Pure speculation: Medium format fuji

Commenting on fujirumors post:Medium format Fujifilm

Fujirumors has a source saying Fujifilm will release a digital medium format interchangeable lens camera by September. Take it with a grain of salt is also added for good measures. First, ill tell you why that grain should be a ton and then we can have some fun speculating.

There are numerous reasons why this is highly unlikely. 

1. Fujifilm, just a week ago, said that they are looking into the market, but hasnt even found a sensor yet. It takes more than half a year to develop a camera.
2. Their camera developers should now be fully comitted to the final stages of the x-t2 project. In theori they could allready be done, but when did such a project ever finish early?
3. The medium format market is both a small and a risky one. Fuji has allready found a way of making safe money in that market. They manufacture the Hasselblad lenses. Fuji may be oddballs simetimes, but they are not really really stupid. No one in their right mind would risk that relationship by competing with their partner.
4. Who would the customers be? An aps-c xpro2 is $1800 or so. Let's say they could sell a camparable MF camera plus a good kit lens for slightly below $10000. No way enough people would buy it to make the production profitable.

Speculations

If Fuji is indeed, dispite how unlikely it is, going to launch a digital medium format interchangeable lens camera by September, what can have prompted it? I have a few suggestions. 

1. It's a rebranded Hasselblad for the Japanese market, just like the GX645AF was. 
2. The deal with Hasselblad is coming to an end.
3. They are now confident that the organic sensor will work and will change the game. Having a medium format system in production when it eventually arrives, would maybe make some sense.
4. Sony's sensor division has given Fuji an offer they can't resist. A deal to get a very nice price on MF sensors in return from staying away from full frame 24x36mm could be a candidate. Or if Sony's purchase of Toshibas sensor department brought a product without any customer.
5. The camera is so different that it will not compete on the same market as Hasselblad does. GA645 style point and shoot, TLR, Folder, GX680 monster or whatever.
6. The camera is something that will increase Hasselblad profit as well. Compatible with H system, but not competing with it. I cant really come up with a good candidate, but maybe Fujifilm has.
7. It's really really odd. Let's say a big plastic instax with a built in scanner instead of a sensor. Wouldnt cost much to buy but every picture would be $1 and there would be a few minutes delay for the instax to develop before its scanned.
8. There is a slight error with "digital medium format interchangeable lens camera". Take away digital or interchangable. A realaunch of a 6x7 folding film camera or a medium format x100 makes a lote more sense
9. Someone at Fuji came up with a real game changer.

Most likely, however, this rumor is nothing but a rumor.

Pure speculations: When are Canon and Nikon coming to the mirrorless market?

Pure speculations: When are Canon and Nikon coming to the mirrorless market?

There are a lot of speculation going on about when Nikon and Canon will enter the mirrorless market. Most people seem to forget that its only 20% of a market that Nikon and Canon allready share 80% and that the ramaining 20% is a hornets nest of inverstment with Sony, Fujifilm, Olympus and so on, realeasing cameras and lenses on the double. 

Thus,  i can't really tell you how it will happen and when it will happen. But there is one thing i can tell you for sure. That is how they dont want it to happen. There is no way Nikon or Canon would like to jeopardise their combined 80% market share by helping Sony, Olympus and Fujifilm close the gap between mirrorless and DSLR in peoples minds. 

Nikon and Canon has very successfully imprinted in the consumers that "full frame" is the future. It's a powerfull meme that the m43 brands and Fujifilm has to fight every day. If that somehow was broken, smaller cameras would be a threat to them and they may want to compete. Likewise, if Sony managed to start making cameras and lenses that appeal to photographers as well as techies, that may do the trick. One of them may or may not loose their nerves as mirrorless slowly grow, but in the end, its not up to Canon and Nikon, but the actors on the mirrorless market to show that its a part of the market worth competing in.

Facts: Twice the size

Twice the size

Facts and myths about film/sensor size

The camera industry likes it neat, there are a lot of different negative/sensor sizes used, but most of the popular ones are twice the size of its smaller sibling and half the size of its big brother. For interchangeable lens cameras of today, most use one of these formats: m43, aps-c, 24x36, 645, 6x9, 4x5, 5x7, 8x10. There are variatations, discrepanses and odd formats, for example 6x6 is very polular and there are both smaller and larger formats too, but lets ignore them for a while. Dispite all the different names and units used in those formats, they form a nice scale of approximately twice the size.

Today, the internet is full of people advocating aps-c over m43 and full frame 24x36 over aps-c. Most of them usually start with the notion that bigger is better and then try to learn the technical arguments for that and the counter side usually argues weight and price in favour of the smaller gear. The truth is that those formats are discussed for no ohter reason than that the industy can make them for a reasonable price right now. But does it really matter if the the film/sensor is twice as large? What does it do to the picture? I’ll try to answer those questions without advocating for or against any format.

I will begin with a mind experiment. Picture yourself camera A and camera B, both of them are rigged to take a picture into identical dollhouses. The cameras look and work exactly the same, with one exception, size. Camera A is exactly twice the size of B, by area scale. Both lens, film, even the release button, everything are proposionally smaller. The film/sensor is thus half the size B compared to A. Now picture that the dollhouse which camera B is taking a picture of is scaled down exactly as much as the camera. What would this do to the pictures taken by camera A and B?

The answer is, apart from that the picture in camera B would look one stop darker (since the aperture is scaled down to half the size too), there would be no difference at all between the pictures of camera A and camera B. Compensate with twice the time, iso or twice as much light and the pictures would be identical. (Actually there is a quatum effect called diffraction would slightly affect the sharpness of the image, but that is beyond the scope of this article).

This is actually very intuitive and i will not even bother going into the technical details of why. Instead, lets analyze the consequences of this for a few photographic properties. Field of view, exposure, depth of field and bokeh.

Field of view

Obviously one can make a lens for a camera with twice the film/sensor size that has the same field of view as its smaller sibling. Translated into camera tech would be shorter focal length which is usually measured in mm. The formula is very simple, if you make the film/sensor twice as big, you need to multiply the focal length with 1.5 for achieve the same field of view. A 60mm lens on a 6x4.5cm camere has the same field of view as a 90mm lens on a 6x9cm camera. The same goes for m43 vs aps-c and aps-c vs 24x36mm.

Exposure

This is even simpler. If the time and aperture is the same, the exposure will be the same regardless of sensor size, as long as the iso is the same. In the dollhouse example, camera B needs more iso to get the same picture only because the aperture gets one stop smaller as well as the film.

With that said, a twice the size film/sensor will have twice the amount of light to gather information from. That means it is easier to build a sensor with higher iso sensitivity if it is larger. At the same time, large sensors are a lot more expensive to make.

Depth of field

This is where most of the internet gets it wrong for real. You can read any number of sites that sais a 35/1.4 lens on a aps-c (18x24mm) camera has the same depth of field as a 52/2 lens on a full frame (24x36mm) camera. This is a simplification to try to explain something complicated in technical terms instead of exploring what it really does for a photographer.

Lets go back to the dollhouse. The pictures from camera A and B has the same field of view even though the film/sensor size is twice the size. Thus, A have to have 1.5 the focal lenght of camera B. If the area of the film/sensor is twice the size then the area of the aperture has to be twice the size too. Twice the aperture size equals one stop. So lets use the 35/1.4 and 52/2 example above. But how can the depth of field be the same if the smaller dollhouse looks exactly the same on the picture from camera B as the larger one does on the picture from camera A? Stop and think about this for a moment or two!

Well, you are right! It is not the same and this is where the size of the film/sensor really start to make a difference for the pictures taken. It is really stupid to try to convince people that it is too. Just consider this: The infinity on a 35/1.4 is at 35m and the infinity of a 50/2 is at 50m (regardless of film/sensor size). That means at 40m the 35mm has infinite DOF while the 50mm has a limited DOF. Thus they are not the same and anyone trying to tell you that is most likely repeating a miss leading simplification read on the internet. What is true is that you need a larger aperture to achieve the same field of view on a shorter lens than on a longer. How much larger, and if it is even possible, depends on how far away your subject is. If you are about to take a close-up poirtrait, you might not need a larger aperture at all and if you are close to infinity focus, it may not be possible to achieve the same short DOF whatever you do.

Bokeh

The quality of the out of focus part of the picture is very much a question of taste. But when it comes to film/sensor size there are absolutes that really shapes the look of the oof part of the picture. Once again, lets go back to the dollhouse. Lets imagine the there is a living room in the dollhouses to which the cameras point. There is a table in focus, a sofa behind it slightly out of focus and behind that a wall that is very out of focus. Keep in mind that the pictures look just the same even though one dollhouse is smaller than the other. A smaller dollhouse means shorter distance between the table, the sofa and the wall, they still look the same.

Yes, smaller film/sensor sizes with a lens with the same field of view needs a shorter distance to give the same amount of loss of focus than a larger camera. WTF, why didnt anyone tell you that? Maybe they simply didnt know or they were trying to explain it from a technical point of view rather than a photography point of view.

This bears consequences. Lets introduce camera C and D. Camera C has twice the film/sensor size as camera D but also have a shorter lens so that the FOV are the same. It also have a larger aperture so that the depht of field is the same at the distance of our subject. In this case, we shoot the same subject with both cameras, a car from the front but slightly from one side. Behind the car there is a road that stretches through the landscape to the horizon. The DOF stretches so that the car is in focus, but the road is behind it is not. The in focus part of the picture will look just the same with both camera C and D, but the out of focus area will look a quite different. Since camera D has a smaller film/sensor size it need a shorter distans to go from slightly out of focus to completely blurred out than camera C, for the same FOV and DOF. The separatoin between the subject (the car) and the backround will be greater. The landscape at the horizon may even be blurred out completely with camera D, where you could still see mountain tops with camera C. On the other hand if you were not going for separation but for the feel of how long the road is and how far away the mountains are, camera C may do the trick for you.

This is why (apart from the detail and resolution) large and meduim format photographs have a different look than small frame photos. Once you learn to recogize that look you can choose what film/sensor size is suitable for the picture you plan to take. Or if you you are going to buy a new camera, what film/sensor style suites your style of photography best. Can you emulate this look on a smaller frame camera. Yes and no, you can use a longer lens and walk back so that you capture the same scene, but it would also change the perspective and give you the "i rather zoom than take the picture from the right distance" look.

Facts to come: 80 portraits in two hours, will the x system stand up to the challange?

There are common gigs, unusual gigs and the strangest jobs and then there is this job.

I have one hour to set up and two hours to shoot 80 portraits in an old stadium. There is no time for post processing so I'll shoot jpegs straight out of the camera.  With my old Nikon gear, this would have been hazardous, but I have a feeling the fuji x-e2 and x-e1 will be the perfect cameras for the job.

So whats the plan?

• I'll try to find a good spot where I can use natural light. It's semi outdoor and there should be places in a stadium that suits most weather conditions. I'll bring an assistant with a reflector to be able to tune things up.
• Back-up plan if the light is horrible: One large soft box and a snoot or beauty dish. Hopefully it can stay in the car.
• 20 minutes to find a spot with nice light that will last for 2h. 20 minutes for test shooting and fine tuning and 20 spare minutes for coffee or panic.
• Cameras: x-e2 + x-e1. Lenses: Voigtländer 58/1.4, Nikkor 100/2.8, Meyer Görlitz Orestor 135/2.8 and a speed booster. Extra gear: Tape for a cross, face powder, sturdy tripods, cable releases.
• Camera settings: This will be a bracketing shoot. Hopefully I can set two camera rigs up, one with exposure bracketing and one with film simulation bracketing. One longer lens with speed booster and one shorter without.

Work flow!

1. Up to the cross
2. Check for reflexes
3. Apply face powder
4. Aim reflector
5. Smile!
6. Shoot both cameras
7. Quick check
8. Back to 5 if necessary
9. Next!

Hopefully I'm the man for the job and fujis the cameras to help me do it.

We'll see next week!

Opinion: The Voigtländer Heliar 15/4.5 is better on fuji x than I expected

Internet opinions, whether right or wrong, tend to stick. It's a lot easier to say, he is right than he is wrong, and still be regarded as trustworthy. Right now I feel obligated to try to turn the tide of opinions of the Heliar 15mm f/4.5.

The Heliar 15mm is a tiny lens with either L39 thread mount or leica M bayonet. I got my self the L39 version half a year ago to be able to shoot really wide sceneries with a small film camera. But I also knew I was leaving Nikon for a smaller mirrorless system. One of my visions about the new system was to get a few really small lenses that make up a pocket system, one lens on the camera and two in my pockets. One wide for landscapes, one wide normal for street and a short tele lens for portraits. Simply an everyday pocket system for when I shoot medium or large format or when I don't want a bag at all or don't want to be recognised as a photographer wherever I go. With the Heliar 15 being one of the very few lenses fitting my vision on the wide angle side, I at least had to give it a try, however bad the talk about it on digital sensors were. When I got myself my first fuji X, an x-e2, i ordered a cheap L39 adapter too. At first using it wasn't easy at all. Being used to an optical viewfinder adapting to an EVF was hard enough, with the Heliar 15 it was overwhelming. 4.5 is dark indeed when one shoots a lot en gloomy light. Furthermore, on 15mm most things are in focus or only so slightly out of focus, so one can't use the same work flow as with longer or faster glass. I struggled with it and being part of my "pocket system", it was mostly sitting on a the shelf along with the fujinon 27/2.8 pancake and the super light nikon series e 100/2.8 tele. The system was new and I usually ended up with the camera bag with the larger lenses. The one time I tried to bring it in my bag I almost destroyed it. Being of a negligible size it dropped out of my bag through an ever so small opening in a zipper and bounced down the marble staircase.

Heliar 15mm wide open, 1:1 crop; edge smudging?

Boing, doing, doing, tock, tock, tock!

For certain, there is nothing wrong with the build quality of this lens. At a glance, it looked 100% unharmed (so did the stairs). Later on, I found out that the ring with the brand, name and specs (the one around the front lens) was glued rather than threaded and was slightly loose. I was worried over if there was any internal damage or slight off lenses so I shot a few test pictures and started peeping. The lens was still, after bouncing down the stairs, way better than I had expected from all the down talk I had read. Judge for your selves, is this bad for a 150g 15mm lens. It might not be as sharp in the corners as it is on film, but is it unreasonably sharp or does it show a lot of the colour shift people complain about?

Ofcourse, there is this odd habit of light falloff in the corners, even stopped down, when holding a cokin ND filter in front of it (can some please explain how that happens to me?). There is also the lack of filter thread. But for example, compare it to the much larger, equally priced and brand new Samyang wide angle lenses and it holds up quite well.


This weekend the pocket system, and thus the heliar, eventually got to show its colours. I went for a trip with my large format gear and still wanted a digital option. Me, some friends of mine and my hat went out to the Island of Öja and suddenly when I found myself of colour sheets, this sunset appeared.

My hat on vacation - Fuji x-e2 with Voigtländer
Heliar 15/4.5 stopped down to 11.

This picture would never have been taken with a larger lens. In my book, it makes the Heliar 15mm the very best lens for the job. It's sharp enough for the shot, it renders colours beautifully, it fits both on my camera and in my pocket.

If there ever was anything wrong with this lens, it was with me not being able to handle it right. I suspect that goes for a lot of the Internet too.

Facts: What's this?

The short version:

Why a blog?

• I'm a part time photographer.
• I write a lot of texts and I publish lots of photos.
• I usually do it in emails and forums and a friend of mine asked me why I don't share it with the rest of You.
• I didn't have a good answer to that.

Why fujifilmstuff?

• I have shoot medium format with Fujifilm gear for quite some time.
• I use large format Fujifilm lenses.
• I like the look of my pictures when I shoot them with Fujinon glass.
• I recently switched from Nikon to Fujifilm X system and did my homework before I did.
• I love to learn, read and test stuff and to know my gear when I go out shooting.
• I also like to write and teach photography.
• A lot of people seem to want to know about Fujifilm stuff nowadays with the increased popularity of the X system.

What will You read about here?

• Fujifilm photos and gear and techniques obviously.
• Other photo related subjects.
• Opinions, facts and pure speculation.
• Whenever I start to write a text about photography that is more than a few sentences long, I will either post it here or deem it worthless, scrapping it. No mather wherever I was about to write it.

The long version:

Go on reading my future posts, everything will be perfectly clear in a few days...

months...

years...

Never mind!

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!