With CP+ canceled and international travel off the agenda for the time being, DPReview interviewed via phone Toshihisa Iida, General Manager of Fujifilm’s Optical Device and Electronic Imaging Products Division to get his take on the ongoing situation worldwide.

Here are some of the most interesting news:

As Fujifilm will be after this crisis: “Fujifilm is very diversified. Our medical and healthcare business is the biggest part of our company. The drug Avigan [currently being investigated for use in treating COVID-19] was developed by Fujifilm’s pharmaceutical division. This current moment is certainly difficult for the imaging part of our business, but I think we are in a good position to weather the present situation.
Of course, it’s important when talking about business not to forget about people’s health and safety. We may not be able to predict when this crisis will be over, or when things will return to normal. But eventually, we will get through this together, and hopefully, demand for our products will come back strong.
For now, our R&D plan is unchanged. We’ll launch the X-T4 at the end of April and move on to the next project. We’ll keep on focusing on making better projects, and developing better technology.”

About the cancelation of the Olympic Games: “It will have a huge impact on the entire Japanese economy. Many people were invested in the games happening this year, so it is a big loss. On the imaging side, obviously the broadcasting and TV coverage is all canceled, and that has impacted our broadcasting business. Broadcasting lenses are one of our key products, and we’ve seen a lot of orders being postponed or canceled.”

X-T4’s IBIS compared to the X-H1’s one: “The IBIS unit is completely redesigned. New parts, fewer parts, and it’s more powerful. The components and structure are completely different. In terms of size, it’s about 30% smaller, and 20% lighter than the mechanism in the X-H1.
Experience with the X-H1 and the GFX100 helped our R&D team. Without the X-H1 we couldn’t have made the new IBIS unit in the X-T4, and it’s the same with the GFX100. Without that experience and knowledge, we couldn’t have developed it.”

About the X-H line: “We’ll keep the X-H line, alongside the X-T series. I can’t share our precise plans, but we will continue to develop that line in the future, and we will introduce innovations into that series.”

About the growth of a third-party video accessory ecosystem: “Our customers need compatibility with third-party accessories, like gimbals, drones, things like that. We’ve opened pretty much all of our specifications to third-party manufacturers.”

Refresh the first generation of XF lenses: “We are fully aware of the need to refresh our older lenses. At the moment our roadmap does not contain any ‘Mark II’ products but we will be working on new versions of many of our ‘key’ lenses. In some cases, we may need a new optical design, or maybe just a mechanical redesign.”

You can read the full interview on DPReview’s website.