If you are into photography, you are aware of Fujifilm at some level. You have at least looked at or watched a video praising one of the many X100 cameras they have made over the years. If you have been paying attention in the last five years or so, you have heard all about how Fuji seemingly can’t make cameras.
I am not going to say they can’t make them fast enough, because it’s 2025, they are a Japanese company, and the reality is, they can make as many as they want at a moments notice. No one can question the manufacturing capabilities of the Asia Pacific Region. They reign supreme.
At any rate, when they released the X100V, which was the fifth iteration of this camera model, it received a lot of pre-orders. Famously, there are pre-orders today, FIVE years later, that remain unfulfilled. They promised this would not happen with the X100VI, this time they were going to figure it out. This was in March of 2024. As we sit here today, yet again there are many pre-orders sitting unfulfilled, a full 17 months later.
Fuji is blaming the Tariffs for the X100VI problems, but that is, well, bullshit. They had a lot of time to be ready for that one, and they just weren’t.
This week, the X-E5 begins shipping, and surprise! They made way to few of them. B&H Photo, one of the largest camera retailers in the US, if not the largest, has let go that they received only 200 Units in their shipment. Yeah, 200.
Now, if we can all be honest for a moment, a company like B&H sold those first 200 cameras 3 seconds into the pre-sale 2 months ago. That is how many cameras Fuji should be making an hour. Apparently that was the best they could do in 2 months.
Something does not add up. This cannot be sustainable. Fool me once, etc. This is strike three. It is clear that Fuji is underproducing in an effort to manufacture scarcity, limiting supply in a bid to continue driving up pricing on their cameras. The problem is, the product is good, but it’s not that good.
A virus that has taken over the world at large is that when any product that seems like it might be popular is released, companies love to have a pre-sale, “to gauge interest”. Without fail, this just opens the door to scalpers buying as many as they can with bots the second the sites drop the pre-sale. Add to that the few who sit waiting to pull the trigger at second one who buy a few, “just in case”.
Of the 200 units that B&H received, I’ll bet even money that 20 people accounted for those orders. Maybe less.
We’ve seen this before with the PS5. The PS5 was widely impossible to get for months after its release. Sony kept claiming they were making them as fast as they could, but who are we kidding? Sony has been doing the fake scarcity thing to drive interest for many years themselves.
Sure, maybe I’m just annoyed. But I think it’s ok to be a little bothered when a company you enjoy continues falling short like this. Imagine if Apple release a new iPhone, and it’s adoring fans were told only a few people could have one for the first week or three. Android stock would go through the roof. Apple would die in a fire sale. I have reached the point with Fuji where I just don’t have the interest. Why invest in a platform that the company won’t even provide? Fuji is at a point where they risk losing their following simply for the fact that no one new can enter their ecosystem unless they pay Mercedes prices on the secondhand market, for chevy equipment.
If I was a competitor like Canon or Nikon, I’d jump all over this and start releasing cost effective compact vintage film-sim cameras, and actually have them be available. Canon especially is more than capable of eating this market, and if they even attempt it, seeya later Fuji, we’ll remember you fondly.