[Just to be clear—this is not a review. This is the bit that I couldn't justify putting in the review. I'm still working on the review. Sorry it's not here yet. I'll get back to work now.
P.S. I didn't mean to offend anyone who loves Nikon, by the way. Just using them as an example. Don't worry, I like Nikon—and I love people who shoot Nikon. :-) —Mike]
I've been wrestling with what to do with these thoughts. What follows just doesn't seem to belong in a camera review. And yet it's a significant part of my reaction to the Fuji X-H1. These ideas don't really "attach" to the object—the camera—in any meaningful way, and they're not really relevant to someone who's considering buying and using the camera. (Why should that person care?)
Fuji X-H1 with battery grip, rear view
Here's the thing, though: the Fuji X-H1 doesn't seem to quite belong in the Fuji lineup. You've heard the expression "odd man out"? It's an odd camera out.
Consider, for comparison, just as a "fer instance," Nikon. Nikon has legacy products stretching back all the way to the horizon behind us, but that's not its fault—that's just the result of having been in business for many decades. I'm not going to blame them for that. But other than that, Nikon's product offerings are largely...a mess. Not a hopeless mess, just a mess. Nikon goes one way and then another, buffeted by competitive reactivity, by constantly shifting marketing strategy, and by inconsistent vision. Their flagship products (professional FF DSLRs) are essentially replicants of 35mm film SLRs, so that the large system of 35mm SLR lenses could be transitioned without modification and the installed user base wasn't left hanging. They devise whole product lineups (Nikon 1) strategized mainly to protect their more profitable products. They fail to support whole segments of their lineup (absence of APS-C primes), abandon certain customers for agonizingly long periods of time (the gap between the D300 and D500), shift strategies (dedication to APS-C jettisoned when Canon had success with FF). They make me-too products and charge to much for them just to pirate other companies' success (Coolpix A). They don't even follow up with refreshed iterations of their own most successful products (no real update for the landmark D700). They announce a lineup of cameras and then later decide, ah, no, we're not even going to make those at all. (I can't even remember what those three cameras were called.) Most recently, they rolled out a whole new lensmount just to compete in a segment that another company was having success with (full-frame mirrorless, Sony A7/9). They just wander this way and that, scarfing up little blobs of market demand where they can, reacting to competitors where they think they need to. It's not evil or even bad, necessarily. It's just that there's no detectable overriding vision anywhere. Maybe there is but it's just buried under this and that and the other thing. Maybe under heaps of old discarded rebranded point-and-shoots.
I'm not saying the Nikon product lineup is completely inchoate, or that the offerings overall are a total hodgepodge. But I will say that when a company gets in the habit of throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, pretty soon you've got a big mess on your hands. (Always the visual in my memory—I'm reminded of my childhood friend Karen's twin sons Galen and Isaac when they were two years old. She had to spread a big plastic painter's tarp on the floor when she fed them spaghetti, and then carry them off to the shower afterwards because they'd be coated from their hair to their toes in tomato sauce. Despite the tarp, there could still be the odd strand of spaghetti on the floor or the wall. Those little boys sure had a blast with Italian food.) The result for Nikon is a company that's had no real consistent vision for so long that its product offerings resemble a junk drawer. Even if it's not a total hodgepodge, it's still sort of a hodgepodge. Hard to argue otherwise.
Dazzlingly clean
Fuji has pretty much been the inverse, the exact opposite, of that. Starting with a clean sheet after the surprise success of the X100 in 2012 or '13, they've followed a coherent strategy and come out with a product portfolio that looks purposeful, balanced, and sensible. They have several distinct tiers of cameras for different levels of the market; options of camera styles at each tier; they update the products with thoroughly researched and really thoughtful iterations at regular intervals; and their lens lineup—although there are, of course, earlier and later products that differ somewhat—is for the most part carefully judged, balanced, complete, and sensible. Heck, even the big GFX is perfectly situated to complement rather than conflict with the established X mount line—you can easily envision the same customer owning and using both.
And that's a big part of why I like Fuji. It's the vision company. It has a clean, clear, consistent idea of what it wants to offer you. There's not a lot of me-too-ism, no chasing of little puffs of tasty market share here and there willy-nilly, no spinning of wheels or yawning gaps in the lineups or redundancy or stunted little vestiges of marketing blunders or missteps left hanging and spinning slowly in the breeze like the corpses of fired Nikon product lineup managers*.
Into that admirable orderliness, that unusual coherence, the X-H1 seems oddly out of place. Sort of an interloper. It doesn't really quite belong anywhere. It's not part of the X-T[x] series; but it's still pretty close. It feels like a one-off. More significantly, it feels like the first product where Fuji said, "Hmm, we don't have what we need to compete here, in this little market segment, so let's react to the competitors' product offerings and counter what they do." Like they were getting criticism for what their cameras didn't have and they said oh yeah? We can do that. Take this.
...Which might not be dumb; I mean, if they see that they don't have a videocentric offering with IBIS, why not start a new line? But then they turn right around and put almost all the video goodness of the still-new X-H1 into the X-T3, minus just the IBIS. That kind of steals the thunder of the X-H1. Quick, which is better for video, the X-T3 or the X-H1? It kinda depends on what you mean by "better."
So what's going to happen in the future? Is X-H[x] going to become a new category—the videocentric Fuji—reiterated in successive iterations like the other cameras? Or are the features of the X-H1 going t0 migrate into the X-T4? Or is the X-H1 going to be orphaned, like what Panasonic did with the GX8 or Olympus with the E-1?
The X-H1 just doesn't seem to fit any plan. It may not be the first product that Fuji's made that's merely a Nikon-like reaction to the competition, a we-can-do-that-too camera, but it feels like it is.
Not that there's anything wrong with that**
Note that all this isn't necessarily a criticism of the camera. It doesn't really have anything to do with the camera. It's more a reflection on the marketing plan of Fuji and the gestalt of Fuji's systematic thinking overall.
I don't know, maybe Nikon's spaghetti-mess quality is just what happens when companies stick around for a long time and continually try to adapt to changes in markets. But Jay Leno says he likes cars that were the product of one strong vision, one person's clear ideas, and I like that too. That was why Apple became such a success, because it expressed one strong-willed person's clear vision. (Whether you liked that vision or not is beside that point.) I have no idea if there's a single individual behind Fuji's beautiful clear strategy, or who that might be, but there sure seems to be. I've loved the fact that Fuji goes its own way and does its own thing with such calm boldness and assurance. It's...refreshing. Maybe that will become muddled as they evolve from a young company (the post-X100 camera division, I mean) into an older one.
And see what I mean? None of this really has to do with the X-H1 as a camera. It doesn't affect how any one owner will be able to use the product. It's really just a holistic marketing concern, an aspect of corporate identity. An issue of...consistency. It's a "meta" concern. It doesn't belong in a camera review.
Mike
*Sorry. I get carried away.
**Seinfeld reference.
Original contents copyright 2018 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.
B&H Photo • Amazon US • Amazon UK
Amazon Germany • Amazon Canada • Adorama
(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:
Dennis: "I get what you're saying here and I think this is part of what some people find so appealing about Fuji. However, I find myself a little disappointed in the actual details of the concept when I look at Fuji. You have bodies with ISO dials, bodies without, bodies with Bayer sensors, bodies with X-Trans sensors, lenses with labeled aperture rings, lenses with unlabeled aperture rings, and lenses without any aperture rings at all (including the 18mm pancake, not just cheap consumer zooms). Zooms with IS, zooms without IS (16-55mm), and now, bodies without IS, but a body with it. And you have compact camera models that have people wondering about replacements for (only the X100 has been consistently upgraded).
"Meanwhile, in Nikon land, if you restrict your view to F mount, things look much less messy. Sure, there are all of the DSLR inconsistencies you've mentioned (and probably a few you haven't) and I don't deny that it's messier than Fuji. But looking just at F mount, it's cleaner than looking at the entire Nikon product line, and Fuji, I think is messier than its image portrays.
"As for going from F mount to mirrorless, that was inevitable. It's a shame they waited to copy Sony, instead of showing leadership. But as you say, it's not their fault they had a legacy mount that pretty much necessitated some mess.
Ultimately, though, even if I find Fuji a bit messier than you do, I agree with your assessment: Fuji seems fairly 'focused' and Nikon seems to lack vision.
"As for the X-H1, I can't say much about it, but I think you can only be so focused for so long if you want to grow. I don't know if they could have done a better job designing a camera for the video crowd while fitting it in better with the rest of the X series, but on the other hand, I don't know that it sticks out any more than, say, the X-A5 with its PASM dial."
Dillan: "Your exasperation with Nikon makes me feel slightly better about Canon's mess. It puts things into perspective."
Eamon Hickey: "This is tangential to your topic but Mike, after reading you for many years, it's clear to me that there's just something about Nikon that rubs you the wrong way. Which is fine. I feel that way about Verizon.
"All the behaviors you selected (out of a larger pool of behaviors) and are putting in the harshest possible spotlight for Nikon are to be found in all the other camera companies. All of them are, after all, for-profit technology corporations from the same nation and culture. Their DNA is 99% the same.
"And in the case of the Fuji X-H1, that's great, as far as I'm concerned. As your picture clearly shows, they finally—finally!—were smart enough to copy Nikon's AF-ON button size and placement, making this the first X-series camera with a good implementation of this crucial feature that Canon (!) invented 28 years ago.
"Come to think of it, the last time Fuji had a good AF-ON button was on the S5 Pro. Wait, what happened to that lineup of DSLRs? Surely, they didn't abandon it because it didn't turn out to sell as well as they hoped? I kid, I kid."
Mike replies: No, I don't think I accept that as fair. What's more true is that I tend to exaggerate for effect when I make points, which makes me seem harsh to people who feel tenderly toward what I'm writing about (cf. my occasional disparaging comments about singers, which I'm trying hard not to do any more—I've learned that there is always someone out there who loves that singer who will be offended. It's never my intention to be offensive to anyone. Even people who like Ji...nope, not going to say it! Heh.)
I don't think it makes much sense to either love or hate companies. They're soulless, really. Your tastes and desires might align with their product portfolios and marketing philosophies for a stretch, but sooner or later they'll go their own way and let you down. It's seldom safe to get sentimental about them. I'm much more passionate about and engaged with photographers I like, not so much with camera nameplates.
But of course I like Nikon. I have an antique Nikon on display in my front hall next to my 1903 Rochester Optical whole-plate camera. I shot with Nikons for years; literally wore out two N8008's. As for the behaviors I spoke of being found in other companies, of course! I said as much. Just used Nikon as an example because they've been a little worse lately (and I know the details a little better, thanks to Thom), not because they're the only ones getting caught up in such tangles. Far from it.
Jeff: "Contrary to your response to Eamon, you’ve written before: 'I admit to a certain bigotry about Leica.' And you frequently admit to your own snarkiness toward the company, despite your use (film M's) and praise of some its products (the S). Methinks price weighs heavily in your seemingly emotional assessment.
Mike replies: You can believe what you want, but I'm not terribly sentimental about brands. I'm just not a brand fan or foe. I have disliked some individuals; the former President of Hasselblad USA had a vendetta against me for some years, and I established a personal policy of not writing about Hasselblads as a result. But that wasn't really about the brand, it was about the individuals and the situation.
As I interrogate my feelings now, I can't discover any hostility toward Leica. They're simply not for me, is all. It's a brand targeted at a market I am not part of. The same is true for expensive medium-format backs, but no one accuses me of being anti Phase One. It's true that I regret Leica's transition from tough working tool to overpriced status symbol, but that's the way they went and that's life—BMW's transition has been worse to witness.
What's consistent about me is that throughout my career people have accused me of being for or against certain brands, just as you're doing now—often the same brand. Usually, when people accuse me of being a hater of some brand or other, it's merely because I'm not a loyal fanboy like they are. Which is usually the case. At one point I had a pair of letters from readers of Camera & Darkroom, one of which accused me of being a foe of a certain brand and one of which accused me of being a fan of the same brand. The only thing that's true is that I tend not to worship brands and I tend not to demonize brands. Neither one makes any real sense to me. They're just cameras. The magic is not in the cameras. The magic is in photographs.
I hardly think that article you linked pegs me as any sort of Leica hater, by the way.
John Merlin: "I like the fact the way Fuji keeps adding capability and new form factors to their lineup while retaining what I find are the two biggest investments I make in a camera-line: the lenses, and the time I spend learning the controls/menus.
"My photo interests keep evolving and Fuji keeps offering more solutions in a rational system that I can understand and anticipate. I left a Nikon system for the compact easy-carry XEs, then as I started a new personal project, the faster AF and more sophisticated flash capabilities of the X-T1 were just the thing for it. Lately I have missed the larger form factor, the deep grip and the top display of the Nikon—and Fuji produces the X-H1.
"I can't help but think that the continuing rational line extensions, including the GF series, new form factors, and the regular firmware updates within each series, must make the Fuji systems more and more attractive both to current users and those new to the system."
Joe Holmes: "I'm deep in the Nikon environment. I've owned 12 Nikon SLRs and DSLRs, and I've got so many Nikon and Nikon-mount lenses I can't even count them. But I think a lot of what you complain about, Mike, is true. Nikon often frustrates the hell out of me. I've owned other cameras (my wife and I both own Fuji mirrorless for example), and I've used others including Leica, Mamiya, Olympus....
"But I'm stuck here in Nikonland because this D850 is plainly superb in my hands. It's the best picture-taker I've ever lifted to my eye. The thing is close to transparent in use. It's 95% perfect for my needs (and at half the weight it would be 98% perfect). So while Nikon the company frustrates the hell out of me, Nikon the camera gives me enormous pleasure every single day. What's a guy gonna do?"
Mike replies: Exactly what you're doing, I'd say.
Hishimaru: "The logic on Fuji's part was pretty simple I think. That massive 200mm ƒ/2 needed a body to match."
