Duplicate lenses?

[danwells]

    I'd love to see Fuji release the longer glass, rather than more lenses in the "slightly wide to portrait" range. As far as I can tell, the worst duplication is right around 35mm, where we have 2 Fujinon primes, the Touit (which Fuji seems to have had a hand in the design of) and no less than four zooms that get there (not even separating the two versions of the consumer 16-50 or counting the 27, which is notably wider). We also have a lot of portrait lenses stacked up around 50 to 60, but that's partially because the zooms transition there so both the wide and long zooms reach that range, and partially because some of the primes are very fast (one is the unique APD lens) and others are much slower macro lenses (which makes sense).

       The lenses I'm most excited to see are:

 

100-400 - right now, we have no great option over 140 (about 200 in 35mm terms) and no lens at all over 230 (and that's a cheap consumer lens with a f6.7 maximum aperture). The 100-400 will get us out to 600mm equivalent, and the recent Nikon and Canon zooms in this range are VERY sharp, although their predecessors were only OK+. I'd expect the Fujinon to be really sharp. If it autofocuses with the 1.4x at the far end of the range (probably only on some bodies), it could concievably cover all the way out to 800+ mm equivalent (although slow at the far end).

 

200mm f2.8 (why, oh why, didn't they give the 50-140 more reach - 70-200s are standard, and maybe even more useful on APS-C than they are on FF) - Equivalent to a 300 f2.8 on FF (and much lighter and cheaper). Will certainly take the converter, and go out to the equivalent of a 420 f4. The nice thing about APS-C is that a 200 f2.8 is the longest of the reasonably sized and priced fast telephotos, while a 300 f2.8 is the first of the $5000+ white whales!

 

120 Macro. I actually wish this were a 90 to keep size and weight down, but a longer than average macro with OIS is a hole in the lineup, especially because the two current macros (Fujinon and Touit) are both from the very early days - tack sharp, but slow to focus and no OIS (which is useless at 1:1, but VERY useful around 1:2 or 1:3). .

 

Once these three lenses are out, the Fujinon lineup will be VERY complete - only Nikon and Canon will have moer complete lineups (with the hole at the long end filled, Fujinon will be better than Micro 4/3, Pentax or Leica (even the SL with all the Leica to Leica adapters), and MUCH better than any of Sony's four variants).

 

The only real advantage to the two big DSLR lineups would be tilt-shift lenses. Everything else that Fuji won't have an answer to is ultra-exotic glass made only in the hundreds annually (VERY long, fast telephotos above 300 f2.8 and arguably fisheyes). Most photographers who have a fisheye have a Samyang/Rokinon, perhaps a Sigma or a lower-end manufacturer lens in the $1000 or under range, NOT a $20,000 6mm Nikkor). There are X-mount options in lower-end fisheyes.

 

If you need a "white whale" telephoto, I suspect you can find a camera shop willing to throw in a nice D7200 as a back to sell a 600 f4 Nikkor for over $10,000 (if you prefer Canon, they'd probably love to include a free 7DII). The "whales" are SO heavy that nobody would ever notice it was on its own camera, and a different system from everything else.

[milandro]

There are as many needs as there are camera users.

 

Some need a light lens, some need a cheap lens, some need a wide range zoon, some a narrow one and some need a specialized lens. There is no way that any brand can avoid differentiation ( a term which I’d rather use instead of “ duplication” or “ multiplication").

 

Also, lenses come onto the market but the the market responds with a feedback. The 35mm and the 60mm, right or wrong ( I had both and still have the 60mm and have no real complaint about that or the 35mm), were perceived as “ slow” and noisy.

 

So the 35 has now a new lens which differs in many ways from the older one ( which might be kept in production or not, we don’t know) such as being weather resistant.

 

The market called for weather resistance ( whether that is of true importance for the most part of the people who don’t shoot under the pouring rain of the Amazons or cross deserts it’s irrelevant, they want it and they shall have it if that’s what they want even if they don’t need it).

 

That’s the market economy, right or wrong.

 

The market is divided in many segments often parallel in at least some parts, thus overlaps, and makers of things need to produce as many products it is economic to produce to cover all segments, and in doing so, produce duplicates or overlaps.

 

If they wouldn’t, the customer is quickly alienated and has the choice to go and knock on someone else’s door, someone who can offer him, right or wrong, what he wants and thinks he needs.

 

I agree, most of this is perception.

 

Sometimes when some fellow members disclose their equipment I wonder if they really need all those many things which they declare to have.

 

But some of us have special needs (in some cases emotional special needs) and some of us have more money than judgement.

 

In 1976 I went for a road trip from Italy to Turkey. We were in Yugoslavia in Split, and we went out an evening with some girls to an ice cream parlor. I enquired about the ice cream flavor and they told me that ice cream came in one flavor, vanilla.

 

“ Tito “ ( the Yugoslavian dictator) must have thought that supplying ice cream was a good idea but that one flavor was all it could be economically done.

 

The Soviet camera production was very large for a country where money was spread thin around the population. Despite photography being a potentially dangerous hobby (!) they acknowledged the right to amusement and intellectual engagement with the secret hope that perhaps that was taking your mind off other more dangerous disruptive thinking.

 

They too had overlapping so even in an economic system like that there was some, though limited, choice!

[darknj]

While I do agree to your sentiment, I would like to point out Fuji has been making XF lenses only for a few years, September 2012 to be precise.

 

In about 3 years worth of time they released 16 lenses that all gets the job done. 

 

While Nikon has been making lenses for the same F mount for the past 50 years and around 30 years for the Canon EF mount, the XF series mount is quite young, barely out of its infancy. 

 

In comparison, the m34 mount released 23 lenses between September 2012 and last month, but there are 2 manufacturer behind that mount system.

 

The overlapping lenses are mostly because they can sell more of them than those super long zooms, not that many of us needs ranger further than 200mm FF equivalent. And those with the need for it, most likely have the gear from other manufacturers to get the job done.

 

Fuji is also testing the waters a bit here and there to see what its public wants. So far, it seems that the consumers wants more Instax camera. So yeah, go figure that one out when you try to convince the higher management that you need that much amount of fund to start R&D for a XF 100-400mm lens.

[frod]

I expect that fuji aren't rushing to make longer focal lengths simply because they don't yet have the AF performance that is implicitly required for these lenses.

 

Above all Fujis priority has been on the whole system and not just ticking boxes and I think that's why they've got a lot of goodwill from experienced enthusiasts.

 

I can envision the day a few years from now where they finally have the processing power to create a good 'birder' camera that also has a very large buffer and ridiculously high fps rate. On that day I imagine we'd also see at least a couple of long, fast lenses release as well.

[milandro]

I think, that the performance and ability of the sensor and processor to deal with autofocus of longer lenses might be a reason but I suspect that their marketing office has also determined that long lenses such as the 100-400mm are due to the bulk and cost, a minority market and that’s why their introduction has been yet again delayed.

 

The mirrorless philosophy, if there is one and if I understand it, is to have small portable and less expensive cameras and lenses than full frame compensating, for example, for a lesser light efficiency with a good sensor/processor performance and a lower price.

 

Producing expensive and bulky lenses seems to go against this idea and might set them into a dangerous territory where they might find themselves having bitten off something too big for them to chew.