Who else is "upset" at Fuji for the F11?

K Wilson said:

When people pay money, they pay more attention - much less trouble
for Fuji then.

Fuji won't lose money offering a firmware upgrade for $30~50. They
also make their customers happy, so this will be a win-win.

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Don't forget that the F10 was aimed at an audience that wanted a simple point&shoot (but with excellent image quality). 90 percent of those having bought an F10 won't know what aperture priority means or why they might want this feature. These guys just want to point and shoot; they are simply not interested in technicalities. They are no regular readers of photo mags, they don't frequent forums such as this etc..

It is the same with me buying, say, a fridge. I don't buy special interest mags about fridges, I don't follow the development of fridge technology etc. – As long as it works, I just use it. I wouldn't even know that a successor of my fridge has been introduced, and I wouldn't worry whether my fridge would be even better when its firmware was upgraded (assuming that fridges have upgradable firmware these days). For many people, buying a camera isn't any different.

• Michael

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http://www.michael-hussmann.de

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Richard Garnett

I'm willing to bet 2 bucks with anyone on this forum that the f11 shows up int the USA at some point in the near future.

Michael,

That's good then, we are basically on the same page with the F10 and F11 being two mechanically different cameras even if they do share certain simularities. I really didn't want this broken out into a partial list that could then be taken out of context and used to fan the flames of the "Upset".

Where are you getting your empirical data on the components and such? Have you disected the two cameras? Manuals? Or are you just speculating?

Regards,

Neil

Neil A. Viglione said:

Where are you getting your empirical data on the components and
such? Have you disected the two cameras? Manuals? Or are you
just speculating?

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It is partly based on knowledge about digicams in general, and partly on info I got from talking to Fuji engineers. It is conjecture only insofar as I have no info about the F11, other than what is publicly available.

For example, the autofocus doesn't use any dedicated sensors, it is based solely on the SuperCCD itself, so when I read about an improved autofocus, this implies software to me. The only hardware involved, other then the sensor (which hasn't changed), would be the CPU (which is the same) or the focusing motor – but the latter isn't likely to have changed. Compact digicams have a fairly simple design; there are missing all those dedicated sensors that DSLRs have, so there aren't that many components to consider. Furthermore, all the recent improvements in this area were software-based. For example, one of the key factors determining autofocus speed is the search space; in the worst case, the autofocus has to change the focus all the way from 60 centimeters to infinity to find the correct focus distance. Now one of the tricks Fuji's engineers came up with is this: once the autofocus was successful, if you press the shutter release again and (a) the brightness of the scene hasn't changed and (b) no other button on the camera has been pressed, the autofocus will narrow down the search to a small interval around the previously found focus distance. This makes for short shot-to-shot times and generally speeds up focusing. These are the kind of improvements the engineers are working on, and it is very likely that further improvements will be of the same kind. Especially so since designing a new hardware takes time; improving the software for an existing design is much simpler. Fuji is currently working on 6th generation SuperCCDs (with ISO 3200 as maximum) and probably an RP II processor, but we won't see any of this in 2005.

• Michael

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http://www.michael-hussmann.de

Michael J. Hußmann said:

K Wilson said:

When people pay money, they pay more attention - much less trouble
for Fuji then.

Fuji won't lose money offering a firmware upgrade for $30~50. They
also make their customers happy, so this will be a win-win.

Click to expand...

Don't forget that the F10 was aimed at an audience that wanted a
simple point&shoot (but with excellent image quality). 90 percent
of those having bought an F10 won't know what aperture priority
means or why they might want this feature. These guys just want to
point and shoot; they are simply not interested in technicalities.
They are no regular readers of photo mags, they don't frequent
forums such as this etc..

Click to expand...

Yes. But there are still 10% remaining. This 10% can also affect the buying decision of many other people.

If Fuji can cover all manpower cost by the upgrade price tag, why not? Most F10 owners here wil be happy about it.

Fuji is not doing anything bad not upgrading F10. but doing so will help improving customers' impression to their after-sale service, which is notorious now.

Michael J. Hußmann said:

It is the same with me buying, say, a fridge. I don't buy special
interest mags about fridges, I don't follow the development of
fridge technology etc. – As long as it works, I just use it. I
wouldn't even know that a successor of my fridge has been
introduced, and I wouldn't worry whether my fridge would be even
better when its firmware was upgraded (assuming that fridges have
upgradable firmware these days). For many people, buying a camera
isn't any different.

Click to expand...

Michael J. Hußmann said:

• Michael

--
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http://www.michael-hussmann.de

Click to expand...

Because they aren't making "alot" of changes, and those changes are essentially firmware chanes that they could give to F10 users! Who cares about more pixels in the LCD - I can tell if a shot has good focus from my current F10 LCD.

Optimistically speaking, maybe Fujifilm plans to introduce the "F11" camera in the U.S. but under a different name than it's offered elsewhere, following that company's pattern.

Supporting this scenario is the fact that Fujifilm continues to offer a $30 rebate for F10 buyers through October, in the U.S., as elsewhere. That incentive comes even as the F10 is popular in the U.S., leading me to think they're trying to clear the shelves of the F10 in preparation for a sequel camera.

Why make a lot of changes to an already great product? They just made the right changes.
Adding aperture/shutter priority can not be made with a firmware update.

work4mike said:

Why doesn't Fuji move to SD ? Oh is it because they invented xD?

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It was actually a joint venture:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0207/02073002fujifilmxd.asp

Q: Which companies were involved in the development of the xD-Picture Card?

A: The card format was jointly developed by Fujifilm and Olympus.

Although Fuji were first to announce it.

--
Ian

marbrink said:

Adding aperture/shutter priority can not be made with a firmware
update.

Click to expand...

What makes you believe that?

• Michael

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http://www.michael-hussmann.de

I bought a Toyota Sequoia. Know what they did the next year. They upped the horsepower of the standard edition. And they did not offer to upgrade mine. The scoundrels!

Why would anyone be upset about these issues. We are talking DIGITAL photography here. If there is something to be learned from digital (anything) over the past years, it is that developments in this area go with breakneck pace. Be it hardware or software. And most of the time we are talking about improvements here.

Compared to the era of analogue photography, when developments (improvements) were almost non-existent (yes, that slow), we should not complain so much. These are exciting times. Let's enjoy them.

Ron

Agreed-

I just think there are two issues-

Speed of upgrade
And US model

If I buy a car and all they have is manual transmission-well-I chose to buy or not buy.

If they come out with an automatic transmission in the exact car-
well, I can keep mine, sell it at a loss, or buy the new model.

I would still be a bit put out if they refused to sell me the new model.

I really did not expect any 'fix'--just the opportunity to buy the new camera if I chose to and not 6 months from now with a new name or something.

My opportunity for return on a less than 2 week old camera is tight.

I don't mind waiting if I know the for sale date. I am frustrated at the immediate cash loss but that is life.

But to keep it and not know that they actually will sell it here when it is too late for any return, seems unnecessarily unfriendly to the customer.

Linda

let's keep it real

in six months they'll come out with the F12

the only thing the F11 has that I want over my F10 (which has just shipped from amazon.com) is shutter and aperture priority.

forget improved macro, that was a very small change from 7.5cm to 5cm.

more pixels in the same size LCD, also means nothing to the final product (the picture)

i think i'll set the darn thing on iso400 and just leave it there. if i do see a nice shot in low light conditions, i'll advance it to 800 or 1600. from the available samples, and the work many of you have done, i know this is going to be a great little camera

everyone else should wiat for the F20, sometime next year

greg

Not much difference from F10 except for the S and A mode. Would be better if they have more scene modes like fireworks, snow...

Could you let us know where you got your camera and all that gear at a "great price?"

trading the ISO 1600 with slightly more manual control....??!!

humm......well........maybe Fuji by summer will annouce F12 with MF and Manual control!?

Shaun Williamson said:

The 9mp sensor seems to be slightly noisier than the F10 sensor but
I will
wait and see.

Click to expand...

why not? It is just a case of creating a software user interface via the menu system to allow you to chose, rather than the camera selecting automatically. The only slight problem physically is the signage on the top dial, the F11 has 'A/S/M' instead of just 'M'.