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More About Fuji’s X-Pro 1′s X-Trans CMOS

So, for those of you that read yesterday’s post about the X-Pro 1, you may have noticed that Fuji was talking up its “APS-C X-Trans CMOS sensor.” A little further reading on their product page reveals why this is worth its own branding term.

So, if any of you remember Fuji’s work on their EXR sensors, you’ll know that Fuji isn’t necessarily a believer in traditional sensor arrangements based on the Bayer filter pattern. And, it seems like they’ve put their lab coats back on, fired up the tesla coils,and resumed their mad science ways, because the X-Trans sensor even more completely eschews the conventional wisdom of the Bayer filter, instead emulating the natural randomness present in the grains of silver halide film.

Say huh?

OK, for those not familiar with the Bayer filter, here’s the idea: the pixels on your sensor just see light. White light. They don’t really care about color. Mostly, we do, so, we use a filter over each pixel to limit it to collecting only one of the three primary colors: red, blue, or green. The Bayer filter is the long-standing champ at this, using alternating rows of 2×2 pixel overlays. Then, in the camera, clusters of 3 pixels are interpolated together to form one pixel with all three colors. The Bayer filter looks like this:

Illustration by Fujifilm

And, mostly, the Bayer filter works. But, it has a couple problems. One is that interpolating those pixels causes a phenomenon known as moiré. Moiré is an effect most notable in fine, repeating patterns and shows up as unexpected and (often) undesired random swirls in the photo.

By Flickr user peretzpup

To combat this, cameras employ what’s known as a low-pass filter. This reduces moiré, but also takes a toll on fine sharpness and details, as it averages out multiple pixels. Additionally, this averaging can lead to a slight false color in spots, as it mixes neighboring pixels.

Fuji’s new X-Trans filter uses a 6×6 “aperiodic” arrangement for its pixels, which uses natural random interference to break up the moiré effect, which completely removes the need for a low-pass filter, and–in theory–yields naturally sharper images with truer colors.

Illustration by Fukifilm

Neat, huh? We think so too. Now, though, it’s all down to the proof-in-the-pudding once this thing comes out and see if it lives up to its own theory.



Dreams Keep Coming True: Fuji Announces X-Pro 1 Interchangeable Lens Compact System

 

Did you manage to forget it’s CES week? Yes? Well, time to snap back to reality there, buckos. And ready to help ease that sting, Fuji has finally announced it’s long-rumored interchangeable lens system follow-up to the runaway successful X100 compact. Back for more is a seriously retro rangefinder body that almost drips elegance, and an APS-C (1.5x crop) sensor. But this time, it’s got a lens mount and a fledgling lens system (three primes will be available at launch: an 18mm f2.0, a 30mm f1.4, and a 60mm f2.4 macro).

Inside Fuji’s first ILC (or EVIL, if you prefer that old forum term) is a 16 megapixel CMOS sensor, which Fuji is calling a “APS-C X-Trans CMOS sensor.” The X indicates this new system family (including the compacts, we assume), and is reflected in the addition of a new, never-before-seen X-Mount for the lenses. The X100′s Hybrid Multi Viewfinder returns, offering you the ability to switch from an optical rangefinder to a high-quality EVF with the flick of a switch on the front of the camera. There’s a focal plane shutter that tops out at 1/4,000 of a second (only one-stop slower than most professional DSLR bodies). If you guessed there’s probably a 3″ LCD around back, you’d be correct, and it has a resolution of 1.23k dots. Looks like it’ll also chug along at 6fps in continuous drive mode.

As with the X100, everything here is metal, for that rock-solid feel of the rangefinders of yore. additionally, the finish has been changed to a matte black for all you pros out there who like to keep things discreet.

And, where would Fuji, legendary film manufacturer be, without including tone presets that emulate its classic film types, including the legendary VELVIA. Heck, it’s even got a specil film mode brakcet, so you can take the shot in several film effects and pick your favorite later (presumably for those of you not doing a raw workflow.)

The three lenses (XF18mmF2 R (27mm equiv), XF35mm R f1.8 (53mm equiv), and XF60mmF2.4 R Macro (90mm equiv)) will all have manual, metal aperture rings with clicks at each third stop, for modern level control in a retro feel. Apparently a feature of the X-Mount (and thus lenses) is a recessed flange-back distance (up to 7.5mm) where the lenses sits into the body, reducing the overall assembled length.

For accessories, there’ll be the by-now near-obligatory leather half-case (LC-XPro1), a hand-grip (HG-XPro1), and a dedicated flash unit (EF-X20)

No prices have been announced on anything yet, and we’ll update you as soon as that changes.

Press release after the jump.  Preorder starts here.

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Fuji Announces Availability and Pricing for Finepix X-S1

Fuji today, in addition to 19 new products, announced the pricing and availability for its X-S1, the third member of their increasingly popular X series (X10 and X100, anyone?).

The X-S1 is a sort of superzoom, except the built-in lens uses a knurled zoom ring for manual zoom, a la DSLRs. This type of camera used to be more common, notably in Olympus’ old Camedia UZ series cameras. The X100 used a fixed lens and APS-C sensor, the X10 switch to a 2/3″ sensor and moved up to 4x zoom. The X-S1 is the superzoom pal to the X10 in that regard, it also uses the 2/3″ sensor, but pushes the zoom factor up to 26x with a 24-624mm f2.8-5.6 lens.

You look at things through a high-rez EVF with 1.4 million dots, or on the 3″ tilting LCD with 460,000 dots. To help justify its high price tag, the shutter lag is reported to be a mere 0.01 seconds, and you’ll get image stabilization, PASM, raw, and SD, SDHC, and SDXC support too.

The X-S1 will be available around this month-ish, and cost right around $800 to add to your own kit.



Fuji Refreshes Entire Line-Up In One Day

Fuji today announced approximately a bizillion (or 19) new additions to its point-and-shoot line-up, making a strong show of its presence in that end of the market. Among the announced cameras, there are 3 rugged waterproof models, 2 refreshes for it’s deck-of-card style super-elegant Z series, two entry level JX cameras with plastic bodies, 2 JZ models with metal ones, 2 entry-level superzooms, two mid-grade superzooms, a super-zoom with a CMOS sensor and RAW capability, a compact travel zoom model, and three entries in its high-end F series compacts. Five of those models feature the company’s advanced EXR sensor technology (the F770EXR, F750EXR, F660EXR, HS30EXR, and Z1000 EXR models.)

That’s a lot of announcements, so, let me just talk about a couple highlights from the crop:

First up, the top of the compact line, the Finepix F770EXR. This is the top model in a line-up of three closely related siblings, and it features a 16 megapixel 1/2″ EXR sensor, 25-500mm 20x optical zoom lens, 3″ 460,000 dot LCD, built-in GPS, and raw. Also on board is sensor-shift image stabilization and 1080 HD video.

It’s got a metal body in black and red, and will run somewhere around $380.

Up next we have the HS30EXR, the top model in Fuji’s new superzoom line-up. This particular series of superzooms stick to the older “bridge” camera aesthetic that more closely resembles a DSLR than the expectations of a point and shoot. As suggested by the category name, the HS30EXR has a massive zoom, a 24-720mm equivalent 30x monster strapped to a 16 megapixel 1/2″ EXR sensor (just like the F770EXR). The HS30EXR has a .26″ electronic viewfinder with 920,000 dots of resolution, a 3″ LCD with 460,000 dots resolution, and it can record raw. It’s got a smaller brother that’s similarly spec’ed but lowers the viewfinder quality and uses AAs. Both bodies record 1080 HD at 30fps and have sensor-shift image stabilization.

The HS30EXR will run right around $500 when it hits the market.

Next up is the Z1000EXR, which is the update to a line I’ve always been a bit fond of, if for no other reason than their style. While the looks are no longer as unique and striking as they were back in the first and second generations, the Z series remains a well-spec’ed line of  deck-of-cards style compacts.

If you hadn’t guessed form the name, that 16 megapixel EXR sensor is found here, too, this time married to a 5x optical zoom. There’s a 3.5″ touchscreen LCD running the show around back, and it’s got some wifi capabilities that can share photos to any Android or iOS phone or tablet running their free transfer software.

No word on price here yet, but there’ll be four colors: pink, green, white, and tan.

Last up on the highlight-o-rama is Finepix FP150, top of the waterproof, rugged trio. The XP150 is dustproof, waterproof to 16.5′, shockproof to 5′, and freeze proof to 14 degrees Fahrenheit. all that protects a 14 megapixel CMOS sensor and a 28-140mm 5x optical zoom with dual image-shift stabilization. There’s a redesigned double lock door protecting your card and batteries (and, presumably, all the other guts too). The XP150 ups all that by adding GPS and an electronic compass into the mess, and you’ll be able to pick it up for around $280 in black or “holy crap where did I lose that?” orange.



Fuji X100 Gets Massive Firmware Update

So, if you’ve so far been lucky enough to get ahold of an X100 (which are currently more rare than gold-plated unicorns and more clamored after than a Scarlet Johansson sex scene), today’s you’re even luckier day: there’s a new firmware. A new firmware with 22 fixes. 22 fixes and a bad onset of Engrish in the press release. But, 22 fixes nonetheless.

If you want the firmware update, hit the link below. If you want to read through the roughly translated list of changes first, hit the read more button to see the press release. If you’d just like to get your hands on one at all, don’t worry, you’re not nearly alone.

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Fuji Announces Real 3D W1, Groundbreaking 3D Point-and-Shoot

Real 3D W1

Real 3D W1

Fuji today announced quite the groundbreaking system: a camera, viewer, and printer all aiming to bring true 3D photography to the masses. The highlight of the announcement is the camera, the W1, which manages to perfectly sync two lenses through a 3x zoom range, or you can de-link them and take two 2D images with one click at two different focal lengths.

And it’s sexy. Look at it over there.

Is this a gimmicky camera? Oh my yes. Certainly. Am I gaga over it and expecting quite a few people to be interested in it, you bet. Whether 3D catches on or not will remain to be seen, but you can’t argue that this is one of the most sheerly innovative technologies to hit the compact market in a long, long time.

Word is it’ll come out Septermberish, we’ll have to wait until closer to then to see if we can get our hands on this. Stay tuned, dear readers.



Fuji Announces 4 New Models, Roberts Adding Them As Special Orders

fujifilm logo

Finepix F200EXR

Finepix F200EXR

Fuji, one of the few major manufacturers that have been absent from our virtual shelves, are soon to find themselves added to our site as special order items, just in time for four exciting new product announcements. We’re working on getting Fuji items, including the existing and well-reviewed Finepix F200EXR, the first camera to feature Fuji’s new EXR sensor which I talked about way back here.

The new products are worth a little breathing room, so I’m going to throw them up as individual posts. But, exciting times when we add new lines.



Fear No Water

hair-flipSometimes the possibility of getting wet is the last thing on your mind. I mean dead last, not even occurring to you, stop afterward with the dripping wet shell of a formerly valuable electronic device in your hand and a sinking ball of regret infesting your stomach. You know what I mean? Sometimes there are just more important things in life. Like bikini girls. OK, or waterfalls, sue me for being particular to bikini girls though.

The point is, and it’s a recurring one here on RAW, there are cameras for those of you who prefer to not stand on the sidelines. For those of you who live near large pools of water, or near a pint glass for that matter. For those who want to shoot in the rain, pool, beach, nearest waterfall, hurricane (not recommended, all the same) and so-on and so-on.

And, these cameras are less and less niche every year. We now have 14 of them (OK, some of them are just different colors, but I know there are over a half dozen good, reliable models that fear not the presence dihydrogen monoxide anymore). We might soon have a couple more if we get some things going we want to. It used to be solely Olympus’ game, but now we see other notables like, oh, Canon, say, and somewhere out there a waterproof Fuji, fleshing out the ranks.

So, this post is for you, makers of fearless cameras. You enhance our beach experiences, and the next time I encounter a young and attractive person flipping hairfuls of water, I shall not stand aside, timid, afraid for my camera, but shall rush in–indeed where fools dare not go. And all shall be good.

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Olympus Stylus 9000: Mega Zoom, Mini Body

Olympus has just shipped us the new Olympus digital camera Stylus 9000.  It is one of the smallest mega-zoom cameras on the market today.  The zoom starts at 28mm and goes all the way to 280mm!  All of that in an ultra compact body.  This is the smallest Stylus yet with this kind of zoom power.  Panasonic has a couple of models out there that will give the 9000 some competition in this segment, but this camera is very impressive.  The shutter lag is very minimal and the flash recovery seems above average.


Olympus is now including a micro sd memory card adapter with this and most of their lineup, so you aren’t stuck using the proprietary XD card format that is exclusive to Olympus and Fuji.  Micro SD cards are very available and very resonable on price.

There is a new feature on this and other new Olympus models called the “Beauty Mode” that smooths out complection to give people a more pleasing look.  Sounds gimmicky I know, but I’ve tried it and it really does work.

When you are doing your digital camera comparisons, don’t miss this one!  It looks like it will be a great camera for those wanting a lot of zoom in a pocket sized digital camera.



The tech of the future?

Right now the photo market is full of a lot of highly competent DSLRs with slightly different specialties. The D700 Nikon digital SLR camera, for example, is a low-light king. The Alpha 900 Sony digital camera is a high resolution monster, Canon digital SLR cameras are famed for having great dynamic range across the ISO range.

And if Fuji can follow through on its promises, we might soon have a new breed of camera starting to arise that has to make no compromises and specialize in one of those fields while sacrificing a little of the others.

Announced recently for a compact camera, but with potential application in larger sensors that has a lot of advanced amateurs watching with interest, is the new EXR technology. At the foundation of this technology is a restructuring of the traditional Bayer filter. The Bayer filter is a filter over the sensor on basically every digital camera going and tells the camera how to see the world in color, and not just values of light.

On the left is a traditional Bayer filter. A row of alternating Red and Blue and then a row of Green (turns out our eyes favor green pretty heavily). On the right is the pattern reworked for their EXR technology. You can see there’s still twice as much green as red or blue, but the new trick is that there are two pixels of each color next to each other at all times.

Further beyond that is that one pixel is high gain, it absorbs light very quickly. The other of the two is low gain, absorbing light slowly.

What’s all this mean, especially in relation to low-light, resolution, and dynamic range? What Fuji is saying is that the sensor can be switched between three different “modes.”

On is resolution. You can tell the sensor to use every pixel traditionally, which gives you high resolution.

The next is dynamic range. Those two pixels, the high and the low gain? The high gain lets shadows expose quicker, the low gain protects highlights. It halves the resolution, but should give a fairly notable increase in dynamic range by treating each type (high/low) as a different image and then combining the data, sort of like in-camera HDR.

The third is low light. Since the two pixels side-by-side see the same color, the camera can “bin” them together. This halves resolution, but creates a pixel twice the normal size, which means the picture will have less noise by nature. It sounds like it can do further binning, effectively letting you get unbelievable ISOs at the cost of resolution, not noise.

Time will tell what impact this has on the market, but as far as photo tech goes I think this is one of the neater announcements I’ve seen in some time.




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