The Flagship Calls Into Port

I was fortunate this last Monday to be present when the new Fujifilm flagship camera - the X-H2S - called into Camera Electronic under the command of Captain Williams. It is the first time in many years that he was able to make a personal visit to Western Australia, and he was most welcome. Before the evening's talk I was able to secure the services of a hand model - Duncan - to hold and operate the camera. That's him in the heading image - he seems familiar with photo equipment. The new camera was equipped with a battery grip and new lens at the time and seemed to handle very well indeed. The Fujifilm company has had flagships cameras before - in recent years the X-T 2, 3, and 4 were successively the still cameras that were seen as the leaders, and at one stage of the game the X-H1 camera also signalled the intention of the firm to branch out a little. The new X-H2S body, however, significantly advances what they were trying to do -so much so that Captain Williams was justified in telling us it was the new flagship. As a flagship, it leads the line in both new features and new capabilities. It is intended as a video camera as well as a still one, and has a number of things associated with both functions - chief amongst which are new processing engines - and not just the one; there are a number of them in operation in the body, dealing with the in-body stabilisation as well as the increased speed and selectivity of auto-focus. The viewfinder has been boosted and has a much faster refresh rate - no blackout while filming. No flicker. The sensor is new - a back-lit one - and the capture sites for the light accordingly increased - better low-light operation and a higher dynamic range. 14 stops , in fact, which is far in advance of what most of us can use. The separation and advancement of specialised eye and subject detection is amazing. Not just animals, but birds, cars, planes, and trains. We saw an animation of it in action on a bird in motion. Captain Williams mentioned a test done with a T-Rex dinosaur and apparently the camera is able to recognise that, too. In practical terms, will the camera work long enough to be effective on a job? We're promised about 600 frames per battery charge, and of course there are extra batteries in the larger grip. It is the same battery as that used in the X-T4 , so if you are there already, you can move ahead seamlessly. Those of us with a trove of the older W-126 series of batteries are going to have to change. My attention was also drawn to the add-on cooling fan unit that clips into the back of the camera under the swing-out LCD screen to extend the time that the camera can record video in hot conditions. The length of time seems to have been increased to meet any practical requirement. I was also taken, and will be investigating, the new Fujinion 18-120 lens that fronted the camera - this seems to be a lens that is intended for a lot of video work - it focusses and zooms internally - has several forms of power zoom, and has a constant aperture. It would seem to be a perfect addition to a camera that can do IBIS, but I'll try it on my X-T2 as well as a practical alternative to the current 18-135 lens. I was more than happy to see that my brand choice has not fallen behind with their APS-C offerings.