With Fuji’s announcement of the mirrorless medium-format GFX system at Photokina 2016, the news has left many photographers wondering if the company has any plans for a full-frame system.
We caught up with Fuji at Photokina and asked them if the jump from its X-series APS-C-format system up to medium format means that a full-frame mirrorless camera isn’t in its future… and the answer would appear to be yes.
Fuji explained that it began planning a new camera system a couple of years ago, and when looking at all the options, felt that creating a full-frame system would upset the many photographers who have invested in its APS-C system.
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Fuji says it felt that all of these users would feel like they would have to invest in a new lens system, so the company decided to skip full-frame entirely and create a medium format system instead.
In essence, Fuji told us that bringing out a full-frame system would be telling its users that APS-C isn’t good enough, and the company just doesn’t believe that.
Its X-Trans sensors have been shown to out-resolve some of their full-frame contemporaries, and Fuji says launching a full-frame system would effectively undercut everything its X-series has achieved.
So the answer, my friends, is blowing in the wind… there will be no Fuji full-frame camera anytime soon.
And of course with Canon, Nikon and Sony already have well-established full-frame camera lines, and Pentax fighting to gain ground in that area, it’s already quite a crowded market.
By leaping over full-frame Fuji has avoided a battleground and introduced something that the bigger manufacturers don’t offer. We’d say that was a pretty shrewd move.
Having tried both cameras, the Fuji GFX also complements the Hasselblad X1D nicely, expanding the market and giving photographers a choice.
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