It looks like Fujifilm has four new products to announce at next week's X Summit – and not only does it seem that we're getting two new cameras and two new lenses, we're also getting a new camera control dial dedicated to Film Simulations.
X Summit Sydney 2024 takes place next Thursday, on May 16, and Fujifilm has posted a teaser video giving us tantalizing glimpses at what could be announced.
Most of the video, which you can see embedded below, is shrouded in moody silhouettes with flashes of rim-lit outlines. It concludes with a starkly-lit scene that appears to depict four products: a small silver SLR-style camera, a large black rangefinder-style camera, a small lens and a gigantic lens.
It's a reasonably safe bet that the two lenses are the previously announced XF 16-50mm f/2.8-4.8 for X System cameras and the GF 500mm f/5.6 for medium format GFX bodies.
I'm willing to bet, accordingly, that the big black rangefinder-looking camera is a medium format, and the silver SLR-looking one is an X System. And it's here that things get really interesting, as something that Fujifilm deliberately didn't disguise in the video is the new Film Simulation dial.
Obviously, Film Simulations are a big part of the Fujifilm appeal – but this will be the first time that they will be so prominently featured on the camera. The dial features 12 settings, which I estimate are as follows:
STD – Standard / Provia
S – Soft / Astia
V – Vivid / Velvia
A – Acros
CC – Classic Chrome
RA – Reala Ace
NN – Nostalgic Neg
NC – Classic Neg
I imagine the FS1, FS2 and FS3 settings can be assigned as presets for other Simulations (such as Eterna and Pro Neg), with C being for your own custom or standard manual controls.
What's interesting to me is that, with Film Simulations now having their own dedicated control dial, this suggests that an existing dial has probably had to be sacrificed to make way for it.
Initially I thought the new dial might have replaced exposure compensation, since it appears to be on the right-hand side of the camera. But just visible to the left of it is the 'flash' icon, indicating the lever for the pop-up flash – which is usually positioned on the left-hand side of the camera, beneath the mode / drive dial.
It's super exciting to see Fujifilm continue to make bold changes to its products, and I'm pumped up to see exactly which camera this new dial is attached to at next week's X Summit.
Check out the best Fujifilm cameras in the APS-C X System, as well as the best medium format cameras that includes GFX bodies.
