Quick take: Fujifilm announced a box-style cinema camera built around its GFX medium format sensor. I think that's the wrong first move. Fuji's video-first customers are X-mount shooters on the X-H2S, and what they've wanted for years is a Super 35 box camera: basically an X-H2S with cinema I/O, active cooling and better video tools. I hope a Super 35 version follows.
Why I'm Critical
I'm a production artist, and I've been heavily invested in the Fujifilm ecosystem since 2018. I went full-time pro on Fuji gear. I'm critical because I want the brand to succeed, and I think there's still time for them to course correct.
Fuji Already Has a Video Customer
The X-H2S is Fuji's flagship, and it's always been marketed as a video-first camera. The X-T5 and X-H2 are aimed at photo shooters. I shoot my YouTube videos on the X-H2S in open gate, and it's an amazing camera, with a firmware update coming that's supposed to make it even better.
That tells us Fujifilm has a video-first customer. Picture one: she bought into Fuji to shoot video, her A camera is an X-H2S because it's the best video camera in the system, and her B camera is probably another Fuji. She has the codecs and the optional cooling fan for long-form recording. Demand is high enough that a company even made a modular cage kit to give the X-H2S a cinema-style form factor, with the fan plugged in and cables routed around it. Form factor is one of the things you pay for in a cinema camera.
What a Fuji Box Camera Should Be
I've been saying for a long time that Fuji should make a box camera: effectively an X-H2S that's just a sensor and connections, so people can add the accessories they want:
Monitor options
V-mount and other power options
SDI and full-size HDMI
A new menu system with false color, exposure tools, zebras and real framing overlays
On overlays: the X-M5 frames a vertical crop while you shoot horizontally, but it doesn't record the full sensor width, which makes no sense. Just give people the overlay and the full horizontal composition so they can deliver for YouTube and Reels or TikTok at once.
Medium Format vs Super 35
When Fuji announced a cinema camera, most of us expected Super 35, because so many X-mount enthusiasts are video-first. Instead it uses the GFX medium format sensor. It's a phenomenal sensor, great for photos and still very good for video, and it's large format in cinema terms. But you're probably not using it for sports unless you shoot in a crop mode, and you won't get fast readout at full sensor width. Fuji is also marketing it as a filmmaking camera rather than a cinema camera.
It's a step in the right direction, and I think it will succeed. But for sales, faster feedback and market share, an X-H2S-based cinema body would have made more sense.
Two Different Customers
The person who buys an X-H2S is not the person who buys a GFX100 II and the lenses and accessories to shoot video on it. Those are completely separate demographics. A cinema camera where the cheapest lens costs as much as my X-H2S setup won't move me up to that system, and someone who wants large format isn't going to settle for Super 35 either.
A Super 35 version would let people use the X-mount lenses they already own, maybe nudge them toward cinema lenses, and land at a price that makes sense. The APS-C shooter is the demographic that will make a Fuji cinema camera successful.
Why This Matters to Me
The X100VI has been selling like crazy, and that's presumably helped fund R&D for a cinema camera, which Fuji hasn't really been able to do before. Cameras are one of Fujifilm's smaller divisions next to medical and scientific imaging.
I bought into Canon RF with a pair of R5 Cs because I needed active cooling. I was having overheating problems and wasn't sold on screwing a fan onto the back of a camera. If Fuji released a Super 35 box camera, I'd trade in all my Canon gear immediately. That box camera would be my A camera, and I'd probably buy two.
Final Thoughts
What Fuji is doing is cool, but it's an odd call, and I'd love to know what market research led to it. I hope a Super 35 version is coming. For more on my history with Fuji, see my Fujifilm X-T3 long-term review, and for the X-H2S, my firmware 7.10 autofocus tests.
