FujiFilm to Announce the X-T30 III in October?

There haven't been many rumors about the X-T30 III camera, but the latest rumor suggests that it will be released in October, marking the 4th anniversary of the X-T30 II's announcement.

With little in the way of rumor data, we can only guess, really, what the Mark III version will contain. The Mark II version was released during the COVID recovery period, when supply chains were disrupted.

For the moment, let's assume that Fujifilm considers the Mark II and Mark III nomenclature to signify a minor upgrade versus a significant upgrade, which would then have the camera called the X-T40. If we use Fuji's last X-T30 II as an example, the changes may be still very minimal.

The X-T30 II featured a higher-resolution LCD and more internal memory, which enabled more film simulations and faster autofocus than the original X-T30.

Fujifilm X-T30 III

• 26.1MP APS-C X-Trans BSI CMOS 4 Sensor
• X-Processor 4 with Quad CPU
• DCI and UHD 4K30 Video; F-Log Gamma
• 2.36m-Dot OLED Electronic Viewfinder
• 3.0″ 1.04m-Dot Tilting LCD Touchscreen
• 425-Point Phase-Detection Autofocus
• Extended ISO 80-51200, 30 fps Shooting
• Bluetooth and Wi-Fi; Sports Finder Mode

So, if I had to guess, the sensor will remain the same, perhaps with a processor upgrade to X-Processor 5, and slightly better video frame rates, as having 4K30p in 2025 seems a bit low. I would expect the camera to look the same and possibly share the same chassis as prior models, which would be a cost-saving measure.

Since there were so few incremental changes, it was actually challenging to find a review of the Mark II, as even dpreview ignored the camera. However, Photographyblog did a review and essentially reiterated the same points we've been making today.

The new X-T30 II is an incredibly incremental upgrade of the two-year-old X-T30, offering so few new features that fans of the series have asked why most of them couldn't be rolled-out to the X-T30 via the company's much vaunted series of Kaizen firmware upgrades, which literally means “change good” in Japanese.

With the only physical change being an improved, higher-resolution LCD screen, we're inclined to agree, but Fujifilm have assured us that it wasn't technically possible to add the handful of improvements that it has made to the new X-T30 II to the previous model.

Overall, the XT30 II is, for whatever reasons, a very minor revision of an already excellent camera that continues to hold its own in 2021 thanks to being ahead of its time back in 2019.

https://www.photographyblog.com/reviews/fujifilm_x_t30_ii_review

That being said, Fuji has created a nice camera series, and perhaps all it really needs are incremental tweaks, especially for a camera that sits in the sub-$1000 camera bracket. There are limits to what the manufacturers can actually do that still make sense.

We should find out soon enough, as October is right around the corner.

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