By the time the Fujifilm X100VI was announced, I had seen enough of the “sold out” sign on the X100V. For a while, it seemed that the only way to get an X100V was by paying marked-up prices in the second-hand market. It was because of that that I was excited about the new X100VI release. I didn’t care as much for the new IBIS or the new sensor; rather, I was relieved that you could finally again buy a brand-new X100 camera for its actual MSRP. But while it’s true that you can buy the X100VI more easily than the X100V, it can still be hard to get compared to an average camera. Why is that? Well, Fujifilm has an answer for us.
Fujifilm’s ever-increasing popularity
It’s hard to ignore just how much Fujifilm has grown in popularity. It wasn’t that long ago when most photographers didn’t know anything about Fujifilm, as it wasn’t one of the “big three” ( Canon, Nikon, and Sony). But, as Andreas explains in the video, people noticed how well Fujifilm cameras replicate a film look in digital cameras. And because, in recent years, people have started to love film again, it should be no surprise that the Fujifilm approach finally started to pay off. Be it the beautiful retro design of the cameras themselves or the digital film recipes, there is more than enough to excite vintage-loving photographers like you and me.
This statement is as true as ever with the Fujifilm X100VI, as there is not much change in the design or colors of the camera. It’s just a better version of its predecessor, which was already selling like hotcakes. As you remember, shops were quickly running out of X100V units, and scalpers took advantage of that. Fujifilm wasn’t oblivious to the increase in popularity, so they knew that to avoid the same problem with the X100VI, they decided to increase production. According to Andreas, Fujifilm has been making 15,000 X100VI units each month since launch, which is double the production rate of the X100V. But, it is still not enough.
Fujifilm is currently investigating increasing the production rate even further. “We are probably four-five months away from being able to take that next leap forward in terms of production capacity, the exact numbers of which I don’t know, but we are looking at ways to bridge that gap between how many we can make now and how many we need to make moving forward,” says Andreas.
