At the CES this week Fujifilm revealed their mirrorless system camera with 3 prime lenses and on paper, it does look rather good. Sticking to the retro look that made the X100 one of the most desirable compact cameras of last year is a masterstroke that I cannot believe other manufacturers haven’t cottoned on to yet. Prime lenses, a body that looks like a rangefinder, hybrid viewfinder, and image resolution on a par with a full frame sensor look promising. Indeed the sample images show some nice colour and not so much noise, even if they don’t look too sharp. Already people are talking about the X pro 1 as the poor man’s Leica. (They do like to stick pro at the end of their camera’s don’t they!) People are also talking about potential problems such as the price point and the auto focus issues that came with the X100, but I reckon that people will look back at the X pro 1 as one of those landmark cameras. Retro is the new black, or something like that!!
So why feel sorry for them?
Despite the buzz you’d expect, everyone seems to be talking about Canon and Nikon. The D4 has got opinions divided. (Personally I think it looks like a pretty amazing camera and hints at even cooler things for the D800 and D400) But the big star of this week is Canon’s G1 X. An updated G12 with a bigger sensor. Funny really; you unveil your SLR killer with dials and the whole world would rather talk about an updated compact camera with a bigger sensor.
And if you feel sorry for Fujifilm, then really do have to feel sorry for Kodak. With all the troubles they’re having, they released a few underwhelming compacts that no-one even noticed. It really does suck being Kodak right now.
Despite the big two hogging the limelight, I think Fujifilm will be having the last laugh….for a bit.
Tag: canon
The Hundred Greatest Cameras – sort of
A certain magazine has put together a list of the hundred greatest cameras ever made. Interestingly, the Sony NEX-7 is sitting pretty at number 78, which I find interesting since it’s not available yet. What’s that all about?
Now I may have missed them, but there were some notable cameras missing. Most notable absentees were the EOS film range. Not a 3, 5, 50E, 30 or 1 in sight. I find that truly odd as the EOS 3 was widely considered to be about the finest film auto-focus SLR ever. I would have had that in my top 100, even my top 10.
My personal favourite though will always be the Pentax MZ-5n. I loved this camera and without doubt is the best Pentax I ever owned. Pentax made some lousy auto-focus cameras, but the MZ-5n wasn’t one of them. Reliable metering, reliable (if noisy) auto-focus and a shutter speed dial all wrapped up in a lightweight and compact body. It was a joy to use and never failed to produce the goods. For me, that makes it a great camera.
Everyone has their preference and everyone will have their favourite, but the fact that so many digital cameras were in the list is quite telling. Could it be that we already have a generation of photographers who have never used film? Who have never manually focused a prime lens? Never used a thumb wind?
So what would be your greatest camera?
WeavingLight 