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What I learned from my recent visit to the Fujifilm factory

On October 19th this year, I was able to tour the Fujifilm Taiwa Factory in the Miyagi Prefecture north of Sendai, Japan. This factory is where the GFX cameras and lenses, as well as the X100 and X-Pro line of cameras and lenses, are manufactured.

Having worked closely with Fujifilm since 2019, it was a huge honor to go see the factory where the incredible GFX line of medium format cameras is manufactured. In talking with the camera designers, they impressed upon me years ago just how challenging it is to mass produce a camera like the GFX100, 100S and now the 100 II. With my physics background, I had some idea of the challenges, but touring the factory showed those challenges quite clearly.

Fujifilm’s new Instax Pal is a tiny camera and a huge hassle

Fujifilm has introduced Instax Pal, its latest instant-digital camera hybrid. It’s as tiny as a keychain, it looks adorable and offers tons of options to play with. However, it’s separated it from the printer, making everything unnecessarily complicated. You need your phone and a dedicated Instax printer to get a tangible batch of your favorite snaps.

Frame.io rolls out new tools, features and hardware support to enhance creative workflows

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Adobe’s Frame.io has announced some new features and tools to help both its enterprise and individual customers. The features include an updated comparison viewer and enterprise customers can now link directly to AWS S3 cloud storage.

New hardware compatibility has also been announced. This includes the recently announced Fujifilm GFX100 II (buy here), Atomos Ninja and Ninja Ultra (buy here) and Accsoon SeeMo and SeeMo Pro (buy here).

Fuji GFX100 II sports AI autofocus, 8K video and Frame.io for $2,500 less than the GFX100

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Fuji has announced the new Fuji GFX100 II (buy here). Surprisingly, it’s a whole $2,500 cheaper than its predecessor while sporting a number of improvements. Boasting a newly revamped 102-megapixel sensor, it shoots 4K60p as well as 8K30p video.

The Fuji GFX100 (buy here) successor adds AI-based autofocus, with the same sort of subject detection and tracking we’ve seen in the Fuji X-H2S (buy here). It also includes native Frame.io integration for easy cloud backups while you shoot.

You can now get Fujifilm patches to wear your allegiance with pride

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Fujifilm has released a new line of branded merch that isn’t cameras, lenses or actual photography gear. The new line is branded patches (buy here). Yes, patches, embroidered tags that you can sew onto your clothes, camera bags or wherever.

The patches each represent a different brand of digital film emulations. Eternia, Astia, Sepia, Classic Chrome, Classic Neg, Velvia, Provia, Mono Standard, Acros, Pro Neg Standard and Pro Neg High are all included in the lineup.

Disney teams up with Fujifilm for a limited special edition X100V

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Disney and Fujifilm have collaborated to create a special edition camera. It’s a camera that’s proving to be almost impossible to buy right now, the Fujifilm X100V (buy here – well, try to). A promotional video posted by Support CHKP gives us a good look at the camera’s appearance.

Across the Special Edition X100V shown in the video, are a number of Disney logos alongside the number 100. These denote the 100th anniversary of Disney’s founding on October 16th, 1923. And it’s expected to start shipping at the end of this month.

Fujinon XF 8mm F3.5 WR in-depth review

A prime lens with a maximum aperture of F3.5 rarely gets anyone excited, but the rules change when you are talking about a compact lens with an angle of view of 120°!  The Fujinon XF 8mm F3.5 R WR is a very welcome lens – a tiny wide-angle prime with a full frame equivalent focal length of 12mm.  This extremely wide angle ties the large and expensive XF 8-16mm F2.8 (my review here) for the widest perspective available for Fuji’s X-mount.  This focal length, when used properly, allows you to get wonderfully dynamic images.

Fujifilm X-S20 in-depth review

The Fujifilm X-S10 was one of my favorite Fuji cameras of the previous generation.  I gave it a positive review when it was released roughly 2.5 years ago as I liked the balance of bringing some of the best features of the X-T series into a smaller, cheaper package.  A lot of Fuji cameras occupy the premium end of the APS-C space, and the X-S10 provided a strong camera at the roughly $1000 USD price point that largely had superior specs to alternatives from other brands.  The Fujifilm X-S20 is the successor to the X-S10, and, as always, there’s some pros and cons.  On the plus side, there are a number of core improvements (particularly on the video side), but, in the negative column there is a jump in price from the $1000 range up to $1300.  There was nearly a $700 gap between the X-S10 and the X-T4; the gap between the X-S20 and the X-T5 is only $400, which will certainly leave a few buyers strongly considering that camera instead.

7artisans releases a teeny tiny 18mm f/6.3 pancake lens for APS-C and Micro Four Thirds

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7Artisans has announced its new (and tiny) 18mm f/6.3 pancake lens (buy here) for Micro Four Thirds and APS-C mirrorless cameras. In the APS-C mounts, we’ve got Nikon Z, Fuji X, Sony E and Canon EF-M. No sign of a Canon RF mount one, but given how swiftly Canon has been enforcing its intellectual lens property, that’s not much of a surprise.

As is the nature with pancake lenses, the 7Artisans 18mm f/6.3 is extremely compact. In fact, it’s not much bigger than a regular standard body cap. It’s not optically complex and comes with a relatively cheap price point. Looking at some of the sample photos from Robin Wong’s video below, though, it looks pretty good!

Calibrite’s new Display Plus HL calibrates super bright HDR displays up to 10,000 nits

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Calibrite has announced its newest monitor calibration devices. There are three in the lineup, starting with the basic model Display SL, then the Display Pro HL and finally, the Display Plus HL. The Calibrite Display SL (buy here) supports more traditional desktop displays for current model LCD devices. The Pro HL (buy here) and Plus HL (buy here) models support brighter and more advanced display technologies.

Calibration devices allow you to correct the display of your desktop or laptop screen (or projector) to ensure they display accurate colours. This helps you keep consistent colour throughout your editing process so that the final result looks the way you envisioned the shot when you pressed the shutter.

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