Fujifilm announced new film cameras

In the press release dated 29 September 2005, Fuji Photo Film
announced to release three new film cameras.

Two of them are apparently the same camera in different
cosmetics. These are high quality compact cameras featuring 28-56mm
f/2.8-5.4 zoom. These cameras come with NP mode similar to ones used
in current Natura (24mm f/1.9, never released in North America) and
Silvi (f/2.8 zoom, never released in North America) cameras,
encouraging use of high speed films, without using flash. The
scheduled release date of these cameras is this winter.

Another camera is a new version of their high end compact camera
called Klasse (never released in North America), which has manual
controls on exposure and focus, in addition to AE/AF. Original Klasse
was equipped with 38mm f/2.6 lens but the new one will be
28mm. Scheduled release is next year.

Fuji has been very aggressive in making high quality wide angle
compact cameras with wide apertures and encouraging users to use 1600
speed negative films. High speed and wide latitude are the two
strengths of silver gelatin negatives, and 1600 speed films sell for a
dollar or two higher prices, so what they are doing makes perfect
sense in taking advantage of films as well as maximizing profits.

After looking at photo blogs of those previous Fuji compact cameras,
it appears to me that many Lomo LC-A users and Holga users have found
those 24mm f/1.9 cameras to be useful addition to their
toolbox. Besides, Fuji's 1600-speed color negative film, people seem
to use old stock 50-speed color negatives (Agfa and Konica Impresa),
Neopan Acros 100, and Neopan 1600. The image quality seems pretty good
but being a wide angle lens, the images have noticeable vignetting.

I do not know whether Fuji will sell any of these new cameras in North
America. In the past decade, they had about 1/3 of their models
available in North America. Most of them are midrange zoom compact
cameras. Accordingly, Natura Classica and Natura NS, equipped with a
2x zoom, are more likely to be available in North America.
Received on Sat Oct 1 17:52:06 2005