Fuji X-T1 Light Leak and Fix

that almost was a nice shot. but yeah.. i found that on dpr the other day. i got bored reading through everyone arguing with each other and tried to skip to pictures. another guy showed one of a pic he took of his house at night (handheld, he said) with a similar leak.

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Called Fujifilm USA this morning. They are stating that Fuji Japan has not issued a response or a fix for the issue (although they are expecting it anyday). If you ship your camera in for repair it will sit until the official fix has been issued to the repair center.

Called B&H Photo (bought it from them) and they issued an RMA and pre-paid shipper via UPS and will exchange the camera due to it being defective. This is why I always buy from B&H.
 
"It’s official! Fuji Japan announced the fix and free repair service. The affected X-T1 include the following serial numbers: from the 41002001 to 41006000."

i wonder if that particular string type belongs to a particular region (ie: japan). my serial string has a letter character for the third digit. but anyway, it doesn't look like i'm affected, as tested before.


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For UK readers:

Just spoken to a charming gentleman at Fujifilm Service in the UK (0844 5532323)

My serial is slap-bang in the middle of the affected range (third character is an M rather than a zero).

The process is that they take your details and send out a reply-paid box for you to send your camera in. Turnaround will be as quick as possible, but about a week and a half was mentioned - I won't hold them to that because it is obviously volume-related.
 
"If you have purchased an X-T1 camera from an authorized Fujifilm dealer in the United States, have a serial number on your X-T1 which is lower than 41A05201, and would like your camera checked, please contact the Fujifilm Repair Center at (800) 659-3854 (x3461) to make arrangements to have your camera sent in for evaluation. Our technical staff will inspect your camera and, if necessary, make the necessary adjustments to the camera to prevent the ingress of light in the described conditions. This service will be carried out free of charge."

mine is barely past it. whew!


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"If you have purchased an X-T1 camera from an authorized Fujifilm dealer in the United States, have a serial number on your X-T1 which is lower than 41A05201, and would like your camera checked, please contact the Fujifilm Repair Center at (800) 659-3854 (x3461) to make arrangements to have your camera sent in for evaluation. Our technical staff will inspect your camera and, if necessary, make the necessary adjustments to the camera to prevent the ingress of light in the described conditions. This service will be carried out free of charge."

mine is barely past it. whew!

Obviously, Fujifilm Tokyo internally issued a range of serial numbers with affected cameras for all 7 markets. According to my research, they did so twice, on 6MAR and again on 14MAR with updated ranges. So Fuji's own investigation is apparently still ongoing, as they are trying to get ahead of the issue and fix it asap. Even the 14MAR memo states that those numbers are still estimates. It seems like Fuji USA chose to ignore this tiny but important part. An initial service bulletin with a description of the issue and repair instructions was issued to all service centers in February, and Fuji will ship replacement parts on Monday. It's important to remember that this isn't just about cameras that have already been sold but also about cameras that are still sitting in warehouses and global distribution channels. Fuji needs to assess which of those cameras may be affected and how to deal with them, such as replacing affected merchandise with newer batches of cameras w/o creating a supply bottleneck. After all, the X-T1 has been really quite successful so far.

The light leak (now called "flare effect") may be a minor issue that only affects very few users, but I'm glad to see that Fuji wants to fix every single camera that is affected, no matter what. This is not only going to be very expensive, it's also going to put a lot of stress on Fuji's service centers who will receive thousands of cameras in a very short period. My recommendation here is not to rush into having your affected camera fixed if you don't have to. Take your time.
 
Does the light leak point to problems with the weather sealing as well?

I don't think that one necessarily points to the other. Certainly a light leak could also let in environmental contaminants, but light can also get through things that are weather tight (imagine if all the seals were transparent or semi-transparent for example)
 
i'm wondering if this is true:
7uzynejy.jpg


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My X-T1 returned today w/o the light leak and with new command dials.

Wow! So are the new dials improved/more clicky and positive feeling?

Fuji really knocks it out of the park in customer service to replace your dials too as a bonus fix. I was fairly close to dropping out of Fuji X system due to overlap with my other camera gear, but the customer focus Fuji displays through stuff like this and their regular firmware updates is one of the biggest reasons I stayed in :)
 
No, they are the same as the old ones. They just don't (supposedly) break, anymore, due to a different material of the silicone seal that doesn't chemically interact with the command dial pins and doesn't weaken/dissolve them over time. So Fuji is also replacing the command dials when dealing with light leaks. Helps them avoid future repair cases.
 
Ahh gotcha, I didn't hear that there was an issue with the buttons but that's good to know also.

I think there were a few threads in some forums, it basically affects cameras and vertical battery grips. Fuji got a bit unlucky with supplies who changed specs w/o giving notice. Well, that's the price of outsourcing parts production to China. You get what you pay for. Obviously, production has been changed once the problem was identified.
 
I think there were a few threads in some forums, it basically affects cameras and vertical battery grips. Fuji got a bit unlucky with supplies who changed specs w/o giving notice. Well, that's the price of outsourcing parts production to China. You get what you pay for. Obviously, production has been changed once the problem was identified.

Bummer. Is there a service advisory for that as well? And/or a way to tell if your specific unit is affected?

Would it be advisable to simply send in the grip with the camera if you have both and need to get the light leak/control pad issues fixed?
 
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