There is nothing more than I would have liked than Fuji to produce a monochrome XPro. Clearly there is a demand. After all Leica has on its fourth monochrome camera! Pentax just released a monochrome camera. The XPro3 is a perfect form factor for a monochrome sensor. Yet Fuji who pride on the XPro for being avant-garde just sits there ignoring the opportunity to stand our above the crowd.
Come on Fuji, take the 40 MP sensor without any CFA which should be a pretty standard Sony sensor and give us the XPro4M. Show us you are truly innovative.
innovative
adjective
(of a product, idea, etc.) featuring new methods; advanced and original.
"innovative designs"
That said, they don't need to innovate. They could do well with this camera. Instead of 3 paint jobs, offer two models; one color, one monochrome. The Pentax is doing well. Whenever a cheaper monochrome comes up, it is always Fuji... and maybe the Ricoh GR series. I think we could see both.
I am also all in favor for a monochrome camera, but... is there truly a profit-making opportunity for Fuji to embark on that? I think the market size is really small: the top end market has been taken by Leica, and the lower end is still open. But is there a profit to be made with sustainability? Perhaps, especially because the Pentax is not a mirrorless camera.
The XPro is already a unique proposition in the camera market, at around 2,000 USD; a monochrome version would be what, 2,500 USD? The Pentax is 2,000 USD.
All these same arguments were thrown at Leica when it introduced the first Leica M monochrome. The old - it's too easy to convert color images and a monochrome camera is to specialized, etc. Turns out that putting a CFA over a native monochrome sensor will reduce the sensitivity, the DR and resolution from the based underlying monochrome sensor. The resolution reduction of a CFA was a series of several white papers when Foveon was developing the X3 sensor. It is image dependent but after the interpolation to produce the color image is about 1/4 to 1/2 the resolution of the underlying sensor. That's the Sigma SD10 could often out resolve a 12 MP CFA camera. That was established using color charts instead of b&W charts. It seems to be working out well for Leica as they introduced the Q2M to go with the M monochromes. However, Leica is the only game in town right now. If there wasn't a demand I doubt if Ricoh would have introduced a monochrome. The M11 monochrome followed closely behind the M11 and I expect the Q3M will follow closely behind the Q3.
On its own I doubt if the XPro is very profitable. However, that doesn't seem to be Fuji's business model. They reuse the same expensive components across multiple camera models. In reality the only thing that required development in the XPro was the hybrid VF it shares with the X100. Of course there would be a one time NRE to develop the processing chain which would be such simplifier and would probably result in the use of a DNG raw format - which makes a lot of sense. Then once developed, might as well drop it into a X100V M at little extra cost.
Now I doubt if Fuji will do it. However, if they had a couple years ago - I probably would not haven't given up on Fuji and dropped 5 bills on a Q2M. Since I got it unless I need a telephoto I no longer use my XPro3. If I need something like my 90 f2, I will use my XPro3. The IQ of my Q2M cropped to the equivalent of the 75 mm (50 on my XPro) is better than the 50 on my XPro. This is of course with the caveat that cropping increases the inherent f-stop. But instead of jumping in early on right after Leica with a monochrome - they are not late to the party.
I never used the "conversion to mono" argument in my initial reply.
Leica are masters at banking on their brand, of course based on a long history of photographic tradition, perception, mystique, and high product quality. Many people buy Leica because they perceive that they are paying a lot, but receive excellent value. I doubt they are selling a lot of cameras, mono included, but then, that was never their market goal. They are in the luxury market.
Your personal use case is just that, personal. A mono digital camera makes a lot of sense for photographers who used B&W as their expression medium.
CIPA data for 2022 shows a total of around 8 million cameras shipped. In such a mature and restricted market, is there room to invest and grow a monochrome camera? Leica says yes, but then they compete in the luxury goods market, which is not typical of the imaging market; Pentax says yes, targeting the more current imaging market. As I said in my initial reply, I think Fuji could also step in and do it for the mirrorless market, which is actually larger than the DSLR one.
I don’t honestly mind whether Fuji do a monochrome camera or not; it’s not something I want particularly and not something I’d buy, but if there’s a market for it they’ll make one and if there isn’t they won’t, no skin off my nose.
I slightly take issue with the subject line of this thread though. The X-Pro is unique, Fujifilm don’t need to prove that or make it any more so. There is literally no other camera on the market that does what it does. It’s already far more innovative than most other cameras for sale today (most definitely including the Leica M).
No doubt that Leica is unique among cameras. Some of it goes back simply to German craftsmanship not dissimilar to German cars, BMW, Benz, Porsche, Audi. Yep they cost a lot and they are high end products. On the other hand there was all sorts of gnashing of teeth when several years ago Fujifilm skipped jumping into the FF wading pool and instead doubled down on APSC X cameras and introduced the GFX. An expensive camera that is not needed and will be a bust. Of course that was wrong. The mistake Pentax made with medium format was they did not design the camera from the ground up - instead threw a digital sensor in a warmed over Pentax 645 body. Hassleblad seed to miss the boat also. The GFX is a high end product - however it is "nibbling" down from the top and Fuji's strategy seems pretty sound.
Digital cameras are electronics products and as such the evolution is probably closer to computer technology than film cameras. Over the history of the digital computer the evolution of the semi-conductor captured by Gordon Moore - founder first the Fairchild Semiconductor division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument and the later of Intel in a "law" that goes by his name. Roughly translated the computational horse power for a given cost increases by an order of magnitude every five years driven by the decreased size of transistors which also results in reduced power consumption. That means low end inexpensive PC's will grow in capabilities and eat away from the bottom into larger mid size platforms and high end expensive "super computers" will become less and less expensive. All one needs to do is look at the history of Digital Equipment Corp (DEC) who introduced the mini computer segment of the computer market in the 1960's only to be squeezed into extension ( aided by some stupid decision by Ken Olsen along the way ). In fact the history of the computer industry is littered with bankrupt companies that were squeezed out from the bottom and top, DEC, Sun Microsystems, Apollo Computer, HP computer, SEL Computer etc,. as the super computers go less expensive, smaller and less expensive to operate and the "PC's" got more and more capable.
When Leica introduce the "Henri" the first M monochrome based on the M9 platform. At the time the Internet noise machine scoffed at Leica - the last gasp of a dying company. Turns out not to be true. Of course the M mono is a niche within a niche. But in reality most of the NRE of the M mono was paid for by the development of the M 9. I also suspect that most of the NRE of the processing chain for the M10 mono, M11 mono and Q2M was paid for by the original M mono. So if Fujifilm did introduce a XPro M, there would be some up front NRE to manage the based on the fact that no interpolation would be required to handle the CFA.
I suspect the sensor will be less expensive than the CFA sensor since the yield (the process to lay on the CFA would not be needed) would be higher or potentially an off the shelf Sony sensor could be used. The fifth generation processor already exist so the more produced over time the less the cost of the processor across all the lines as the NRE is paid down faster. Will they do it - no idea but probably not. Maybe the one reason is that while it would be a little more expensive than the standard XPro, it would be 1/4 to 1/3 of the cost of the Leica Monochrome and give people the wanted to dabble in photography using a monochrome camera a more economical but yet very capable alternative to the Leica. I think the monochrome cameras are "showcase" products for Leica. I would view an XPro 4M in the same light.
