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ptb.1

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    ptb.1 reacted to danwells in Fujifilm X-PRO2 rumors   
    Fuji is as well set as anyone in the digital camera business - there's some profit in an X-Pro 2, and in a great lens - with their more unusual lineup, they'll never sell 10 million interchangeable lens cameras/year, but they are set up to be profitable on a modest volume of enthusiast/pro cameras... Almost all of the profit has been squeezed out of a $100 compact. Companies that rely heavily on inexpensive compacts (or even low-end DSLRs) have the problem that they can sell all the units they want, but they can't make anything at it (ask any Android cell phone vender - or ask anyone making Windows PCs a few years ago).
     
    These are the camera companies that will probably make it:
     
    Canon and Nikon will probably be OK - they both have pro businesses that actually make money (and Canon, like Fuji, is a copier company that makes cameras).
     
    Sony WILL be OK - their real imaging business is selling sensors to everyone - ,actually mostly to Apple - their "real camera business", including both their own cameras and all the sensors they sell to everybody else in the camera business, is much smaller than cellphone sensors.
     
    If I were mostly a Sony shooter, what I'd worry about is that, with the restructuring, the highly successful sensor division no longer has an interest in the camera division. The camera division, taken alone, is not in a great place - they have huge sales volume in compacts and cheap mirrorless (no profit), plus a smaller business in high-end cameras with some REAL innovation in the bodies, but with a lens problem. When they are no longer using the A7 series to showcase sensors, will they stay as interested?
     
    Fuji will be OK - they are selling mostly high-end cameras and lenses with decent margins - FinePix goes away (and it will), and they're left with a profitable high-end camera business that keeps their name in the public eye - and several of their executives are passionate photographers (it came out in a recent interview that one of their chief designers is a Hasselblad Master when he's not designing cameras for Fuji, and I've heard of several others). They'd ditch that division if it lost a lot of money, but it's profitable (probably has better than decent margins), and it has a lot of PR value.
     
    A high-prestige, profitable little division is something a lot of companies would like to have. They make something like half a million high end cameras a year (300,000 mirrorless and a couple hundred thousand X100Ts and X70s - remember that they can make 160,000 X-Pro 2s, and half a million might even be low), and might net $300 on each one,including lens profits (a nice little $150 million business)??? They're one of the few manufacturers who sell a bunch of lenses per body (other than X100Ts and X70s, of course), and a lot of their body sales are X-T1s and 10s, with some XE2 bodies mixed in (all high enough up the scale to be profitable, and many will sell several lenses each), not X-A1 and X-M1 bodies (probably hard to profit on, and tend to keep their kit lenses). This year will be even better, with significant sales of X-Pro 2 and X-T2 bodies and high end lenses to go with them.
     
     
     
    Here are the companies I'd really worry about...
    Olympus has been wracked by scandal, and is trying to sell really nice cameras with a huge sensor disadvantage. The 16 MP Micro 4/3 sensor is a generation or so BEHIND the older X-Trans II (it's similar technology, but it's significantly smaller and uses a conventional Bayer filter). They have no state of the art X-Trans III coming to bail them out. Just like Fuji before last Friday, they're trying to sell  one (or closely related, similarly performing) sensor(s) across their line.
     
    Panasonic has a big gap in their line - some great video-focused cameras and some low-end cameras that don't seem to sell all that well. They have a similar sensor problem to Olympus, but they have their niche to retreat into. However, they also have a well-known video camera division. The logical move is perhaps to give the video cameras to the video camera division and get out of the low-end business...
     
    Pentax has been making some great cameras, but getting no traction in the market (outside of medium format). Unfortunately, the medium format business is dependent on the DSLRs to have a parts bin to pull from - if the DSLRs go, the medium format business will soon follow because they aren't set up for ultra-low volume like Phase One - they grab processors and AF sensors made in much larger numbers and stick them in custom shells with MF sensors. Without that parts bin, they can't keep it up (at least not with the price advantage).
     
    Leica has an M line with a cult following, but the rest of their products are divided between collector editions (most of which could omit the image sensor without risk of discovery) and several random lines with nice features, but radically overpriced and without enough lenses. They'll continue to exist, but will anyone actually use them to take pictures?
     
    Hasselblad may have destroyed themselves with stupidity (who came up with the idea of rebranding consumer Sony cameras - in one case, complete with $100 kit lens)... A Hasselblad with a $100 lens????
     
    Sigma will go back to making only lenses (what? they ever made anything else???), and Samsung will go back to phones, TVs and appliances....
  2. Like
    ptb.1 reacted to Ektachrome in Fujifilm X-PRO2 rumors   
    I don't think so, but it is a thinner sensor stack and copper wired.
  3. Like
    ptb.1 reacted to milandro in Fujifilm X-PRO2 rumors   
    just low resolution rather than out of focus...
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