I started photography as a pre-teen, in the 1980’s. My dad gave me his hand-me-down camera bodies. Back then I was shooting on an old Pentax 35mm film camera. Our lenses were never fast or special, but I really enjoyed the hobby. In 2002 I bought a Nikon film body, and by 2004 I got my first digital SLR. Since then I’ve had digital bodies from Nikon, Canon, and Sony. About 5 years ago I got my first Fujifilm camera. I hadn’t been shooting in a very long time. Most of my digital cameras were gone. I had to sell off my best equipment over the years, so here I was buying a Fuji X-T2 from KEH. More than the Fuji body, I loved the Fuji XF 35mm 1.4 lens. That lens feels fluid, solid and performs amazingly.

Fuji did a great service for general photography. Fuji was able to get consumers to buy cameras again. Most people sold off their older cameras, to use the one they carry in their pocket every day. Mobile photography has fulfilled the need of average consumers. Fuji found a way to make a true camera, fun and exciting again.

Fuji’s Issues

Over the years I’ve put my camera on a shelf and rarely take it out. I’m not inspired to shoot with the Fuji. Even with that amazing XF35mm I just hate bringing the Fuji out. It took me awhile to figure out the issue but it came down to my outdated sensor, poor autofocus, and the lack of straight out of camera (sooc) expectations.

Straight out of Camera Quality Issues

I got the Fujifilm X-T2 because it was affordable for me and most of all it promised film-like quality in straight out of camera jpgs. I quickly released Fuji’s marketing scheme, as I was unable to achieve the sooc quality promised. Fuji doesn’t give every camera body the same film simulations. Each camera generation gets 1 to 3 new film simulations. These are the bases that can be tweaked, using white balance, etc. Without the base, you can’t achieve the result. This is partly how Fuji insures it’s buyers keep buying – limit what they can do on an older model and make them upgrade the body to get more film simulations.

White Balance was another problem, that was only fixed on the latest generation of Fuji sensors. From the X-T4 and prior, saving the white balance saves it globally. It’s idiotic. If I want to modify the White Balance of a kodachrome style film emulation, it actually changes it to every film simulation. If I wanted 3 versions of that Kodachrome simulation (one warm, one cool, one greenish)… it won’t happen. No one is going to spend the time to switch the White Balance on each shot.

Because I couldn’t achieve the shot I wanted, I ended up in post. I was using CaptureONE or Lightroom to modify each shot. I created my own presets, my own LUTs and constantly was editing. This was fine for a short time, and then it drained me over time. This may be one of the biggest reasons I stopped shooting altogether.

Autofocus Nightmares

When I was looking to upgrade my X-T2 to a modern generation, advice I received time and time again was “wait for them to fix the autofocus.” Fuji’s autofocus system is notoriously bad, but even worse than their poor autofocus is their firmware that broke continuous autofocus across many camera bodies.

In bright conditions, with a descent lens, and a stationary subject, Fuji’s autofocus is likely fine. Taking landscape shots, or shots of stationary subjects, Fuji does a pretty good job. However, your child that’s dancing around and won’t stand still as they twirl their arms out and jump up and down… good luck.

Continuous autofocus is a great feature most cameras have today. It allows a camera to lock onto objects and hold that focus as they move towards or away from the camera. Really powerful camera systems, like Sony and Panasonic can lock onto the eye itself and keep focus on the eye as the person moves around.

As if autofocus wasn’t bad enough on Fuji cameras, a firmware update released last year broke autofocus. This was a firmware update that doesn’t allow a rollback. You can’t simply roll back to the previous version. Fuji just screwed their base, but like Apple fanatics, few voice their concerns. While some camera bodies have had patches, the majority have not. This issue can be read HERE, HERE and HERE.

To make matters worse, Fuji’s ecosystem is filled with talking heads who constantly broadcast, “there’s no problem here.” Consider a post on FujiXWeekly, that defends autofocus AFTER the firmware broke the autofocus. It’s basically saying that the auto focus on Fuji cameras is fine, it’s just not the extremely good. Sadly, it misses the point that it’s broke on many camera bodies right now due to a firmware update. Other fans are suggesting we just use manual focus because that’s what “real photographers” do anyway. Or here’s an idea: fix autofocus.

Even the latest camera body (without the firmware issue), which uses the latest auto focusing technology, the X-M5 is still behind competitors (Panasonic, Sony, Nikon). Yes, you can use the camera and use auto focus, but you’ll miss shots here or there, and maybe that’s ok. That firmware issue though, that’s a monster.

Lacking Detail

Even on the newer X-T5 sensors, detail was lacking. It’s a larger problem of APS-C cropped sensors. When. you have a cropped sensor, it will have less of a plate or sensor to expose against. Therefore less detail is captured. This problem resolves with a full frame 35mm sensor, or medium format sensor.

Looking at Fuji shots, close to 100%, they appear a mess. It feels almost like pixel panic. There’s a lot of edge sharpening, color contrast and other tweaks to make the images feel sharp. This is the magic cell phones do to appear sharp when exposing against a small sensor. Likely you’ll never care about the 100% crop, if you only shoot for online distribution (Instagram). However, making prints, this may become an issue.

Example: Look at this image from DPReview. At first it looks very sharp. Now zoom in to 100%. Look at these artifacts of a cropped sensor:

These details are lacking. Earth tones (olive, dark green, brown) muddy up together. They form a pool of color that lacks detail rendering. Keep in mind that’s the latest sensor, and my X-T2 is several generations behind that.

They only way out of this issue is to go Full Frame… and Fuji doesn’t have a 35mm full frame option. They do have a medium format full frame, which is amazing, but is very expensive and outside my budget.

Comparing to Full Frame

Comparing the 100% crop to a full frame sensor (Lumix S9) you can see the difference. Earth tones are correctly rendered, there’s a lack of jitter and distortion. It’s super clean:

Supply Issues Getting a New Fuji

Last year Fuji released the X100VI. It’s their latest successor to their fixed lens camera body. I had an opportunity to buy one, and I wasn’t sure I liked the quality coming off it. I waited, lost my opportunity and still today (a year later) it isn’t available from online and offline retailers!

The short supply led to price gouging. The average price of the X100VI is $500 above list, and it’s impossible to find. People have to put money up to hold it, and wait for a retailer to get a few in and then send it out to the customer and the wait time can be nearly a year.

Fuji’s previous generation (X100V) still sells for the original list price of the X100VI, can you believe that? Fuji has a serious problem meeting demand. Nikon, Canon, Sony, Panasonic… no one else has this issue. For Fuji it’s a nice issue to have. They never over build, so they are always in the profit. For the consumer it’s a terrible position to be in.

Recently, Fuji released a interesting camera: X-M5. The X-M5 is a slimmed down camera with the latest sensor. It has a kit that was originally listed at $800, yet due to another supply shortage, it’s listed at $899, and it’s out of stock everywhere. People on eBay price gouging it at nearly $1,200! For a few hundred more a person could get a much better Lumix full frame.

TL/DR

To summarize, Fuji is a great concept. It saved photography from mobile phones. It provided several camera concepts (fixed lens, lens mounted bodies, slimmed down and powered up) bodies for different types of shooters. In the end, however, Fuji is saddled with issues achieving that Straight Out Of Camera look, autofocus problems, firmware failures and supply chain problems causing extensive price gauging.