I'm more excited about their "medium format" digital cameras. Yeah, okay, $4K, but I've been pining for larger CCD's and Fuji are going there.
Fujifilm X half: Is it the perfect family camera?
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Re: Fujifilm X half: Is it the perfect family camera?
#12Used cameras and lenses can offer tremendous value.
Re: Fujifilm X half: Is it the perfect family camera?
#13According to this essay, the options for his kids are a $50 toy "camera" and an $850 niche camera possibly targeted at people who usually own the $2,000 line of the same brand. Surely there's something in between? I can't help but wonder if this is a purchase for himself.
Photography nerds rarely bring this up but pretty obviously the best camera for kids is an old smartphone. A 2020-era iphone has a better sensor and is cheaper than this thing, assuming they don't already have one around. Photo transfer problem is solved, and the interface is already familiar to kids for better or worse.
Re: Fujifilm X half: Is it the perfect family camera?
#14According to this essay, the options for his kids are a $50 toy "camera" and an $850 niche camera possibly targeted at people who usually own the $2,000 line of the same brand. Surely there's something in between? I can't help but wonder if this is a purchase for himself.
He says he doesn't collect cameras but instead he sells them. My take is that the bottom tranche of cheap cameras is awful but that you have a huge selection of used cameras on Ebay, in his shoes I would have expected to get something used but good for $200 or so.
One of the reasons I go around with two Sonys in my backpack is that I can go to an event and take action shots while I put the other body with a 90mm lens and have somebody else who doesn't know a lot about how to work a mirrorless shoot headshots. On the other hand, I do collect weird cameras and you might find I have two stereo cameras in my other bag.
Re: Fujifilm X half: Is it the perfect family camera?
#15Used cameras and lenses can offer tremendous value.
This. My humble setup is a Sony a100 with some good old Minolta lenses.
Re: Fujifilm X half: Is it the perfect family camera?
#16> The first few weeks everything went ok, until we had to copy the photos to their iPads. > [wifi didn’t work] It’s bad that in 2025, digital cameras do not ship with a way to automatically upload to Apple and Google’s photo libraries, for free, and clearing the local storage as images and videos get uploaded.
you expect digital cameras to provide cellular internet access for free?
Re: Fujifilm X half: Is it the perfect family camera?
#17According to this essay, the options for his kids are a $50 toy "camera" and an $850 niche camera possibly targeted at people who usually own the $2,000 line of the same brand. Surely there's something in between? I can't help but wonder if this is a purchase for himself.
My thoughts exactly.
This is a bizarre article. The elephant in the room is on the lower end most mid-range phones will beat a digital camera under 300$.
I wouldn't give a kid an expensive camera. Kids drop things. If you give Junior an 850$ camera and he loses it that's on you.
Then again, this is HN. Maybe he makes 700k TC per year and money is no object. Even then he admits for a few hundred more you can get a much more capable Fuji camera.
I purchased a used Fujifilm Fuji X-A5 for around 250$ off eBay, and a new XC 15-45 for 120$. It's not the best camera by any means, but I'm relatively stress free when using it compared to more expensive options.
Truth be told when your starting out you don't really need amazing gear. This goes for every hobby.
Re: Fujifilm X half: Is it the perfect family camera?
#18tbh, Camp Snap sounds like the best choice for this use case. It's cheap, with long battery life, a real viewfinder and decoration-friendly for kids.
Re: Fujifilm X half: Is it the perfect family camera?
#19According to this essay, the options for his kids are a $50 toy "camera" and an $850 niche camera possibly targeted at people who usually own the $2,000 line of the same brand. Surely there's something in between? I can't help but wonder if this is a purchase for himself.
Photography nerds rarely bring this up but pretty obviously the best camera for kids is an old smartphone. A 2020-era iphone has a better sensor and is cheaper than this thing, assuming they don't already have one around. Photo transfer problem is solved, and the interface is already familiar to kids for better or worse.
That's what we did.
Most "kids cameras" sold today just use cheap webcam sensors (e.g. 1 MP, low dynamic range) that are sold for excessively high prices. They have few physical controls, no viewfinder, and are bulky.
Instead, why not grab a used iPhone SE, the camera sensor is still fantastic, and it will likely cost you less than most kids cameras. Remove everything except the Camera App, leave it in Airplane mode, and it will last roughly two days on a single charge (over a week idle).
PS - You can find deals on used cellphones by looking for "network locked" ones, since you won't be putting a SIM in it anyway.
Re: Fujifilm X half: Is it the perfect family camera?
#20I actually have a ton of toy cameras and I love them, so I bet I would love that Fuji too. It's right up my alley in terms of what I like: something a little silly and fun that is easily portable and can take pictures.
The only thing is price is way too high for what it is. As much fun as I would have with it, $800 is too much for what it is. And that is definitely too high for something you're handing to your kids. Anyone with kids knows that kids tend to break things or lose things pretty frequently.
I have a "camp snap" camera that costs something like $50 (was even less when I bought it) and operates similar to the Fuji in that it's one button to take a picture, no screen so you don't see it until later. Yeah, the quality isn't as high as your $10,000 body only Leica M11... but as it says here "the sensor is too small, but the kids didn’t care".
I also have a thermal print kids camera that my two year old son loves to carry around, although he more or less just snaps random photos of the ground and doesn't point it at anything. It's a blast for me to take out with friends sometimes too, since the cost of receipt paper makes it maybe two cents for an instant printed photo with a nice black and white dithered look. The battery does go pretty quick when the printer is on but the camera was less than $20.
For a more adult camera, you can get a decent something used for maybe $200 that will take fairly high quality photos (much better than the Fuji in question).