Fuji Event

B&H Photo is having a massive Fuji sale event—all or at least most of Fuji's digital cameras and lenses are available at significant discounts. The X100T is $200 off; save $300 on either X-T1; the popular new weatherproof 16mm ƒ/1.4 is $200 off and so is the brilliant 50–140mm ƒ/2.8 constant-aperture zoom (didn't one reviewer say that one lens was worth building a whole system around? I can't find it now). There are numerous kit combinations on sale too.

B&H has listed everything on this page. Check it out.

Oh, right—one thing not on sale is the new X-Pro2. But did you read David Hobby's account of how Fuji got input from professional photographers in revising that camera? Very interesting. Worth a read as a general camera article even if you're not into Fuji.

Mike

P.S. I'll have an update on the book sale later this morning this afternoon.

Original contents copyright 2016 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

TOP's links!

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Earl Dunbar: "Uhm, the other thing that isn't on sale is the 35/2. Not that the current price is bad, but as you say, I'm just sayin'."

Stephen Scharf: "I was hoping you'd see the interview with David Hobby about how closely Fujifilm worked to gather 'Voice of the Customer' (VOC) with it's consortium of professional X-photographers. From my own perspective as a VOC professional, Fuji does a really good job of this. One of the most useful parts of the article that David remarked on was how Fuji considered, and actually made, many different prototype cameras to test and evaluate many different features and most importantly, the tradeoffs those features represented before settling on a final design. What most folks don't realize, particularly the trolls on the camera forums, is that many times, different functions conflict with one another, and it can be quite challenging to determine where and how the tradeoffs should be made (the classic one in photography is the old resolution vs. noise at high ISO tradeoff). This is hard work. When one considers all the features, and all the functions, and the sophistication of the subsystems that provide those functions and features we enjoy, the vast majority of customers simply do not understand how technically challenging engineering those subsystems and putting them into production on a mass scale really is. Mostly, they just gripe about not having a tilt screen, or IBIS, or tilt screen with touch control, blah, blah, blah. For example, the viewfinder on the X-Pro has three different optical subsystems built into one, one that fits in the top cover of the body. Think for a moment on the engineering sophistication it took to pull that off. Virtually no one else in the camera industry has anything comparable in functionality or features.

"Overall, Fuji does a helluva job, and Hobby's article does a great job of articulating that."

Comments

[Doug Thacker]

Just wanted to draw your attention to Fuji's recent firmware update (v4.30) to the X-T1, in case you're not already aware. It appears Fuji has significantly improved low light performance of the phase detection pixels, taking them down to 0.5EV (from the previous 2.5EV), improved focus tracking, made macro-mode self-actuating, and added other enhancements, as well. It's going to be like getting a brand new camera, even better than the last new camera. Wow, I love it. Thanks, Fujifilm!

http://www.fujifilm.com/products/digital_cameras/x/fujifilm_x_t1/features/page_08.html

[Steve Biro]

The Fuji sale is also at Adorama and I'm pretty sure at all authorized Fuji dealers in the U.S. Just an FYI. But by all means purchase through Mike's link. :)

[bongo]

Isn't it time FujiFilm change their name to just Fuji, or to something that doesn't have the word "film" in it? - how 'bout FujiFlex?

[Oh, no, it would never do that. FujiFilm is very proud of its heritage. And still makes film. --Mike]

[Robert]

Please check the sale prices for the B&H sale. They are incorrect or B&H jacked up the prices before the sale to make it look like a sale.

[John]

X-Pro 2 is not on sale, nor is the 35/f2. Of course this is to be expected, since these are the two I'm interested buying.

[Hugh Smith]

One vendor we abhorred when I worked in a camera shop was Polaroid. They would come in and sell us on the "amazing "whatever" sale and load us up with cameras only later to announce a new model.
We had to lower prices just to move the newly acquired inventory.
Not saying this about Fuji but I always get cold chills when I see huge sales on a single brand of camera. Makes me wary.

Just mi dos pesos

[John Camp]

The problem with David Hobby's review is that the photos are so good that you suspect it's the photographer, and not the camera. But I really like the colors in the cityscape.

[Patrick]

That David Hobby hagiographic piece does read a bit "they chose me! Me!" I'm afraid.

[MikeR]

Must .... Resist .... Temptation .... To .... Switch .... To .... Fuji .... Ecosystem!!

[Steve Biro]

Oh, I forgot to mention another item that's not a part of the official Fuji sale is the XF 55-200mm f/3.5-4.8 telephoto zoom lens. This highly regarded piece of glass goes for $699 brand-new with U.S. warranty these days. But Best Buy is offering it for $499 both on its own web site and via eBay. I pulled the trigger on one today. I suspect Best Buy is getting out of the camera business. There's almost nothing left in their stores near me, photography-wise.

[TC]

Battery life is often brushed aside with the phrase "Just buy more batteries, they're cheap, and remember when you had to change film?"

But this is a fundamental thing to many styles of photography where the camera needs to be ready at any given moment.

Yes, I know about reloading film. But with a film camera, you always know where you stand, more or less how many shots you have left. The camera is still always ready, as far as you know.

With digital, especially most mirrorless cameras, the battery could be dead at any moment. Save for the cameras with top-mounted displays, there's no indication whether the thing is even on. Every time you raise it to take a shot, there's the chance that it's dead.

And even if it's not dead, it's still a ticking time bomb, and not even at a measurable rate. If I'm walking around all day with the camera, I can almost feel the batteries draining. Though for people who shoot static subjects and only turn the camera on for those, this doesn't apply.

My point (and I'm looking not just at Fuji but all manufacturers that make cameras supposedly for capturing candid moments in life) is that a beefy battery life on a camera that is on you all day, every day in the scarce hope that at one particular moment you'll come across magic, is about more than just a handful of batteries in your pocket so you can fumble around while the moment disappears. Piece of mind and confidence that the camera will be ready when you are is something I hope camera designers can dismiss less easily in the future.

Sorry for the rant; this is something that I realize is not something many photographers care that much about, but it's important to me.

[I have to say I think it's kind of funny that photographers used to be so passionate about paying extra for cameras that would work without batteries, such as the Leica R6 and Olympus OM-3, when they were talking about batteries that lasted a YEAR...now we're all fine with batteries that last a day, and sometimes (as you say) not even that.

Have you looked into cameras with spare batteries in the vertical grip? With the Fuji X-T1's Vertical Grip you get a slot for an extra battery. --Mike]

[Jim Simmons]

They've not done such a stellar job of providing updates for the xe1. One or two updates, and that's it. Other than staying current with lenses as they come out.

[Sixblockseast.blogspot.com]

I bought a black X-T10 with 16-50 lens, spare battery, and 32gb card for $750. I will eventually get the 35mm/f2--when they discount it. But unfortunately bought it before you had the link up! It was tricky to find the correct link for that combo though. Somehow got to it through a comment on fujirumors.com

[Luke]

Yeah, that combined optical / EVF on the XPro2 seems like a good idea, but it just doesn't work. It shows frame lines in the optical VF. If you half-press to autofocus, or if you manual focus, the frame moves to adjust for parallax, as you would expect, but the framing is off, way off, just wrong.

Good idea, failed execution.

[D. Hufford.]

I wonder if the technical challenges were the reason for the "quirks" the original Fuji x100 had. You know, the horrible manual focus---ok, I am exaggerating by calling it focus---and the not much better auto focus. Or the slow start-up time or even refusal to start-up, the shutter lag, the unexplained shutdowns and so on. Many of those challenges amazingly disappeared (or were reduced a bit) with the later firmware updates. Challenges that other mirrorless of the era did not have to anywhere near the same extent.

I like Fuji for some reason. The retro looks, the files, and an illogical attractiveness in spite of flaws (sorry, quirks). Their customer service and response to customer input seems much above other makers (Nikon in particular), but I am very skeptical of some of the things written on the Internet about the company. I don't think it a surprise that many features people want are not feasible for design, engineering, or economic reasons, but well over a decade and a half of working in and with Japanese companies taught me to expect new ideas to be regularly be answered with excuses as to why they can't be used rather than seriously investigating how they can be. Sometimes things that weren't possible to do suddenly became possible when a competitor introduced them.

[Jean-Pierre Grüter]

Unfortunately the beautiful lightweight 2.8/16mm and 2.0/23 mm aren't on sale either.