It’s Here…

Fujifilm’s new flagship; the X-Pro1 “Premium Interchangeable Lens Camera”

Finally, the digital equivalent of the classic rangefinder makes its debut…

With the release of the new X-Pro1, Fujifilm has accomplished what Canon and Nikon could not; the revival of the classic rangefinder in digital form.

Back in the day, both Canon and Nikon each had their own version of the interchangeable lens rangefinder. The concept is not new to them. But for some reason, they could not bring themselves to revive one of the most significant and popular camera designs next to the SLR.

With its hybrid viewfinder, the X-Pro 1 is the best of both worlds; a real-image viewfinder with extensive shooting information, or an electronic viewfinder for SLR-style “TTL” viewing. With its large APS-C sensor, it’s adaptable to a rich legacy of full-frame and 1.5x crop factor lenses. These include the venerable Leica M-Mount Rangefinder Lenses via a first party lens mount adapter coming this spring.

The X-Pro1 has a traditional rangefinder layout with a real shutter speed dial and a real aperture ring, because it’s a real camera. As real as it gets in the digital domain. Except for the LCD on the back and the connection port door on the side, you’d be hard pressed to tell this from a film camera. A whole host of lenses is planned for the new interchangeable X-Mount, with 18mm f/2.0, 35mm f/1.4 and 60mm f/2.4 prime lenses available at launch. With the 27mm, 52.5mm and 90mm focal lengths covered, you could easily call it a day.

But the X-Pro1’s hybrid viewfinder makes possible a new twist on the rangefinder… the zoom lens. With variable brightlines for the optical viewfinder, and a TTL view with the EVF, the 18-72mm f/4 constant aperture zoom coming later this year will be well received, with two more planned for release in 2013.

The superior sensor, which uses a different 6x6 RGB pixel array to dispense with the resolution-robbing optical low-pass filter, has such excellent low-light performance that it easily beats out the Canon 5D Mark II.

The Fujifilm X-Pro1 is huge. Not in physical size, although it’s not that much smaller than a DSLR, but in its significance to the camera market as we know it. This is the digital camera done right, and thankfully it will set a precedence for years to come. And at about $1,700.00 for the body alone, it won’t come cheap. But the good new is, you will save about six grand over the aging Leica M9-P.