Pure speculation: Fujifilm digital medium format camera and the organic sensor

If You have found me when looking for Fujifilm information, You will have found the Fuji rumours site long since. It's an excellent source of news and rumours. Today, while fujirumors speculates on a medium format digital camera I will go further and speculate wildly on how the plans for a medium format camera and the hopefully upcoming organic sensor from Fujifilm and Panasonic may fit together.

For sure, I think there will be a conventional sensor in it if we are about to see a medium format digital fuji coming up anytime soon. But, lets speculate that its not coming this year and that the organic sensor is closer than we would imagine. The Fujifilm organic sensor goo is basically supposed to emit electrons behind itself whenever hit by photons in the front. If Panasonic has done their part of miniaturizing the electronics needed to count those electrons the whole sensor manufacturing business will turn upside down and the medium and large format camera business with it.

1. Electron particle sensors will fit behind the goo (lets just call it film, shall we). One can stack several of them if you want larger film area. The resolution might be low in the beginning, but you can have all the film area you want again, very much like the old days.
2. Maybe, or even likely, the film will once again work like film. No need for designing optics for digital sensors anymore. No extra rear element for parallelling the light and if we are really lucky even old lenses with flat back elements will work well again, who knows?
3. The price of sensors will no longer rise exponentially with sensor size anymore, but rather by a linear scale. The bigger sensor they build, the more they will be ahead of the competition. Smaller high resolution sensors will probably still be cheaper to make using the old technology for starters, though. 

Fujifilm and Panasonic will still need volume to be cost efficient. So who will buy these sensors?

• Themselves for their own cameras. Fujifilm first, since they make medium format gear. 
• Large & Medium format back makers.
• Industrial and medical equipment makers.
• Anyone who wants to see in the dark...

So, lets focus on the first market target, themselves. Fuji has a long tradition of making quite a few different medium format cameras. All the way from pocketable 6x4.5:s to huge 6x8 tilt/shift cameras and extreme panorama cameras. So where will they start?

I think the answer is as obvious as straight forward, they will look at their sensor and pick the size where they have a respectable market advantage over the competition and one that has a fairly large market. If its already competitive on the current X half frame market, they will start there, if its not they will go larger. If this is going to fit together with the digital medium format rumour, that point would have to be somewhere on the medium format film size, so lets just assume it is.

Lets look at the competition, the medium format market is where the 135 market was ten years ago or so. There systems are designed for 60x45mm (called 645 or 6x45) film size or larger, while the sensors are of smaller, cropped sizes. While there are some "digital" cropped lenses, most of the available glass is for the "full frame" format. Any camera with a reasonable price and a sensor size of 6x45 or larger would have huge impact on the medium format market, even a smaller size might work if it's cheaper and more practical than the competition. It's not a big market, but definitely big enough for Fujifilm to care. That concludes my thought that if the organic sensor holds up to its promises, there will be a digital medium format fuji. Fujifilm, however, have several possible paths to follow and they really like to do stuff there own way, so any of these camera would have to be expected. They already have the lens design to fit any of them and the modern coatings from the X system and GF670. 

1. Small pocketable foldable camera with smaller than 6x45 sensor. 
2. Fixed lens 6x45 rangefinder style camera.
3. GF670 6x7 or even 6x9 film size rangefinder.
4. Digital backs for existing cameras, there are loads of medium format systems out there waiting for a "full frame" digital back, amongst them Fujifilms own tilt/shift monster GX680.

A final word on the matter of patents.

If Fujifilm and Panasonic think their patents hold worldwide and they want to increase their market share, it will be with their own cameras. If they think the competition will catch up soon anyway, no matter what patents they hold, they will license the product or start making backs or sensors for other brands very soon, while they are still ahead.

And remember, this is all pure speculation!