Are X100's still rare?

[Avotius]

Wow,

I was at Glazers last Tuesday and they have a demo but say they sell them as fast as they come in and didn't have one in stock. The guy even said the rental unit is in such high demand he hasn't had a chance to use it. Just as well, I have had second thoughts since all of the blade sticking issues.

Really? The heck? I saw the demo but the guy showed me they had one in stock and that it had been there for months.

 

[randomm]

Here in Finland they are pretty abundant. We never really had a supply problem here, and many enthusiasts jumped at the opportunity of getting one of them as soon as they became available in April-May. There are many on the used market here. The lowest price I've seen was 700 euros. On the local photography forum there is also a long thread of discussion regarding why so many people are getting rid of theirs.

I've had one on loan for a week now and personally at least I know why I won't be getting one, although the VF is darned nice 🙂

 

[Adanac]

I'm not sure why your confidence has been shaken... unless it keeps breaking down.

Indeed, in most areas of the world the Fujifilm service has been exemplary. Mine was shipped to them on a Monday from Vancouver and returned to me by Friday the same week from the Toronto area. The only negative stories I've heard so far were in the UK and Australia. In the case of the latter, the Aussies didn't appear to be geared up properly with spares and its likely that has been rectified by now. In the UK they have this curious situation where the UK office offers only a one year warranty period even as most if not all others offer two year. There have been reports of users being told that this particular sticky lens issue will be addressed as a warranty repair no matter when it happens, but I'd like to see that in writing before I'd feel truly comfortable.

My biggest concern with this particular issue revolves around repeat occurrences. There have not been many, but there have been a few reports of previously repaired cameras succumbing to the same sticky aperture failure -- two that I'm certain of, possibly a third.

Hopefully these few are anomalies that have everything to do with poor spares stock control or some other mundane explanation rather than a fundamental design flaw being the root of the problem. We'll only know with the passage of more time if my concern is borne out.

As more and more of these failures occur, the buzz on-line has taken a decidedly different turn. When I bought mine there were no clearly evident concerns, just lots of pleased users. Now I suspect it is hard to peruse forums when doing research without running into plenty of evidence of the sticky aperture issue.

 

[jsrockit]

That's cool with me... I'll keep using this wonderful camera while the rest of you guys are scared off... 😉

 

[Archiver]

They seem to be around in Australia: I've seen at least two big-name camera shops with them, and a few online shops list them as in stock. Street price seems to be about AUD$1199 which seems very decent compared with American and European prices.

 

[Frontman]

Good question, though, why so many already on the used market? I thought that this was/is a great camera.

Here in Tokyo many M8 and M9s showed up on the used market soon after these cameras were released, so this phenomena is not unique to the X100. Some people didn't like them, but a good percentage of these were impulse sales returns, meaning that the dameras were fine, but that the buyers decided after purchase that they couldn't afford them, and so brought them back.