Is the xD format hindering Fuji?

I'm sure you all noticed the news today about Fujifilm's newest cameras: the FinePix F20 and the FinePix S6500fd. The specs on these cameras look very nice, and I'm especially interested in the F20. It's small, compact and the SuperCCD and flash technologies are very compelling for me. It would be the ideal pocketable camera for my purposes.

However, will I buy one? As much as I would like to, I've already have a significant investment in SD cards for my Pentax *ist DS and Canon A520. For this reason, I won't be purchasing the F20. I find it very unfortunate that Fuji is still sticking with xD, which I see as a limited format.

I know Phil added a note to the S6500fd annoucement (Phil: "A really interesting camera on paper, I just wonder how many more they could sell if it had a Compact Flash or Secure Digital (SD) slot."). Anyone else have any thoughts on this? Do you think that Fujifilm should adopt SD or CF?

tycfung said:

I'm sure you all noticed the news today about Fujifilm's newest
cameras: the FinePix F20 and the FinePix S6500fd. The specs on
these cameras look very nice, and I'm especially interested in the
F20. It's small, compact and the SuperCCD and flash technologies
are very compelling for me. It would be the ideal pocketable
camera for my purposes.

However, will I buy one? As much as I would like to, I've already
have a significant investment in SD cards for my Pentax *ist DS and
Canon A520. For this reason, I won't be purchasing the F20. I
find it very unfortunate that Fuji is still sticking with xD, which
I see as a limited format.

I know Phil added a note to the S6500fd annoucement (Phil: "A
really interesting camera on paper, I just wonder how many more
they could sell if it had a Compact Flash or Secure Digital (SD)
slot."). Anyone else have any thoughts on this? Do you think that
Fujifilm should adopt SD or CF?

Click to expand...

Having a 'one size fits all' memory card would benefit purchasers. As would having cameras use only a limited number of battery types.

I'm sure the marketing people have studied the issue of proprietary cards/batteries in terms of getting people to switch to their brand as opposed to keeping people switch from their brand.

Cards and batteries have become relatively inexpensive thus the switchover barrier has been lowered.

--
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Yes and no; it's just a memory format, I will buy a product regarless of what the flash memory type is (I have a PSP as well), my Olympus uses SM and the Panny uses SD, if the camera takes good pictures, great. However, xD is slow, like SM, that's its downfall, IMO. And pricey compared to even MS Duo.

--
-Eric
------
Olympus 3040
Panasonic FZ-20
Minolta XG7
FED 2
Kiev 4

I share your concerns. The main issue is the extra cost for XD, and it offers no performance benefit. In short I will never buy an XD camera, or MS pro for that matter.

Only two formats should be out there. Sd + CF...

Oly and Fuji are no doubt losing some business due to this. In short a rip off is the word you are looking for.

Eric said:

Yes and no; it's just a memory format, I will buy a product
regarless of what the flash memory type is (I have a PSP as well),
my Olympus uses SM and the Panny uses SD, if the camera takes good
pictures, great. However, xD is slow, like SM, that's its downfall,
IMO. And pricey compared to even MS Duo.

Click to expand...

Yes, IMHO. I was a bit resistant to changing from CF to SD when
I bought my Ixus 40, but I could see the advantages of the smaller
format (which is also used on my Dell PDA)

But I can't see any benefit to xD compared with SD, so I hope
Fuji will see sense and abandon this pointless card format. The
other features of their cameras deserve better!

--
Chris Eley (Oxfordshire, UK)

...but it really shouldn't. People are still used to the days when memory cards were expensive. This is no longer the case. Memory format is just a minor factor these days.

I would personally get any camera that suits my needs best - regardless of memory format. Just consider it part of the cost of the camera and don't look back.

Prog.

...I invested a lot of money into my xD cards - so, my money shouldn't count only because somebody invested a lot into SD cards?

...people, get real - 1Gig H-type xD card cost only $44 these days - and it isn't too slow - new H-type cards are great improvements to older M-type...

...i wish Fuji would spent more time and resources working hard to improve xD cards even further and would work hard to improve their camera's R/W interface speed - this is a bigger botleneck anyway...

--
...life is short - paddle harder...

I have too much invested in both SD and CF cards right now to change to a xD-only or MS-only camera. Unless it is superior to the rest.

Personally I don't think Fuji or Sony can abandon their own proprietary formats. Then they betray the old users. On the other hand Canon did that with the FD to EF switch, brave but good choise by Canon.

Fuji could always support two memory formats in the bigger cameras or maybe release two cameras ... one version with xD and one with SD. Personally I don't think that would work, sadly.

--
Henrik

Yes!
Why buy a slower xD
when I can use a fast CF or even sD

Sorry to hear abouit Iron Mountain
--

no text

At least not to me.

Sure, it is not ideal to have different formats of the same size (SD vs xD, but not vs CF?), but how the actual camera performs is much more important than its memory format.

Fujifilm makes a pretty darned kick-ass series of cameras (especially F10, F11, and now F30) with a kick-ass sensor. Cameras that arguable outperform just about all non-dSLR digital cameras in every way (maybe not purple fringing, but image resolution, battery life, focus accuracy and quickness, sensor noise, etc). Not that I am trying to start a brand vs. brand flame war

When I decided to purchase the F10 last year, and now the F30, I had a brief moment of annoyance noting I had to buy a somewhat obscure memory format, but that annoyance was quickly replaced by a feeling satisfaction knowing I had just purchased arguable the best compact digital camera on the market. Anyone in the market for a new digital camera who prioritizes camera performance over memory format (as opposed to people who are resistant to spending a measley $40 on a 1GB xD card) should seriously consider some of these Fujifilm cameras.

I won't buy an xd-only camera. no way. same with mem-schtick only cams.

too bad as the low light fuji looks good; but I won't buy xd!

--
Bryan (pics only: http://www.flickr.com/photos/linux-works )
(pics and more: http://www.netstuff.org ) ~

Xd is a pain but I find no optical viewfinder worse. Fuji and Olympus make money with their proprietary format.
--
I worked on the IBM 650 (tubes)

It wouldn't stop me completely, but it raises the threshold of the decision. In other words, the camera would have to be a world beater in every way to sway me.

Brian

Prognathous said:

I would personally get any camera that suits my needs best -
regardless of memory format. Just consider it part of the cost of
the camera and don't look back.

Click to expand...

Well, if I want 2 GB of xD to go with a new camera it will add maybe
1/3 to the cost of the camera which is pretty significant.

Just my two öre
Erik from Sweden

I don't think it's possible to build a useable optical viewfinder for a 28-300mm zoom and still stay under DSLR pricing. At least, I'm yet to see a digital superzoom with an OVF.

allan levy said:

Xd is a pain but I find no optical viewfinder worse. Fuji and
Olympus make money with their proprietary format.
--
I worked on the IBM 650 (tubes)

Click to expand...

I am an owner of F10, and I previously owned Canons and Olympuses, so I have now CF cards, SM cards, SD cards, XD cards, and miniSD cards...

I think in all seriousness, Fuji just should do what some other mfrs did. Keep your Xd format, but also have an extra slot for SD or CF. So people will investments in Xd are happy and new users with SDs can jump in as well. It must be fairly easy to include an extra card slot, that's all. Instead of 10MB internal memory which is a joke.

In fact, as card readers costs are under $10, I'd have slots for every type of card in any camera out there - these slots do not take much space, you probably just need 3 slots altogether.

No wide angle in anything remotely pocketable. Now put that sensor in an S80 or LX1 and you might have something instersting.

I find the continued use of xD memory to be a completely dispicable business parctice that provides no value to the consumer. Even though prices have dropped to "almost" the level of SD, xD will always be an inferior memory format. xD is more expensive, lower speed, less reliable and VERY limited in it's adoption. SD has become the almost ubiquitous universal standard and the only thing preventing Fuji and Olympus from adopting it is their own corporate greed.

--
Nick

Henrik Andersson said:

Fuji could always support two memory formats in the bigger cameras

Click to expand...

Yes! The S7000 supports THREE:
xD
CF
Microdrive

--

I owned a SmartMedia camera and it was stolen. I purchased another SM camera because i still had a SM card AND READER! If I switched to another type of card, I would also need to buy an additional reader....(multi card readers weren't an option for me at the time)

In the end I hardly ever used the other smartmedia card. Now I own one SM card camera and one xD card camera. Even if both were of the same memory type, I would have let the older card be in the older camera. The new faster xD cards aren't used to their max in most current xD cameras and thus there's no advantage in buying them for me (I bet the new fast CF and SD cards aren't used to their full potential by older cameras as well.

The most important experience for me would be that I would leave an older card in the older camera and with that, I only have one usable card for my current camera. Thus if I am going to look for another camera, the xD card would remain in this camera (or perhaps disappear with the camera to a relative\friend or be sold with the camera), thus not limiting my choice of camera.

The limitations in considering a xD card camera are of course the (RAW) write times, movie mode bitrate, continuous shooting rate and other fast-access features. In this case I would say YES, they are hindered...

But then again, when I buy a new camera which can utilise the top speeds of the top cards within my price range (any card type), then I'd rather have such a fast card then stick with the similar card-type I would theoretically have for my PDA or other electronic equipment which uses memory cards, as this card could be the technology of several years ago and limiting the abillities of my camera.