Fujifilm Springs into Action

Fujifilm grouped a bunch of announcements together for an early spring present to its X-system users.

First up, we have the official announcement of the 55-200mm f3.5-4.8R LM OIS lens. This lens finally gives the X-Pro1 and X-E1 a native telephoto capability, something that's been missing in the original lineup. The only new pieces of information about the lens were the focus distance (43", or 1.1m) and the price (US$700). The lens should be available in May.

Along with the lens announcement, Fujifilm updated their lens roadmap, curiously including the three known Zeiss lenses coming for the X-series. The only real change from information that we received at Photokina last year is that the 56mm Fujifilm lens will now be an f/1.2 lens instead of f/1.4. The Zeiss lenses, lest you forget, are a 12mm f/2.8 Distagon, 32mm f/1.8 Planar, and 50mm f/2.8 Makro-Planar.

Next up was a pre announcement of a firmware update for the X-Pro1 and X-E1. This update will be available when the 55-200mm lens ships, and is designed to improve focus performance with the two-motor design of the 55-200mm as well as focus performance with other existing lenses. Fujifilm's claim is that the focus speed would be a maximum of 0.7 seconds with the 55-200mm, even if it had to search from infinity down to close focus distance.

If that weren't enough, Fujifilm also released a five-part "Fujifilm XE-1 Photographer's Guidebook" in PDF format. This 40MB booklet is similar to the one they did for the X-Pro1, and features basic discussions of photographic decisions linked to the camera features, plus interviews and galleries of photographers using the X-E1.


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