The randomness of the color filter array made it less susceptible to moire pattern distortion, so an optical low-pass filter wasn’t needed.
X-Trans was a complex solution to what Fujifilm recognized as a problem, but most didn’t.
Unfortunately, this takes a lot of computing power to interpret the data, and that was the biggest hurdle that had to be overcome, since processing power wasn’t plentiful back then. Fujifilm continued to experiment, and, inspired by the randomness of silver halide, decided to test a “random” color filter array. They tried many different things to get the most resolution, sharpness, and dynamic range from the low-megapixel sensors of the time, and that’s where the Super-CCD technology came from. What made this new X-Trans sensor unique? How was it different than Bayer? What was the point of it?įujifilm had been experimenting with different sensor concepts since the 1990’s. Whether the X100 was a flop or success had no bearing on the release of the X-Pro1, but its success most certainly helped the X-Pro1 to sell well, too. Work began on the X-Pro1 back in 2010, and it was decided that it would be the first camera to carry the new sensor. The X-Trans sensor had been in the works for five years and was almost ready when the X100 was released. What I said in the last paragraph-”if the X100 had been a flop, the X-series would have ended there”-isn’t actually true. I couldn’t afford the $1,200 price tag, so I didn’t buy it, but I would have if I could have. I remember seeing it in a photography magazine and being captivated by it. Thankfully, the camera was generally well received, and it sold a lot of copies. If the X100 had been a flop, the X-series would have ended there. This was also the first camera ever with a hybrid electronic/optical viewfinder. And not X-Trans, which hadn’t been invented yet. Not Super-CCD, which was abandoned with the S5 Pro.
This camera had a rangefinder design with retro controls, harkening back to the glory days of film, and a 12-megapixel APS-C sensor.
What if Fujifilm made a high-end pocketable camera aimed specifically at the professional crowd? It took over two years for this idea to be realized-the Fujifilm X100 was released in March 2011, giving birth to the X-series. Pocket point-and-shoot cameras were popular, but not with professional photographers, due to poor image quality and basic controls. They also turned their attention to non-photographic opportunities, including pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, among others things.Īround the time that Fujifilm was discontinuing their DSLR, they began to work on something new. Mostly, though, following the fall of film, Fujifilm turned their attention to digital point-and-shoots, a fairly profitable segment at that time. There would be four models of these Nikon-turned-Fujifilm DSLRs-the last one, the S5 Pro, was discontinued in 2009, after disappointing sales. Fujifilm invented this new sensor type, which claimed to produce double the apparent resolution of a traditional Bayer sensor while simultaneously increasing dynamic range.
In fact, in 2000, Fujifilm introduced the S1 Pro, a Nikon SLR retrofitted with a 3-megapixel Super-CCD sensor. But the timing was awful, because film sales hit a wall, and in 2003 began to fall off a cliff, while digital sales rose sharply.Īlthough Fujifilm scaled back from digital, they didn’t abandon it. If you were a Fujifilm manager during those two years, and you’re seeing tons of money going into the digital camera department yet not much financially to show for it, and film sales seemed to be on a trajectory towards the moon, what would you do? It’s understandable, then, that Fujifilm did what it did: double-down on analog and pull back from digital. Meanwhile, film sales went through the roof! A billion rolls of film were sold in 1999, and even more were sold in 2000, which was the absolute pinnacle of analog photography.
Fujifilm would continue to develop (pun intended) it’s digital camera technology throughout the 1990’s, making several important innovations, and even collaborating with other brands, such as Nikon.ĭespite Fujifilm’s pioneering advancements, digital camera sales were slow, primarily due to the poor image quality of the early sensors plus the very high costs to buy. One year later, the same year that Back To The Future Part II played in theaters, Fujifilm released the world’s first commercially-produced digital camera, the FUJIX DS-X. This first all-digital camera captured 0.4 megapixel images and stored them on a removable memory card-as many as 10 pictures! While this doesn’t sound like a significant achievement, it was a pivotal moment in the advancement of digital camera technology.