Dear Fujifilm: it's time to launch the 'Fujinger'

Dear Fujifilm,

You just launched a great camera, the X-H2S. It's going to do well, and I am sure it will attract lot's of wildlife and some sports photographers to the brand.

I have even seen it's AF compared favourably to the mighty Nikon Z9 (but that was on YouTube, so 'what-evs').

If I were a sports-pro*, I might be looking at the Z9, but I would have to be thinking that right now I could order two X-H2S's with grips for the price of one Z9.

Except.... there are 400, 500 and may be 800 reasons why I wouldn't choose your camera over the Nikon.

I am sorry, but a 150-600 f/8 zoom just doesn't cut it. I can't control the background in a sports venue and that aperture doesn't give me enough options to blur out distracting crowds/advertising/players. Your only fast tele is too short (I although it would be nice to have that 200mm on the second body I could afford), and you have no other fast teles on your roadmap.

So, please please please, go talk to to those nice, helpful people at Fringer. Do a deal to license the manufacturer of their excellent EF and Nikon F adapters. Work with them to make WR versions, shouldn't be too difficult, just a rubber gasket on the non-pro EF and F versions (although the EF Pro with it's physical aperture ring possibly plays better to your brand values, so may be do that one too).

License it for 3 or 5 years, or however long you need to bosh out a super duper 400 f/4 lens. Don't make it too flashy, we don't need PF elements, we have APS format, so making smaller lenses than FF doesn't need this fancy stuff. A built-in TC would be nice, but don't sweat it, a matched one will do.

There you go, the 'Fujinger' is born

*But I'm not, and I have a Fringer, and an X-H2S and I'm lovin' it

Side note to Sigma:

Is it time to make a Fujifilm mount 500 f/4? Come on, you just made mirrorless versions of your excellent 150-600, and you just launched some Fuji X lenses. So you understand the mount now, you have excellent lenses to build on and nearly all the rest of the parts are already in your parts bin. You just need to chop the mount off and fix a new one

OK, so the 500mm is unnecessarily big and heavy for APS, but there is literally NO competition (other than a good but niche adapter) and you are a big mainstream brand who could really make this happen.

My experience of adapters has been ‘meh’ to say the least. Admittedly my experience is not all that extensive but personally nothing beats a native mount lens.

I do agree, a long prime would be perfect. 400mm f/4 was what came to my mind at first but for my sports work I think I’d benefit more from 300mm, could also be f/4 although f3.5 would do as well. When I shoot with the 100-400 I would say 10% of the shots are at 400mm, for football that FL is just a little too tight for my liking.

I’m sure Morris can give them a few pointers!

GMacF wrote:

My experience of adapters has been ‘meh’ to say the least. Admittedly my experience is not all that extensive but personally nothing beats a native mount lens.

I do agree, a long prime would be perfect. 400mm f/4 was what came to my mind at first but for my sports work I think I’d benefit more from 300mm, could also be f/4 although f3.5 would do as well. When I shoot with the 100-400 I would say 10% of the shots are at 400mm, for football that FL is just a little too tight for my liking.

I’m sure Morris can give them a few pointers!

Let's see. The Fringer may be the best of a not-so-great bunch, but my experience with them has been good (EF FX Pro ii and EF-GFX versions).

But if I were a sports-pro, I wouldn't be so keen to rely on a niche adapter rather than something backed up by a big brand. That said, a sports-pro could probably justify fitting one on each of your exotics and having a spare in the bag in case of failure.

But, my main point here is Fuji seem to have left a vacuum in their lens range which is highlighted significantly by the launch of the X-H2S, especially given how well-received it's AF performance seems to have been.

Seems a lot easier to use what is available and what would work for what you want to do right now.

Hi,

Have you considered that you may not be in the target market for the 150-600mm? It simply isn't aimed at the pro sports market.

There is a solid history of people seeking long fast lenses from Fuji and lamenting that they aren't in the lens range. Sure it would be nice to have, but first and foremost, Fuji is a business, and a smaller brand at that, and even if they produced such lenses, I doubt they'd get the faithful sports pros to leave their longstanding providers. It's more important that they get ROI and stay profitable - and more so in a very tough and shrinking market in a very tough and uncertain few years.

The investment required to buy a long fast lens of any speed is high enough that the camera is an almost irrelevant cost. The lenses you want exist now. Choose the lens you want, sell your car or mortgage your house, and buy it, and then with the small change, buy any decent body to hang on the back of it. Done. It doesn't have to be a Fuji to meet your long lens needs. Don't delay - there are thousands of photos you've missed waiting for Fuji to make a long fast prime they probably aren't going to make any time soon. And keep your Fuji as the enjoyable system it is for the many other forms of photography it is well capable of.....

Nice to dream, but if you really need a long fast lens, you can resolve your problem today.

Cheers, Rod

Snap Happy wrote:

Dear Fujifilm,

You just launched a great camera, the X-H2S. It's going to do well, and I am sure it will attract lot's of wildlife and some sports photographers to the brand.

I have even seen it's AF compared favourably to the mighty Nikon Z9 (but that was on YouTube, so 'what-evs').

If I were a sports-pro*, I might be looking at the Z9, but I would have to be thinking that right now I could order two X-H2S's with grips for the price of one Z9.

Except.... there are 400, 500 and may be 800 reasons why I wouldn't choose your camera over the Nikon.

I am sorry, but a 150-600 f/8 zoom just doesn't cut it. I can't control the background in a sports venue and that aperture doesn't give me enough options to blur out distracting crowds/advertising/players. Your only fast tele is too short (I although it would be nice to have that 200mm on the second body I could afford), and you have no other fast teles on your roadmap.

So, please please please, go talk to to those nice, helpful people at Fringer. Do a deal to license the manufacturer of their excellent EF and Nikon F adapters. Work with them to make WR versions, shouldn't be too difficult, just a rubber gasket on the non-pro EF and F versions (although the EF Pro with it's physical aperture ring possibly plays better to your brand values, so may be do that one too).

License it for 3 or 5 years, or however long you need to bosh out a super duper 400 f/4 lens. Don't make it too flashy, we don't need PF elements, we have APS format, so making smaller lenses than FF doesn't need this fancy stuff. A built-in TC would be nice, but don't sweat it, a matched one will do.

There you go, the 'Fujinger' is born

*But I'm not, and I have a Fringer, and an X-H2S and I'm lovin' it

Side note to Sigma:

Is it time to make a Fujifilm mount 500 f/4? Come on, you just made mirrorless versions of your excellent 150-600, and you just launched some Fuji X lenses. So you understand the mount now, you have excellent lenses to build on and nearly all the rest of the parts are already in your parts bin. You just need to chop the mount off and fix a new one

OK, so the 500mm is unnecessarily big and heavy for APS, but there is literally NO competition (other than a good but niche adapter) and you are a big mainstream brand who could really make this happen.

The 150-600 is a very sharp and easy to use/carry/and hold wildlife lens. It's not a sport lens, even you can use, for sports under a good light.

I would love to see an equivalent to the new coming Nikon 400 F4,5 lens : not a true F4 lens, but lighter and half the price, for the same optical performance (except one half stop less)

andrei1989 wrote:

canon and nikon lawyers would have a field day if such a product were to exist from fuji, as it would be viewed as highly uncompetitive. canon at least, don't know about nikon, never licensed their lens protocols to any third party lens manufacturers, just to a select few cinema camera companies.

and how would an adapter from fuji to canon ef be different than the fringer one? except weather sealing, which fringer could add in a future version. fuji opened their protocols to whoever wants to use them so it's just a matter of time before fringer release an updated firmware with some fixes to bring their protocols in line with fuji's. the ef side of the adapter would still be reverse engineered

Fringer has already worked with Fuji, at least there site states so.  Using the Fringer adapter it feels like I'm using native Fuji glass with both Nikon and Canon lenses.  I do wish the adapters were weather sealed.

Morris

I'm happy to use (and am already using) what's available, my point via my slightly-tongue-in-cheek original post is I think Fujifilm's strategy here seems quite opaque, at least to me.

Launching a very capable focus-tracking pro camera but without an eco-system of fast tele lenses even announced makes me think either:

1. Fujifilm don't want to gain market share in the pro-sports market or think the RoI is too long, or too uncertain (probably quite a small market, relative to point 3, but with deep pockets)
2. Fujifilm have some things up their sleeves as yet unannounced, and are possibly waiting to judge reaction to the new camera before committing.
3. Fujifilm want to concentrate on the wildlife/enthusiast market because that's where they see the better RoI (probably quite a big market, relative to point 1).

Don't get me wrong, the new 150-600 by all accounts is a fine lens and has some significant size and weight advantages over fast primes and faster zooms. It is also quite competitively priced IMHO.

Internal focusing is a benefit too for those of use who use gimbal heads, my Sigma 150-600 is a nightmare to keep balanced through the zoom range (but then it's mostly set to 600). Even handheld, it's tricky to hold as the weight shifts, but then it's a FF lens.

f/8 doesn't matter so much when, to a certain extent, the wildlife shooter can position themselves to manage the background and the distance to it, if necessary. BIF shooters won't have much of a problem. Of course, for small birds, it doesn't matter much either as DoF is so shallow at close distance, you'll likely be stopping down for more DoF anyway.

But, to my original post's point, if your challenge is trying to isolate a player 10m away against a brightly-coloured advertising panel, the 150-600 is probably not the right tool.

John Gellings wrote:

Seems a lot easier to use what is available and what would work for what you want to do right now.

That are you trying to say John?

Morris

Morris0 wrote:

Fringer has already worked with Fuji, at least there site states so. Using the Fringer adapter it feels like I'm using native Fuji glass with both Nikon and Canon lenses. I do wish the adapters were weather sealed.

Morris

I hadn't realised that, thanks Morris.

Powerdoc wrote:

I would love to see an equivalent to the new coming Nikon 400 F4,5 lens : not a true F4 lens, but lighter and half the price, for the same optical performance (except one half stop less)

Absolutely!

Morris0 wrote:

John Gellings wrote:

Seems a lot easier to use what is available and what would work for what you want to do right now.

That are you trying to say John?

Morris

I’m saying I do not think his idea for a product will be made by Fuji. Hopes and dreams vs reality. It is always better to buy what is available to make the photographs you want to make right now.

Morris0 wrote:

andrei1989 wrote:

canon and nikon lawyers would have a field day if such a product were to exist from fuji, as it would be viewed as highly uncompetitive. canon at least, don't know about nikon, never licensed their lens protocols to any third party lens manufacturers, just to a select few cinema camera companies.

and how would an adapter from fuji to canon ef be different than the fringer one? except weather sealing, which fringer could add in a future version. fuji opened their protocols to whoever wants to use them so it's just a matter of time before fringer release an updated firmware with some fixes to bring their protocols in line with fuji's. the ef side of the adapter would still be reverse engineered

Fringer has already worked with Fuji, at least there site states so. Using the Fringer adapter it feels like I'm using native Fuji glass with both Nikon and Canon lenses. I do wish the adapters were weather sealed.

Morris

I only regret that the Fringer EFX for Canon hasn't the optimization for the 300 2,8 LIS.

perhaps I will try again with the XH2S to see how the AF work, but on a XT3 it's not really impressive ...

Snap Happy wrote:

I'm happy to use (and am already using) what's available, my point via my slightly-tongue-in-cheek original post is I think Fujifilm's strategy here seems quite opaque, at least to me.

Launching a very capable focus-tracking pro camera but without an eco-system of fast tele lenses even announced makes me think either:

1. Fujifilm don't want to gain market share in the pro-sports market or think the RoI is too long, or too uncertain (probably quite a small market, relative to point 3, but with deep pockets)
2. Fujifilm have some things up their sleeves as yet unannounced, and are possibly waiting to judge reaction to the new camera before committing.

Yep

1. Fujifilm want to concentrate on the wildlife/enthusiast market because that's where they see the better RoI (probably quite a big market, relative to point 1).

There are also soccer moms (and dads)

Don't get me wrong, the new 150-600 by all accounts is a fine lens and has some significant size and weight advantages over fast primes and faster zooms. It is also quite competitively priced IMHO.

Internal focusing is a benefit too for those of use who use gimbal heads, my Sigma 150-600 is a nightmare to keep balanced through the zoom range (but then it's mostly set to 600). Even handheld, it's tricky to hold as the weight shifts, but then it's a FF lens.

Nikon recently solved this problem.  Try the new Nikon 100-400 S.  It's always balanced.

f/8 doesn't matter so much when, to a certain extent, the wildlife shooter can position themselves to manage the background and the distance to it

Sometimes

, if necessary. BIF shooters won't have much of a problem. Of course, for small birds, it doesn't matter much either as DoF is so shallow at close distance, you'll likely be stopping down for more DoF anyway.

Backgrounds are very important in BIF and stopping down can reduce AF performance

But, to my original post's point, if your challenge is trying to isolate a player 10m away against a brightly-coloured advertising panel, the 150-600 is probably not the right tool.

This would depend on the subject and background distance and as you said earlier, chose your location carefully when possible.

Morris

Powerdoc wrote:

Morris0 wrote:

andrei1989 wrote:

canon and nikon lawyers would have a field day if such a product were to exist from fuji, as it would be viewed as highly uncompetitive. canon at least, don't know about nikon, never licensed their lens protocols to any third party lens manufacturers, just to a select few cinema camera companies.

and how would an adapter from fuji to canon ef be different than the fringer one? except weather sealing, which fringer could add in a future version. fuji opened their protocols to whoever wants to use them so it's just a matter of time before fringer release an updated firmware with some fixes to bring their protocols in line with fuji's. the ef side of the adapter would still be reverse engineered

Fringer has already worked with Fuji, at least there site states so. Using the Fringer adapter it feels like I'm using native Fuji glass with both Nikon and Canon lenses. I do wish the adapters were weather sealed.

Morris

I only regret that the Fringer EFX for Canon hasn't the optimization for the 300 2,8 LIS.

perhaps I will try again with the XH2S to see how the AF work, but on a XT3 it's not really impressive ...

It appears that Fringer only supports the EF 300/2.8L IS II.  Have you tried offering to work with Fringer to support the original version?  They have done this in the past.

Without support, you will get contrast AF and that will work yet will be slow.

Morris

John Gellings wrote:

Morris0 wrote:

John Gellings wrote:

Seems a lot easier to use what is available and what would work for what you want to do right now.

That are you trying to say John?

Morris

I’m saying I do not think his idea for a product will be made by Fuji. Hopes and dreams vs reality. It is always better to buy what is available to make the photographs you want to make right now.

I agree, I think they would rather wait till they can offer some light prime options.  I don't think they will make big heavy primes as there marketing seems to be to stay light and why the 150-600 is f8 to keep the weight off.  That lens is a delight to shoot hand held.

Morris

Morris0 wrote:

Powerdoc wrote:

Morris0 wrote:

andrei1989 wrote:

canon and nikon lawyers would have a field day if such a product were to exist from fuji, as it would be viewed as highly uncompetitive. canon at least, don't know about nikon, never licensed their lens protocols to any third party lens manufacturers, just to a select few cinema camera companies.

and how would an adapter from fuji to canon ef be different than the fringer one? except weather sealing, which fringer could add in a future version. fuji opened their protocols to whoever wants to use them so it's just a matter of time before fringer release an updated firmware with some fixes to bring their protocols in line with fuji's. the ef side of the adapter would still be reverse engineered

Fringer has already worked with Fuji, at least there site states so. Using the Fringer adapter it feels like I'm using native Fuji glass with both Nikon and Canon lenses. I do wish the adapters were weather sealed.

Morris

I only regret that the Fringer EFX for Canon hasn't the optimization for the 300 2,8 LIS.

perhaps I will try again with the XH2S to see how the AF work, but on a XT3 it's not really impressive ...

It appears that Fringer only supports the EF 300/2.8L IS II. Have you tried offering to work with Fringer to support the original version? They have done this in the past.

Without support, you will get contrast AF and that will work yet will be slow.

Morris

I've contacted Fringer previously about support for older lenses too, it may be worth dropping them a line (although the answer might just be confirmation that they do not intend to optimise for this lens).

It’s all good with Nikon F mount but it’s not possible with Z mount since the Z flange distance is only 15mm thus 1.4mm shorter than Fuji X

sadly

but you’re right, Fuji needs more bright teleprimes

a lonely 200mm won’t cut it with the pros or aspiring pros

Snap Happy wrote:

I'm happy to use (and am already using) what's available, my point via my slightly-tongue-in-cheek original post is I think Fujifilm's strategy here seems quite opaque, at least to me.

Apparently so.  But I'm not sure why.

Launching a very capable focus-tracking pro camera but without an eco-system of fast tele lenses even announced makes me think either:

1. Fujifilm don't want to gain market share in the pro-sports market or think the RoI is too long, or too uncertain (probably quite a small market, relative to point 3, but with deep pockets)

That's is basically correct.  If they did, they'd have a totally different lens lineup and the X-H1 would have been out a long time ago and marketed correctly as a pro sports camera and the X-H2 would have followed sooner.

1. Fujifilm have some things up their sleeves as yet unannounced, and are possibly waiting to judge reaction to the new camera before committing.

No.  Fujifilm does not intend to compete in the pro sports market against Canon, Sony, and Nikon.  Look at their camera models over the years.  Look at the heavy marketing of the old school analog exposure dials.  Fujifilm does not intend to spend resources on a niche user base of pro sports photographers with 3 major companies already occupying that space.

1. Fujifilm want to concentrate on the wildlife/enthusiast market because that's where they see the better RoI (probably quite a big market, relative to point 1).

They're not even concentrating on the wildlife market.  They're concentrating on the amateur and enthusiast market.  You don't need to be a pro to want a high performance stacked sensor body.  $2,500 gets you one without having to spend A1, A9, Z9, R3 type of money.