Does the A12 28mm have a built in ND filter?

[ginger]

I hope this doesn't come across as a silly question. The reason I'm asking is that Fujifilm's upcoming X100 camera has built in Neutral Density (ND) filter. I reckon ND filter should help improve shooting experience especially in extremely bright environments? Here are the details:

http://www.finepix-x100.com/story/lens-2

Do we A12 28mm owners have the same thing? I couldn't find it on the user manual or website. Thanks for the help!

 

[joelypolly]

Pretty sure it does. The 50mm A12 has one.

 

[odklizec]

The problem is that the Ricoh implementation of ND filter is practically useless. The ND filter is applied only in automatic modes and only with the highest available aperture numbers. In other words, there is no way to enable it from menu.

I guess it's because the integrated ND filter is too small to cover the entire image circle at lowest (wide open) aperture? And this is most probably the main reason why we cannot enable the ND filter from menu.

 

[R84]

What? The whole point of having a ND filter in the first place is so we can use a wide aperture in brightly lit places, especially with the 1/1000 limitation Wonder if its possible to fix this in a firmware update?

 

[ginger]

Thanks Pavel!

Hmm, seems like we have to use external ND filters? I do hope a future firmware can allow more flexible use of the in-built ND filter. Someone drop a line to Ricoh!

Cheers!

 

[odklizec]

I would not give much hope in the future FWs. If the ND filter is too small to cover the image circle at widest apertures, there is not much new FW can do with this. And the actual usage of ND filter only with highest aperture suggests exactly that.