Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Fujifilm Klasse S

Fujifilm · Fixed lens · 24×36mm on 35mm film · 2007

Also known as: Fujifilm Klasse S · Fuji Klasse S · フジフイルム KLASSE S

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Klasse S 35mm compact 2007–2012 — No figure published
  1. Not a Klasse with a new shutter. The 2001 Klasse and the 2007 Klasse S share a lens design — four elements in three groups — but Fuji slowed it from f/2.6 to f/2.8 to suit a new leaf shutter, changed the body, and sold it as a distinct product with its own name and its own six-year run.
  2. Why the Klasse W is NOT a variant here. Same body, same controls, same year — but a different lens design entirely, six elements at 28mm against four at 38mm. This catalog splits on optics, as it did for the Nikon 35Ti and 28Ti.
  3. Discontinued in 2012, which makes the S and the W among the very last 35mm film compacts anyone put into production. No figure has been published for either.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Four elements in three groups, the Tessar arrangement carried over from the 2001 Klasse at a slower aperture
  • Manual pre-focus to defeat shutter lag, exposure compensation, and an AF lock — the feature set that made the pair 'the most feature-packed point-and-shoots available' in the reviewers' phrase
  • Discontinued 2012: among the last new-production 35mm compacts of any kind

Klasse S:

  • Super-EBC Fujinon 38mm 1:2.8 — the original Klasse's Tessar slowed a third of a stop
  • KLASSE S on the body; the same shell and controls as the 28mm Klasse W, so the lens ring is the identification
  • The harder of the two 2007 cameras to find, even in Japan — the W's wide lens took the demand

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film
Shutter
electronic leaf shutter, programmed · in third-stop steps to 1/500 s, with 1/1000 s reached at f/16 — the range reported for the W and shared with the S, which has the same shutter
Meter
Programmed exposure with compensation; the maker's specification of the cell was not found. Reviewers call the metering the camera's strongest single quality.
Country
Japan

What reviewers say

History

In 2007 Fuji did something no other maker did that late: it launched two new premium 35mm compacts. The Klasse S is the conservative half of the pair. It keeps the four-element Tessar-type lens of the 2001 Klasse, slowed from f/2.6 to f/2.8 to suit a new leaf shutter, in a new body shared to the last control with its sibling the Klasse W — which carries a six-element 28mm instead. Same shell, same menus, same metering; only the lens differs, and the lens is the whole reason to pick one over the other.

The feature set is what the reviewers dwell on. A manual pre-focus setting to kill the shutter lag that plagues autofocus compacts, exposure compensation, an AF lock, third-stop shutter steps — Casual Photophile’s phrase for the pair is “the most feature-packed point-and-shoot cameras available,” and the metering is called stellar. The complaint, on the same page, is build: a body that scratches easily and, at the price, is “simply not up to par” against titanium rivals. That verdict is written of the W and applies to the S, because it is the same body.

The S is now the harder of the two to find, even in Japan. The market went to the 28mm, and the S sat in shops until Fuji ended both in 2012 — which makes them, by the reviewers’ reckoning and this catalog’s, among the very last new-production 35mm compacts of any kind. No figure for either has been published.

It has its own page rather than a row under the Klasse for the reason the catalog applies to every body: Fuji offered it as a distinct product, six years later, with a new shutter and a new name. And the W is not a variant of the S for the reason the catalog applies to every lens — six elements at 28mm is a different optical design from four at 38mm, exactly as the Nikon 28Ti is from the 35Ti.

Expand Collapse

This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Example photos

Sample photo taken with the Fujifilm Klasse S
Akihabara at night — shot on a Fujifilm Klasse S (Ryo Fukasawa) — Ryo FUKAsawa, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Fujifilm Klasse S? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $2,000 across 4 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-06 (middle half $1,900–$2,500). First day tracked.

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

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Listings updated 2026-09-05. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Fujifilm Klasse · Fujifilm Klasse W · Contax T3

Sources (4)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this camera, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.