You had the chance to write like a hundred constructive things and came here to take a leak on my doorstep and leave. Nice social skills, dude.
It's not supposed to be a design concept. It's a concept for function and my mockup is just a first idea for how this could look. I forgot a Drive button and also a Menu button. Nothing final we're talking about. There are several things I don't like myself but because I'm just putting an idea up for discussion I don't want to waste hours and hours creating a perfect mockup. And since Fuji will likely completely ignore this my time would be even more wasted. What I do know is that most people here would love the large EVF and that can only be achieved through 3 possibilities:
- make the camera larger
- make the LCD (much) smaller
- move the LCD to the right
I proposed the third as the best compromise and I'm pretty sure actual designers could make it look really good. Not me but I never suggested I could.
But since you seem to be an expert on design let me at least say three things:
- This design is mostly taken from the X-Pro2 while adapting it for the size of the X-E line. Yes, the LCD is moved, the EVF looks different and a few buttons are moved but that's not a lot. All other views of the camera (front, top, bottom, sides) would look nearly identical to what we have now. Can't be that bad can it?
- Imho form follows function. Do I find those antenna bands on the iPhone 6 ugly? Yeah. Would I rather take back a glass or plastic back to get rid of them? No way! They lead to an overall better and more robust phone so I see it as a good compromise. Same goes for a camera. I love the look of most Fuji X cameras. Would I rather have it look slightly worse (only the rear side) if I could then have the huge EVF and a tilting screen? You bet! When I'm shooting I only care about function and feel. Looks only matter when it's sitting on my desk.
- Good design can take time to settle in. When I first saw the leaked iPhone 4 I didn't believe it was real. It was so ugly and looked so un-Apple-like! Now I consider the iPhone 4 to be the most beautifully designed iPhone we have had. Not practical with its easily breakable glass but beautiful.When the X-T10 was leaked here, many (including me) didn't like the design. It looked too square. It's still isn't my favourite Fuji design but I actually like it now.
It's the same with good music, good images, good coffee and others: sometimes it takes a while to appreciate a certain look/taste. This is not saying my mockup is designed well. I'm just saying that judging design by the first impression is not a good idea as it will lead to things always staying more or less the same. Things that look different take time for us to appreciate. I've been working on that mockup every now and then for a while now and while at first it looked ugly to me I now don't think it looks too bad anymore.
I agree with most points. Thanks for writing this up Jano. Yep, built in flash is useless.
What is really important to me is that Fujifilm continues this product line with the X-E form factor and comes out with an X-E3 with the updated sensor and associated features. I am not interested in the wannabe SLR X-T1. The key attraction to mirrorless is compactness and the X-E series is better suited than either the X-pro or X-T.
Fujifilm might be comparing sales. However, this would not be fair, since the XE series never introduced new features, just hand-me-downs. Whereas the X-pro and X-T1 did. That said, I would gladly purchase an X-E3 with handed down tech.
FXF reacted to frod in Difficult to compose with XF 14mm f2.8?