Just before the weekend I was speculating on the new interchangeable lens digital rangefinder camera from Fuji, that was supposed to be a extension of the ideas behind their recent cameras, the X100 and the X10. Well, it's out and I was not completely right, but close enough. The new Fuji X-Pro1 is a digital interchangeable lens rangefinder camera, but it will have its own lens mount (the X mount, which is AF) and doesn't use the Leica mount, like I suggested last week. But Fuji will have a Leica lens mount adapter for it, so I wasn't too far off on that. The X-Pro1 will have a 16 MP APS-C sized sensor. The sensor itself is a new design that uses randomly arranged red, green, and blue pixels in 6x6 blocks. The random arrangement eliminates the need of an anti-aliasing filter, normally used in digital cameras to get rid of moire patterns, because the new sensor won't create moire patterns in fabrics or other materials. The random pixels are also supposed to replicate the look of film images better than most other sensors do. Three lenses are being introduced with the X-Pro1: a 18mm f/2, a 35mm f/1.4, and a 60mm f/2.4 Macro. These lenses are the equivalent of 27mm, 52mm, and 90mm lenses. They have a total of nine lenses planned so far for it, including a 14mm and a couple of zooms. This looks to be a great camera system.
The other new camera of note is Canon's G1 X. The new Powershot camera will have the largest sensor that has ever been used in a Powershot camera. It is just a bit smaller than an APS-C sensor, which makes it slightly bigger than the Micro 4/3 sensors. Its lens is the equivalent of a 28 - 112mm zoom and has maximum apertures of f/2.8-5.8. Looks like a good retro design, but their choice for a lens feels like a miss to me. It's not nearly bright enough and won't offer the range of depth of field effects that a wider aperture lens would give the user. And the people who will buy this camera are looking for that level of control. Well, folks have been speculating about Canon's response to the Micro 4/3 trend and maybe the G1 X is it. If it is, maybe Canon should go back to the drawing board and think about it some more.
