Ergonomic Roundup November 2013, Fujifilm

Having trouble seeing the forest with all those trees ?

 

Fuji Frenzy ?  In my summary of Canon's progress, or lack of it, with camera ergonomics, I accused Canon's product development people of having apparently gone to sleep.  The same could not be said about Fuji, which mysteriously calls itself FujiFilmin an all digital imaging era.  Fuji has a long history of innovation in imaging. In recent years they have delivered the EXR sensor then the X-Trans sensor. In short order they have delivered the X-Pro1, X-E1 and X-E2, X-M1, X-A1 and X-Q1.

The Fuji guys are definitely not standing still but the direction in which they are heading seems unclear to me. Maybe that is just a comment about the camera industry as a whole, which appears to be unsure of it's direction.

My Experience with Fuji cameras  In the film era I owned and briefly used a couple of fixed lens Fuji medium format cameras. These were "interesting" but did not last long in my camera bag as each had a very limited spectrum of capabilities. In the digital age, I have owned an X10 compact and  been completely baffled by the labrynthine complexity of trying to use the thing with RAW capture.  I  have had the opportunity to use an  X100 (the original version) and an X-E1. The family member who owned the X100 was extremely disappointed to find that a large percentage of photos of a never to be repeated family event were out of focus.

What is Fuji's USP (Unique Selling Point)?  Fuji has probably wisely not tried to challenge CanoNikon on their preferred turf, that being the DSLR. Instead their leitmotiv appears to be..... "something different". The different something might be a unique sensor design or it might be a different approach to the ergonomic layout of a camera. I will concentrate on the ergonomics.

Blending Traditional with Modern Design Elements  Many of Fuji's recent camera releases have attempted to blend elements of traditional design and styling with modern electronic operation. This works, to the extent the cameras make photographs, sometimes of excellent quality. But overall I believe the attempt to blend traditional with modern at the user interface has produced an inconsistent, muddled,  kludge of features nowhere near as simple as the classic M-Leica layout and less efficient than a modern electronic interface such as you find on, say, a Panasonic Lumix GH3.

In The Good Old Days  We used all manual, all mechanical cameras. Examples would include Leica M3-M6 and Pentax Spotmatic. These cameras had a marked clicky dial on the lens for changing aperture and a marked clicky dial on the top plate for changing shutter speed. You only got to change ISO (which used to be called ASA or DIN) when changing film. The user interface was simple to the point of spartan. But it worked and with practice could be  reasonably efficient.

Then Came Electronics  Soon we had Aperture Priority Auto Exposure, then Shutter Priority AE  then Program AE. In  many cases these new features were implemented using the existing aperture and shutter speed dials. But then someone (I know not who) came up with the idea of a Mode Dial and one or two mode dependent scroll wheels. When properly implemented this system could be faster than the old one, using less movements, each of lower complexity, to adjust aperture, shutter speed, both or ISO.  So most cameras now use that system as it can be more efficient.

The Fujifilm Way  There used to be a saying... "There is the right way, the wrong way and the Navy's way"... In the case of camera ergonomics this could be rephrased as ..."There's the old way, the new way and Fujifilm's way".

It seems to me there are two problems with the Fujifilm way.

First, the attempt to blend the old style manual user interface with modern electronics just doesn't work very well. There is no need to have an aperture dial on the lens, just as there  is no need to have a shutter speed dial. These dials are superfluous. Any one of several versions of a more modern, streamlined user interface could do the job more efficiently.

Second, Fuji's implementation of the Hybrid, ancient+modern interface across the many and proliferating numbers of models is inconsistent, to put it mildly.

On some cameras we find an optical viewfinder, some have a hybrid optical/electronic viewfinder, some have an electronic viewfinder, some have none. Some of Fuji's cameras have a shutter speed dial others have a Mode Dial.

Some lenses have an old fashioned, marked clicky aperture dial, some have an unmarked dial, some have none.

Many have a prominent dial located precisely where the thumb wants to rest. So to keep the thumb from pressing this dial accidentally many Fuji owners fit an aftermarket thumb support which slips into the hotshoe. This, of course prevents use of the hotshoe and also impedes access to the shutter speed dial. All this folderol for a dial which doesn't actually do much during normal image capture.

Most lack a proper handle, prompting many users to fit an after market one at considerable expense.

Most have a fixed monitor, on a camera back with plenty of space for an articulated one.

Some have buttons located in strange places. For instance some have the [AF] button on the left side of the monitor. This is the button which activates the process of changing AF area position. So to change AF area you have to release grip on the lens with the left hand,  push the [AF] button, return the left hand to the lens, release the right hand from the camera, push the 4 Way controller as required to move the AF area then return the right hand to normal grip position. Someone appears to have tapped the Fuji design guys on the shoulder about this, as I see on some recent models the [AF] button has moved to the [Down] position on the 4 Way controller.

Summary  It seems to me that the Fuji guys are doing things differently just to establish a point of difference in the market place, not because Fuji cameras allow the user to go about the process of making photos in any more efficient or effective fashion than those of more conventional electronic design.

The Crystal Ball   My crystal ball on Fuji's future is opaque. I value cameras with very good picture quality, performance and ergonomics. Some of Fuji's cameras deliver very good picture quality but many have suboptimal performance and ergonomics. So I have difficulty understanding why anybody buys them at all. Hang on, I bought some of them, why was that ???  I certainly sold them on pretty quick. My point is that there appears to by something about Fuji's products which appeals to some buyers. Maybe they seem like proper cameras, harking back to days of yore when a camera was a real camera not just an electronic gadget which happens to take photos. Is that it ??    I don't know.