[Interview] Why Did Fujifilm Enable Touch Panel to Release Shutter? (2)

Jul 21, 2009 15:03 Tomohiro Ootsuki, Nikkei Electronics

Continued from [Interview] Why Did Fujifilm Enable Touch Panel to Release Shutter? (1)

You can promote the camera as "the world's first camera that can release a shutter with a touch panel." But I assume that it was not easy to have the plan endorsed because some consumers feel discomfort when they do not press a round shutter button.

If it had not been a product in the Z series, neither our company nor retailers might have accepted the new shutter function. In fact, retailers embraced the function more frankly and warmly than we expected.

But the new shutter function is effective only in the "touch shooting mode." In other modes, the shutter button has to be pressed as usual. And most of the users do not switch from the normal "auto mode."

You got a point. It might be a good idea to enable the touch shooting in the other modes, too, in the future, considering the market's reaction.

When I actually used the touch panel to release the shutter, I could very smoothly take a picture and did not feel that camera shake increased. Why is that?

It is because the shutter is released about one second after the user touches the panel. If the shutter were quickly released, it would cause camera shake. However, it is difficult to take a picture of a moving object with this method, and we have to address this issue for the future.

What's the type of the touch panel?

It is a resistive touch panel. We considered using a capacitive touch panel but dropped the idea because it often did not respond when pressed with a dry finger.

With the Z300, it is not possible to zoom a picture by using two fingers like the iPhone. I heard it is difficult because of intellectual property rights.

Multi-point detection is another research issue.

Nevertheless, I felt that screen transition and its animation are excellent. For example, it is possible to change pictures shown on the screen not only by laterally sliding the finger but also by touching the arrow buttons on either side of the screen.

Our design team realized it with much efforts so that the function can be used without explanation. Other touch panel-equipped cameras are focused only on practicality like automatic ticket machines. And I believe that we successfully differentiated the Z300 from those cameras. We used Access Co Ltd's Flash-based software for the screen display.

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