Should Fuji go FF? (instead of MF)

[Doug MacMillan]

Thanks. Right now, Leica Summicron. MF, but lovely bokeh.

 

[Bobo Hodls]

Shoot me now. Please.

Bob, You and I have had our differences, but deep down inside there is a lot of love.

I am shocked that 19 people gave a thumbs up to your plea to be shot.

(Although I admit when I first saw the title of the thread that I too wanted to be thrust against a wall with a blindfold wrapped around my head and a cigarette hanging out of the corner of my mouth while I shouted my last request -- "No Full-Frame for Fuji!")

Do you want me to come to NYC and be your body guard? I have some skills.

Greg Johnson, San Antonio, Texas
https://www.flickr.com/photos/139148982@N02/albums

So, if that meet ever happens, can one of you please send along an invite? I’d might want to be there to witness it firsthand. Sounds epic.

I might even bring my camera (X-T2? X-H1? X-T2? X-H1?) ... aargh! Decisions decisions decisions. The pics could be weekly thread material for sure.

Ummmmmm. . . let's not forget what happens when anti-matter meets matter. It's not that they want to annihilate each other - there is some attraction, after all. But the outcome is inevitable.

Or, as Woody Allen might put it - I think what we have here is a dead chicken.

 

[Batdude]

I never used the word "dying" and I don't see crop going away, that's not the point, plus you can also shoot crop with a FF for more reach if desire to use long lenses. You get both worlds.

Sure you can crop a FF image, at the expense of resolution and detail. Could be a bad move if you want to print large. The fact remains (IMHO), that to remain successful, Fuji has to differentiate itself, not dive in the mix with Canikon. What’s more, diluting its R&D resources with the development of a camera line in yet another format is... well... just plain dumb, to be direct, IMHO. As the mirrorless market gets more crowded with players — some of which are pretty big and with deep pockets — differentiation remains a real key to success. Right now, Fuji’s product line lives in its own niche with some very unique capabilities. The last thing they need to do is to dilute their focus and resources by jumping into an already crowded FF market with Canon, Nikon, and Sony. Marketing 101.

To be honest, I think you’re simply enamored with FF and are struggling with seeing the bigger picture. JMHO.

Jerry, yes I am enamored with FF. You nailed it with that word "enamored". You just reminded me when I was dating when younger hahaha

You have no idea how many years It took me to be able to get a FF for the simple fact that they were so bloody expensive back then and I could only dream of owning the 105mm f2 and a 85 1.4. I remember years ago when the D700 came out. Oh god that was like the dream camera to shoot with but I could only see pictures from it on a computer monitor, but own it, heck no :-(

So yes, I am enamored with FF for sure. Is just a different look and they are so damn affordable now and there are tons of lenses for it.

A few years ago I too got enamored with the S5 Pro and it's color output science changed a lot of things for me and that's the main reason why I'm still shooting with Fuji as well. I figure, Is more exciting to be "enamored" with two chicks instead of just one hahaha. Not that I'm a cheater or anything ;-)

 

[ikaika777]

If Fujifilm did go FF, it would be lights out for Nikon and Canon. Arrogance always loses in the end.

Look up "arrogance" in the dictionary and the illustration has a red dot on it. Leica seems to keep on hanging on.

Leica will stay in business because the old adage, “There’s one born every minute” keeps them alive and well. I’m thoroughly convinced that when the Leica marketing department sits around the board room to set prices they do it on a dare while busting out laughing.

 

[Jerry-astro]

Jerry, yes I am enamored with FF. You nailed it with that word "enamored". You just reminded me when I was dating when younger hahaha

You have no idea how many years It took me to be able to get a FF for the simple fact that they were so bloody expensive back then and I could only dream of owning the 105mm f2 and a 85 1.4. I remember years ago when the D700 came out. Oh god that was like the dream camera to shoot with but I could only see pictures from it on a computer monitor, but own it, heck no :-(

So yes, I am enamored with FF for sure. Is just a different look and they are so damn affordable now and there are tons of lenses for it.

A few years ago I too got enamored with the S5 Pro and it's color output science changed a lot of things for me and that's the main reason why I'm still shooting with Fuji as well. I figure, Is more exciting to be "enamored" with two chicks instead of just one hahaha. Not that I'm a cheater or anything ;-)

It’s all cool. It’s a hobby... it’s supposed to make you happy. I’ve never been drawn by the siren song of FF, but totally understand why many folks feel the same as you. it’s great to have the choices we do.

 

[Canadianguy]

If Fujifilm did go FF, it would be lights out for Nikon and Canon. Arrogance always loses in the end.

Look up "arrogance" in the dictionary and the illustration has a red dot on it. Leica seems to keep on hanging on.

Leica will stay in business because the old adage, “There’s one born every minute” keeps them alive and well. I’m thoroughly convinced that when the Leica marketing department sits around the board room to set prices they do it on a dare while busting out laughing.

Talking about Leica, latest rumour has them joining with Panasonic and Sigma to launch a new 35mm sensor system using the Leica SL mount...

Loading…

www.l-rumors.com

 

[Truman Prevatt]

If Fujifilm did go FF, it would be lights out for Nikon and Canon. Arrogance always loses in the end.

Look up "arrogance" in the dictionary and the illustration has a red dot on it. Leica seems to keep on hanging on.

Leica will stay in business because the old adage, “There’s one born every minute” keeps them alive and well. I’m thoroughly convinced that when the Leica marketing department sits around the board room to set prices they do it on a dare while busting out laughing.

No Leica will stay in business for the same reason BMW and Mercedes stay in business - devotion to quality and craftsmanship. Quality cost money. People that buy a BMW or Mercedes or a Leica value quality.

 

[Jerry-astro]

Shoot me now. Please.

Bob, You and I have had our differences, but deep down inside there is a lot of love.

I am shocked that 19 people gave a thumbs up to your plea to be shot.

(Although I admit when I first saw the title of the thread that I too wanted to be thrust against a wall with a blindfold wrapped around my head and a cigarette hanging out of the corner of my mouth while I shouted my last request -- "No Full-Frame for Fuji!")

Do you want me to come to NYC and be your body guard? I have some skills.

Greg Johnson, San Antonio, Texas
https://www.flickr.com/photos/139148982@N02/albums

So, if that meet ever happens, can one of you please send along an invite? I’d might want to be there to witness it firsthand. Sounds epic.

I might even bring my camera (X-T2? X-H1? X-T2? X-H1?) ... aargh! Decisions decisions decisions. The pics could be weekly thread material for sure.

Ummmmmm. . . let's not forget what happens when anti-matter meets matter. It's not that they want to annihilate each other - there is some attraction, after all. But the outcome is inevitable.

Or, as Woody Allen might put it - I think what we have here is a dead chicken.

Dangit. Booked flights and everything. [sigh]

OK... maybe not.

 

[Elliot H]

If Fujifilm did go FF, it would be lights out for Nikon and Canon. Arrogance always loses in the end.

Look up "arrogance" in the dictionary and the illustration has a red dot on it. Leica seems to keep on hanging on.

Leica will stay in business because the old adage, “There’s one born every minute” keeps them alive and well. I’m thoroughly convinced that when the Leica marketing department sits around the board room to set prices they do it on a dare while busting out laughing.

Talking about Leica, latest rumour has them joining with Panasonic and Sigma to launch a new 35mm sensor system using the Leica SL mount...

https://www.l-rumors.com/leica-pana...-a-new-full-frame-system-around-the-sl-mount/

this will keep every manufacturer on their toes, GOOD for us

 

[ikaika777]

If Fujifilm did go FF, it would be lights out for Nikon and Canon. Arrogance always loses in the end.

Look up "arrogance" in the dictionary and the illustration has a red dot on it. Leica seems to keep on hanging on.

Leica will stay in business because the old adage, “There’s one born every minute” keeps them alive and well. I’m thoroughly convinced that when the Leica marketing department sits around the board room to set prices they do it on a dare while busting out laughing.

Talking about Leica, latest rumour has them joining with Panasonic and Sigma to launch a new 35mm sensor system using the Leica SL mount...

https://www.l-rumors.com/leica-pana...-a-new-full-frame-system-around-the-sl-mount/

And what ridiculous price will they be asking for it because it has the Leica name? Or is this going to be another rebranded Panasonic?

--After all is said and done and your photo is hanging on the wall, no one is going to know or care what camera, lens, or what post processing you used. All they care about is if the image moves them.

 

[ikaika777]

If Fujifilm did go FF, it would be lights out for Nikon and Canon. Arrogance always loses in the end.

Look up "arrogance" in the dictionary and the illustration has a red dot on it. Leica seems to keep on hanging on.

Leica will stay in business because the old adage, “There’s one born every minute” keeps them alive and well. I’m thoroughly convinced that when the Leica marketing department sits around the board room to set prices they do it on a dare while busting out laughing.

No Leica will stay in business for the same reason BMW and Mercedes stay in business - devotion to quality and craftsmanship. Quality cost money. People that buy a BMW or Mercedes or a Leica value quality.

Except for the fact that Leica digital cameras are not technologically advanced systems. Nikon, Canon, Sony, Fuji, etc. crush Leica when it comes to technology. So really, besides that Leica camera’s are well made physically they’re not worth the money technologically because they’re years behind and in that sense that does not equal good quality. Just because a new Leica lens costs $10,000 doesn’t mean it is of good quality when it comes to image quality compared to other brands that blow it away for a fraction of the price.

--After all is said and done and your photo is hanging on the wall, no one is going to know or care what camera, lens, or what post processing you used. All they care about is if the image moves them.

 

[bs1946]

If Fujifilm did go FF, it would be lights out for Nikon and Canon. Arrogance always loses in the end.

Look up "arrogance" in the dictionary and the illustration has a red dot on it. Leica seems to keep on hanging on.

Leica will stay in business because the old adage, “There’s one born every minute” keeps them alive and well. I’m thoroughly convinced that when the Leica marketing department sits around the board room to set prices they do it on a dare while busting out laughing.

No Leica will stay in business for the same reason BMW and Mercedes stay in business - devotion to quality and craftsmanship. Quality cost money. People that buy a BMW or Mercedes or a Leica value quality.

That should be perceived quality and craftsmanship. Leica has one of the highest failure rates in the industry while old cheap Fuji has one of the lowest.

 

[57even]

If Fujifilm did go FF, it would be lights out for Nikon and Canon. Arrogance always loses in the end.

Look up "arrogance" in the dictionary and the illustration has a red dot on it. Leica seems to keep on hanging on.

Leica will stay in business because the old adage, “There’s one born every minute” keeps them alive and well. I’m thoroughly convinced that when the Leica marketing department sits around the board room to set prices they do it on a dare while busting out laughing.

No Leica will stay in business for the same reason BMW and Mercedes stay in business - devotion to quality and craftsmanship. Quality cost money. People that buy a BMW or Mercedes or a Leica value quality.

That should be perceived quality and craftsmanship. Leica has one of the highest failure rates in the industry while old cheap Fuji has one of the lowest.

Not that different from Mercedes and Hyundai ;-)

 

[HB1969]

For a long time (when I owned a DSLR) I longed to go full frame. Fuji cured me of that itch. I realize now that the reason I wanted FF was because you needed to buy FF lenses to make the most out of IQ and if you had FF lenses, why not buy an FF body. Quality lens choice was (and still is for most systems) extremely limited if you wanted to stay with APSC.

I think the article is based on a flawed premise. He made a big deal about GFX "competing" with FF and framed all his arguments for dumpling MF around it. He included the problems with MF is that they were poor for sports, wedding and press photography....It's at this point in the article I thought "REALLY, I had no idea MF camera's would be so bad for these applications! And after Fuji spent so much of their marketing budget promoting the GFX as an action camera and not a Landscape/Studio tool" /sarcasm

I'm not arrogant enough to say that Fuji should stay with APSC + MF or that they should dump MF in favour of FF. Without seeing their full sales data and marketing plans, none of us can. However, Fuji execs have mentioned that they were taken by surprise by the popularity of the GFX which I interpret as they're selling a lot more than they originally forecast. I doubt there's any incentive to drop MF. Although instax is their biggest earner for the imaging division, their investor reports of the last few years state "strong sales" of the x-camera's and lenses, particularly the X-Tn cams. I doubt there's any incentive to drop APSC either. Is there room to add a FF line as well????

If they decide to jump into the FF market that's great for them but I hope they don't sacrifice APSC or MF to do it. There is no "upgrade" path using the current X-mount. The throat diameter is 44mm so they would run into similar problems as Nikon had with their F-mount when designing FF lenses. So that would require a completely new lens mount. If you have to buy new lenses anyway what's stopping you from changing systems altogether.

 

[Mavry]

Whenever FF is discussed on here, discussion usually revolves around photographic arguments and economic factors are underrepresented. We’re customers, after all, not camera manufacturer executives. However, when looking at Fuji from an economic perspective, strong arguments can be made that Fuji’s decisions have been pretty well informed and successful so far.

As Fuji users we can sometimes forget that Fuji might be a significant player in the market, but certainly isn’t one of its biggest players. By choosing not to compete in the FF market, Fuji have avoided a tough-to-win battle against juggernaut corporations like Nikon and Canon. It’s also important to take into consideration that Fuji’s most similar competitor Sony has only been able to make a successful attempt to establish itself as one of the (now) three big FF players because of its size. As a corporation (including all lines of business), Sony’s revenue is 250% that of Fuji (¥6,600 billion vs ¥2,600 billion). This has enabled Sony to commit a lot more resources to get to where it is in the FF market today than Fuji ever could have.

Instead, Fuji identified premium APS-C system cameras as a potential niche market where they could best the bigger competitors. With CaNikon (and Sony), the upgrade path more often than not was a move from APS-C to FF, with few premium APS-C camera options (7d MkII/2014, D500/2016, a6500/2016) and even fewer dedicated APS-C premium lenses. By offering an entire premium system tailored around the APS-C platform, Fuji was able to create strong USPs (unique selling propositions) and to this day remains the most advanced dedicated APS-C system in the market. The later move into MF followed a largely similar approach, where Fuji identified a second niche market in which it felt it could establish itself as a market leader.

If Fuji decided to develop FF cameras, it would need to compete into a market with much greater economic risk. It might seem like CaNikon make the most money by selling FF cameras, but that is a false assumption. CaNikon are making (or used to, anyway) a lot more money by selling cheaper ASP-C cameras, than their higher priced FF cameras. Regardless, for professionals and enthusiasts, often FF is considered a necessity without alternatives (ever heard of the discussion about “Fuji not being a professional system”?). One doesn’t need to dive deep to see how Fuji taking on the FF market might look like. If you look at Pentax/Ricoh, at the time of writing, they offer “two” FF cameras (one being an updated version of the other) and a mere 13 FF lenses (5 zooms, 8 primes) – with only one zoom costing less than 1,000 USD (a 28-105/3.5-5.6 without OIS). CaNikon, and increasingly Sony, can offer much more substantial lens options - both their own and third party. In no way am I trying to belittle Pentax, but they are far from establishing themselves as the fourth big player in the FF camera market.

To understand Fuji’s strategy to compete in niche markets rather than the hotly contested mass markets, it can help to compare them to car manufacturers. There are certain big players that service most market segments (e.g. Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai, GM, Ford) and can be likened to CaNikon (and to a lesser extend Sony). On the other hand, there are niche companies (e.g. Tesla/electric, Ferrari/super sports cars) that find economic success in a strong position in their respective niche markets rather than a weak/unprofitable position in the mass market.

I know, as photographers, we will always have wishlists (I can't exclude myself from this), and there will always be unfulfilled wishes regardless which brand we appreciate the most. However, our wishes alone can only potentially cover one (market demand) of a myriad of economic factors. If others (e.g. company size, available resources – financial and otherwise, market situation, corporate portfolio strategy,…) do not align, it’s simply not going to happen, no matter how hard we wish for it. And if it’s a deal breaker, every photographer has the choice and power to choose a competitor over Fuji.

If one is interested in understanding Fuji’s decision better, it can be a bit intimidating as a layman to decide where to start researching economic theories and methods. To gain a basic understanding it can help to learn about market segmentation, product positioning, and market/customer targeting, feasibility studies, portfolio strategy and strategic planning (one classic tool of which is SWOT analysis).

I totally agree with this. A company success is related to how much money they make in relation to how big is the investmente it made. You don't have to be the leader to be successful. You just have to make enough money to justify the money you have tied to the business. In that regard, as far as I know, Fuji is doing just fine with their niche strategy. To go for the FF market...I guess it's a question the high CEOs make themselves every year. If they do it, i will not be because FF is better than APS-C or MF or because a lot of photographers want FF or nothing like it. It will be just a money move. If they see it as a good oportunity to make money with reasonable risk, they will do it. If not, they have their niches and will work on them: generate loyalty and slooooowly expand it.

And I think people is forgetting that FF was always there. CaNikon were always there. The only thing that is changing is that the future now is mirrorless and not SLRs, but competition from FF was always there and factored in Fuji's decisions. I would even say that this is good for Fuji. The market change is about thechnology (mirrorless v/s SLRs) and not about sensor size (FF v/s APS-C...that's not the change). CaNikon, the really big guys, have just validated mirrorless as the future...and Fuji is mirrorless. I can't see how that's bad for Fuji. Not by any means.

--
I like photography because it gets me closer to some kind of art
https://500px.com/mauro_laserena

 

[baobob]

I think the subject has already been debated in depth...

The Fuji opinion shared by many of us is that APSc now are very close to FF in IQ with less size, weight, $$$ (altogether)

MF is clearly a professional niche

Not sure that the new FF mirrorless of Canik will canibalize all the market, mainly due to $$$$