leave a digital sensor footprint over your lovingly captured photograph than a spot of moire.
Carl
2 years ago |The higher the pixel density, the higher the frequency detail needs to be to cause moire. 40+ megapixel digital backs hardly ever have problematic moire.
Milos Janata
2 years ago |Is the sensor in fuji the same as the A700 sensor? If yes, sony should improve picture procession or something.. if not forget it, there is almost nothing usefull they can learn from them.
Eric
2 years ago |The NEX7 doesn’t have to be retro like the X100, I rather like the styling of the upcoming C3 (in black color); but the key is the shape of the X100. That along with the viewfinder are the two key elements. There are lots of us that are either tired od DSLR’s or never liked them to begin with. We want a rangefinder-esque design. It’s as simple as that. It doesn’t have to be retro, create a modern Contax G2 and people will flock to it (just don’t forget the hot shoe).
SK
2 years ago |The ND filter seems quite useful if included in the body could help to long shoot.
Appart from that it seems that X100 is more for the one who want to “enjoy” taking pictures and the nex more for the ones who want to take pictures for other to enjoy looking at them.
Helena
2 years ago |I think also that X100 is overstimated (too much). Please Sony, dont look back to ’60s, we are in 2011 now, give us a modern and cool camera with dials and some more manual controls than NEX 3-5. And an articulated EVF ala Olympus PEN. I love my NEX-3, a jewel of a cam, but I miss an AEL lock button and the mode dial. The video recording mode is too simplistic, we dont know where is the focus!. Oh, one more thing: the red paint on the plastic dont resist very well to go in the bag of a girl
Give us a wonderful NEX-7, that is my Holy Grail in photography!!
SonyA77
2 years ago |It isn’t going to have high volume sales due to cost, end of story.
Kiril
2 years ago |Fuji has hotshoe! NEX does not.
So my picks are manual controls (though one can argue NEX ergonomics is fantastic) and more importantly hotsoe!
Francisco
2 years ago |It’s “over-rated” not “over-estimated”. The NEX’s kick this camera’s ass, just because they have interchangeable lens. Sony, don’t go the retro way! Just innovate and give us modern tech and design!
Vlad
2 years ago |There’s more modern tech in the X100 than in the NEX.
Carl
2 years ago |Not with its current lens offerings, it doesn’t. Unless you use adapted lenses.
B
2 years ago |It’s interesting how you low the vote is for “fixed lens with compact body”. I always assumed that the real interest of the camera is that it’s by very far the most compact option for those of us who want to shoot with a fast, high quality 35mm prime equivalent. It’s a really useful focal length, and the fast options in that range tend to be bulky 500 + g monsters. For that purpose I don’t see what other digital camera even comes close to competing. (And from the pictures it looks like the e-mount zeiss prime will still be a very bulky lens, so no competition for the x100.)
B
2 years ago |Oh, also, my guess is that to really compete with the x100 Sony would have to bring out a range of e-mount primes of the size, weight and quality of the contax G2 lenses.
SVOR
2 years ago |Though it would be nice with NEX you at least have other options (unlike the X100):
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Metabones-Contax-G-Sony-NEX-E-mount-Adapter-/150572615063
knurd
2 years ago |$1200?? Perhaps there is something Fuji can learn from Sony – PRICING! If it was full frame then sure the price tag would be great.
SonyA77
2 years ago |Yup, exactly. I really don’t see the big deal about this camera at that price point. I guess people with little sense and money to burn will buy it, but that’s all.
Quiet Please!
2 years ago |Quiet shutter anyone?
Might as well throw in fast flash sync (faster than 1/160 sec)!
SVOR
2 years ago |Amen, silent, amen!
B
2 years ago |yes!
Carl
2 years ago |Fuji’s implementation has some issues, but a hybrid viewfinder is the future in my eyes. Not everyone enjoys taking photos while looking at an LCD/OLED.
SonyA77
2 years ago |I don’t agree. EVF is the future. EVF technology will rapidly evolve to the extent that in a few years people will laugh at the comments in the “old” OVF/EVF debates.
Irfan
2 years ago |the hybrid viewfinder is possible because it’s a fixed lens. You can’t put hybrid viewfinder on Nex with interchangeable lenses
Carl
2 years ago |Why not? Either make the finder zoom or use a rangefinder.
SonyA77
2 years ago |Why would you want to? The people that the NEX are aimed at really couldn’t care less about an OVF. Consumers aren’t anti-EVF like some here, they simply don’t care about OVF.
Carl
2 years ago |So all consumers want the exact same thing as each other with no variations in personal tastes and preferences whatsoever?
SonyA77
2 years ago |The majority don’t appear to care about an OVF and that is all that matters as they buy the cameras.
Irfan
2 years ago |How on earth are you going to build a “zoom” viewfinder? You are nutty. So if you have 18-200 zoom, you will have 18-200 viewfinder? How huge will that be? You are fool.
Vlad
2 years ago |You should really mind your language.
Jeff
2 years ago |Correct me if I am wrong, but I think the hybrid viewfinder only works for single lens. Provide a good EVF and I would be even happier with NEX. Let’s see how the NEX7 turns out. Highly anticipated!
Irfan
2 years ago |exactly. the people who are suggesting “hybrid” have no clue what they are talking about. You can’t have interchangeable mirrorless camera and optical viewfinder. Period. It’s physically impossible.
SonyA77
2 years ago |How about putting the OVF right behind the sensor so you look through the back of the camera right down the lens, when you press the shutter the sensor moves between the OVF and the lens to capture the image. See, it’s easy….or perhaps not….lol
Irfan
2 years ago |what the heck? how will you see the image from the back of the sensor? the sensor will block it
Voohoo
2 years ago |In his/her explanation they fail to say that the sensor is offset to the side by default so it doesn’t obstruct the lens and OVF. Then when you press the shutter the sensor slides into place between the lens and OVF (as he/she said).
This would work in theory I guess but wouldn’t be very practical. It would take up a lot more space which works against the idea of mirrorless systems itself. Also, a moving sensor is just asking to be problematic/buggy.
SonyA77
2 years ago |Look up the expression “tongue in cheek”.
Vlad
2 years ago |Physically it is very possible.
Irfan
2 years ago |It’s not “physically possible” That’s why DSLRs have the whole mirror system. You can’t have OVF and main sensor liveview at the same time.
Carl
2 years ago |It’s perfectly possible to make a zooming viewfinder, just as it’s possible to make a zooming lens. A viewfinder is little more than a lens with superimposed framelines.
Irfan
2 years ago |Look at the size of 18-200 lens. So you will have that big viewfinder?
But what if I put 16mm lens on it? Opps. What if I put 300mm lens on it? opps again. So how is it possible to make 10mm to 10000mm zoom viewfinder so it covers all lenses ever made?
Carl
2 years ago |Rangefinders only have framelines covering, say, 24mm to 135mm, and leave the rest to accessory viewfinders, because most photos fall into that range. Using aspheric lenses I’m sure they could make a viewfinder of approx 16-100mm that fit, and leave the remaining focal lengths as EVF only.
Jeff
2 years ago |By the way, if A33/55 users are happy with the EVF, there is no reason not to love the claimed better EVF on A77/NEX7.
SonyA77
2 years ago |The point is that Sony don’t actually care what current OVF users think about EVF. Sony want the *new* dSLR users, these users don’t have any hang-ups over the EVF which is why the A55 is so popular.
Current photographers tend to forget that it is the mass market consumer that drives massive sales, not the traditional type who are moaning about an EVF that they haven’t even used.
Carl
2 years ago |Of bodies, but not of lenses. Lenses have much higher margin than bodies do.
SonyA77
2 years ago |Small margin, high volume bodies will easily be more profitable than high margin, low volume lens sales.
Sony make their money from selling bodies (kits actually) to LOTS of “consumers”, not from selling lenses to FEW “photographers”. That’s why they keep updating the bodies and not the lenses.
Sony will continually update their bodies, not release lots of expensive lenses than don’t sell to the mass consumer.
stevie
11 months ago |Sony should do remakes on Minolta TC-1, Konica HEXAR and Contax G2, just like what Ricoh did to their GR.