Fujifilm X-Half Frame:
B&H Photo / Amazon (Silver / Charcoal / Black) / ShopMoment / Adorama
Fujifilm X Half App
You can download the Fujifilm X Half App today for iOS and Android. When you open the app, you will be greeted with the following screens explaining the app.
I downloaded the app, and it appears to offer quite a bit of functionality in advance of the launch. The app looks very well-designed, which is a notable improvement for Fujifilm, given the company’s past struggles with the design of its apps for X cameras.
Preorders
Preorders have been quite strong according to all of my sources, but surprisingly, you can still order a camera from every retailer except Amazon, which already has cameras listed above MSRP for resale. I have a very early preorder with B&H Photo that should ship at launch, but I am still debating canceling the order because I am not sure I will enjoy the experience. I am considering keeping it to let my children experience some of the inconveniences of traditional photography without getting into developing film, but my decision will likely be made on a whim.
Fujifilm Should Add RAW and AI Editing
File management is another reason I am reluctant to commit to the Fujifilm X Half, because I have been shooting RAW since the launch of Micro Four Thirds, and even when I shoot Fujifilm JPG, I always shoot a RAW file alongside the image and edit the RAW to look like the JPEG with some additional detail. I hate smartphone photography, and have a few high-end point-and-shoots I use for fun that support RAW, so I know not to expect crazy quality from the Fujifilm X Half, but I would appraciate the ability to save a photo or reinterprite a photo in the future which the Fujifilm X Half currently denies the user.
If Fujifilm wanted to make the Fujifilm X Half a serious bridge camera, they would have a RAW sidecar file that you can extract through the software so that a user’s photography could evolve into Fujifilm’s other lines of X cameras that offer more. The inability to shoot RAW reminds me of 90s throwaway digital cameras that have largely ended up in landfills instead of continuing to be useful like almost every other camera today can claim to be. For example, I am still shooting the regular GFX100 and do not feel I am missing out on by not upgrading to a newer GFX that I would enjoy using less.
Cameras should be able to grow with the consumer, and without RAW, the Fujifilm X Half JPEGS will have to rely on AI almost entirely for improvement, which isn’t going to help Fujifilm convert photographers. I can see the Fujifilm X Half running into a trainwreck workflow that goes something like this – The user shots 36 shots and then “develops them on their phone”, but decides they do not like the effect they chose, so they run it through ChatGPT to make the photo more traditional looking and now the person shooting has an amazing shot that they want to share with the world that teaches them to do it over and over again getting away from creating a photo themselves entirely.
Going a bit further, maybe a shot is award-winning because photographers matter more than equipment. This brings up an interesting problem because courts have made it very clear that things created with AI cannot be copyrighted. Now, during an interview, the photographer is telling the story about how they captured the image and how it was saved by AI, or the use of AI is discovered in another way… I think you can see where I am going with this, which is why Fujifilm should build in RAW. I do believe that Courts will have to do some line-drawing in the future as companies like Adobe try to use more AI for editing, but as of right now, I believe it is better to be safe than sorry.
I hate being this unsure about spending this kind of money, and if I cancel, I will likely purchase a Canon V1 instead. I know some of you will say things like “well, the camera isn’t for you”, but isn’t the point of these kinds of “entry-level” cameras to get users to move into bigger and better cameras as the years go on? Further, if they are trying to provide people with a fun shooting experience, wouldn’t you want to have it appeal to as many people as possible? Excluding RAW support is a software decision that can and should be undone. I am even fine if it makes accessing the RAW files incredibly inconvenient, to preserve the experience. Just add RAW!
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