二零二二年九月，摄影师及TikTok意见领袖凯莉·卡蒂奇在其数十万关注者面前分享了一条视频，展示她所拥有的富士X100V相机。“哇！这画面就像从老照片集里取出的一样。”她在镜头前说，同时屏幕上播放着婴儿的肖像。这些图片呈现出温暖、略显泛黄的色调，仿佛是从往昔的照片集中翻出的画面。这款具有复古特色、袖珍大小、外形精致的富士X100V相机配备有模拟胶片摄影效果的功能，无需任何后期处理。
“看起来就像是胶片相机。”卡蒂奇在视频中举起这个价值一千四百美元的小巧便携机时说。“但它却是数字相机。”此条帖子发布后，仅一天时间内就收到了数十条评论。其中有人写道：“我也想被影响了，我要也买一台。”又有人说：“这实在是太酷了。”
这种推崇在TikTok的细分社群中引发了连锁效应。汽车爱好者携带X100V参与赛车聚会；音乐人则用它记录旅行经历与巡回生活。技术极客、旅行狂热者和时尚影响力人士等群体对X100V趋之若鹜，一旦拥有就会迫不及待地向其粉丝介绍。
这种现象给富士胶片公司库存造成了严重影响，当时公司的库存已经因需求激增而面临巨大压力。至二零二二年十一月，富士已暂停了线上X100V相机的订单接收，声称由于无法满足需求而导致销售受限。买家转向个人二手交易平台如eBay，X100V的价格翻倍出售。
两年后，TikTok对这台相机的狂热并未减退，厂商也从中获得了显著收益。二零二三财政年度（结束于当年三月），富士胶片公司的影像业务带来四百六十九点七亿日元（相当于大约33亿美元）收入，比前一年增长了14.5%，首次成为公司最盈利部门。此业绩部分归功于X系列相机的后续机型——2023年二月份发布的X100VI。这款升级了传感器与新增功能的新型号一上市便立即售罄。
富士胶片公司正在接纳这台炙手可热相机所取得的成功，CEO古贺安彦在电话会议上表示X100VI的产品销售情况“正常”，并将其高价值比作知名德国制造商品牌。“像我们的竞争对手一样，他们不仅维持了旧产品的高昂价值，也成功维护了当前销售的新款产品。”他在会议中说。另一品牌方未接受访问，通过声明表示正在加速生产以应对需求上涨。“我们的目标是确保每一个预订X100VI的客户都能如愿得到相机。”公司回应道。
富士胶片公司成功地逆转了其影像业务的亏损局面，这一局面在十四年前每年都会损失数亿日元。2000年代初，随着数码摄影取代传统胶卷照片，富士胶片一度在全球市场上的胶片生产和销售领域占据领导地位，但在数字空间上面临挑战。智能设备的普及使消费者不再需要专业相机，这进一步加剧了日本公司的困境——如今，每个消费者的口袋或包里都有一个摄像头。
在这一背景下，X100于2011年推出，成为其成功逆转的关键。该相机凭借小巧便携的设计与专业的摄影功能赢得了用户青睐，特别是对复古胶片效果的再现满足了一部分消费者对于怀旧情感的需求。“现在所有人都有这些设备了。”来自多伦多Downtown Camera店的哈里·麦说，“但手机拍照往往过于‘无感情’和‘无质感’”，而富士X系列相机则提供了一种新的体验，使用户可以沉浸在摄影的乐趣中。
随后出现的一系列视频进一步推动了这股热潮，让富士胶片公司及关联摄影业务收益颇丰。2017年一家名为Fuji X Weekly的独立网站开始发布“食谱”——为X100相机使用者提供精心调整的设置组合以模仿不同类型的胶片效果。“X系列允许用户探索怀旧情怀。”卡蒂奇说。
然而，面对不断激增的需求，富士胶片公司仅在2023年X100VI发布前将生产从日本转移至中国，此举使得每月产量翻倍达到1.5万台。这仍然无法满足消费者对新机型的渴望。二手交易平台上出现了高价购买行为，有的甚至直接跳过预购队列以迅速获取相机。由于供不应求，富士胶片的部分经销商不得不在广告中标明售出的产品是“已实际收到的”真货。
尽管X100系列目前仍在摄影商店的货架上难觅踪影，但竞争者也从中分到了一部分市场红利。与富士类似价位且具有相同复古风格设计的相似相机，如佳能和尼康产品，也同样售罄。甚至一些老式的便携式胶片相机——比如Contax T2等——在二手市场上售价翻了一倍。
这股风潮也让资深摄影师们感到有趣，“过去，大型可互换镜头的相机被视作专业级别的设备，而小型便携相机则被认为是入门级摄影体验。”多伦多Downtown Camera店老板哈里·麦解释道。而现在，消费者可以以相对低廉的价格购买到完整的摄影套件和多个镜头；然而，几乎所有的小型便携式相机如今都难觅踪影。
“阅读更多：……”
新闻来源：www.bloomberg.com
原文地址：Fujifilm’s X100V, the Viral TikTok Camera, Is Still Hard to Buy
新闻日期：2024-09-25
原文摘要：
In September 2022 the photographer and TikTok influencer Kylie Katich posted a video showing off her Fujifilm X100V. “,” she told her hundreds of thousands of followers at the time as photos of her infant flashed by.With their warm, yellowish glow, the images looked like they could have been pulled out of a photo album from a generation ago. The camera itself, with its jacket pocket-size aluminum body, had distinctly vintage features and came programmed with simulations that mimic the look of photographic film without any editing. “It looks like a film camera. It has settings like a film camera,” Katich said in the video, holding up the $1,400 point-and-shoot. “It’s digital.” Within a day her post had racked up dozens of comments. “Consider me influenced I am def getting,” one person replied. “This is the coolest thing ever,” said another. The endorsement, and , reverberated through TikTok’s subcommunities. Auto enthusiasts brought their X100Vs to sports car meetups. Musicians took theirs around the world to document the touring lifestyle. Tech geeks, travel junkies and fashion influencers all wanted an X100V, and once they got one, they let their own followers know. The effect on the company’s inventory—already strained by a —was drastic. By November 2022, Fujifilm online orders for the camera, citing its inability to keep up with demand. Buyers turned to resale platforms such as , where X100Vs were selling for twice their retail value.Two years later, TikTok’s obsession hasn’t slowed, and the manufacturer is still reaping the benefits. Fujifilm’s brought in ¥469.7 billion ($3.3 billion) for the fiscal year that ended in March, a 14.5% year-over-year increase, and was the company’s most profitable division for the first time since at least 2006, when Bloomberg started tracking earnings by segment. Those sales were driven in part by the X100V’s successor: Sporting an upgraded sensor and other new features, the X100VI sold out almost immediately upon its release in February. .The company is embracing the camera’s coveted status: In a , Chief Executive Officer said the X100VI inventory situation was “normal” and compared the product’s resale value to that of a prestigious competitor. “, a well‐known German manufacturer, still maintains a very high value for both their old cameras and the cameras they sell now, and this is our goal,” Goto said on the call., which declined requests for interviews, said in a statement that it’s accelerating production to meet demand. “Our goal is that every customer who ordered an X100VI gets it,” the company said.The success of the X100 series represents a remarkable turnaround for Fujifilm’s imaging business, which just 15 years ago was losing hundreds of millions of dollars annually. With the decline of analog photography in the early 2000s, the company—once a leading maker of photographic films—initially struggled to compete in the digital space. The increasing popularity of smartphones further destabilized the Japanese company: With a digital camera in every consumer’s back pocket or purse, how would it distinguish itself?The answer was the original X100, which Fujifilm introduced in 2011. The camera’s portability set it apart from ’s and ’s hulking professional DSLRs, and its film simulations preserved the for which Fujifilm had once been famous, without the trips to the . For years the cameras sold at a healthy clip, building a fandom among photography enthusiasts. Many retailers were already sold out of the X100V before the product went viral. Harry Mac, co-owner of in Toronto, says his younger customers wanted to re-create the look of old family photo albums. “Everyone has one of these things,” says Mac, referring to smartphones, but the photos they produce are “clinical” and “soulless.” The X100 series allowed users to indulge that sense of nostalgia.Then came videos like Katich’s, turning the X100V into a juggernaut for Fujifilm and creating knock-on effects for other photography businesses. In 2017 an unaffiliated website called began posting “recipes”—combinations of fine-tuned settings designed to replicate specific film stocks even more closely than the camera’s default configuration—that X100 owners could follow. Ritchie Roesch, who runs Fuji X Weekly, says he quit his day job weeks after the X100V went viral and now supports his family on premium subscriptions and ad revenue from the website. Anticipating unprecedented demand for the X100VI, Fujifilm moved manufacturing from Japan to China before the launch, allowing it to pump out 15,000 cameras a month—double the rate of the previous model, according to the company. That wasn’t enough to satisfy the appetite for the new model, which costs $200 more than its predecessor. Scalpers scooped up as many as they could and dumped them on eBay at hefty premiums. Customers even in Fujifilm’s preorder queue—to the point where resellers who’d received the physical product clarified in their ads that the camera they were selling was “.”With the Fujifilm X100 series still absent from the shelves of photography stores, competitors are enjoying their own slice of the hype. Similar cameras from and Canon are largely sold out. Even some older point-and-shoot film cameras—such as the Contax T2, which —are selling for about $1,000 secondhand.The situation amuses longtime photography professionals like Mac of Downtown Camera. Once upon a time, bulky cameras with interchangeable lenses were sought-after because they felt like professional tools, while point-and-shoots were a cheap entry point into the hobby, he says. Now customers can buy a full photography kit with multiple lenses for relatively little money, while “all the point-and-shoots in general are hard to find.”Read more:
