[caption id="attachment_5402" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Wishful thinking? Until recently I would have agreed this combo is just a fanboy's wet dream, but it may be a very real possibility now."]
[/caption]
Fujiflim dropped a bomb on the photo industry with their well-hyped and well-received Finepix X100 camera. A hot stylish retro design teamed up with superb image quality and a super sharp fixed lens made for a lot of online buzz. Before the X100 was even released, people began to speculate if Fuji had something else up their sleeve. Perhaps an interchangeable lens version of the X100? After all it has been quite a while since Fuji released an interchangeable lens camera. The Fuji S5 Pro was released in September of 2006 and just like it's predecessors, it was a hit with wedding photographers. The S5 Pro's dynamic range beats out even the prestegious D3x at ISOs up through 800. So what happened? Well even though the Fuji SLR cameras had extremely high image quality and used the popular NIkon "F" mount they just couldn't keep up with Canon or Nikon in terms of ISO performance. Nikon and Canon are the giants of the industry, they have several lines of SLRs generating revenue for them, from entry-level to top of the line professional. Even though true professional photographers are a small niche, it is essentially free advertising. Now that everyone and their mom wants a DSLR, they are of course going to ask their "photographer friend" what brand of camera to get. Since most pros use either Canon or Nikon, they will suggest the same to their friends. It's been a brilliant strategy by both companies and it helped to box out other manufacturers like Olympus, Fuji, Sony, etc... So recently Fujifilm has announced that they are going to get back into the game with a new mirrorless interchangeable lens system. This won't be your average run of the mill camera and Fuji has already made the bold statement that ISO performance would surpass the quality of current full-frame cameras. So does that mean they are going to use a sensor larger than APS-C? I would think so. It seems like Canon may be ditching the APS-H format sensor in their cameras and they haven't been one to share their technology. Fuji has never shown any indication that they want to join the annoying "Megapixel War," so it's very possible that they may use Nikon's world-beating 12 megapixel sensor that was used in the D3s. Personally, I would be thrilled to see a medium resolution full frame mirrorless camera with top quality ISO performance and overall image quality. So while Panasonic, Sony, Olympus, and now Nikon have all launched mirrorless camera lines, everyone is waiting to see what is next. The small niche of high-end users who want a top of the line mirrorless camera, may now be addressed by Fuji. A few years ago I would have laughed that Fujifilm, the maker of some of my favorite color films and a couple digital cameras here and there, would be the one to step up to the plate big time. So while much remains to be revealed, the future is certainly looking bright for Fujifilm.