TOKYO — Like many professional photographers, Irwin Wong, who shoots pictures for Japanese magazines, relies on digital single-lens reflex cameras for the bulk of his work — “bulk” being the operative word.

“It’s a beastly camera to carry around,” Mr. Wong said of his Nikon D800, which weighs 2.2 pounds, and a whole lot more when used in combination with a selection of interchangeable lenses. “You can’t replace a DSLR for work. But it’s just not that much fun.”

To lighten his load, and to inject a bit of levity into his photography, Mr. Wong this year bought a new camera, the Fujifilm X-E1, to supplement his Nikon. He liked that one so much that he added another Fujifilm model, the X100S.

He is not the only member of the unofficial Fujifilm fan club. Over the last decade, as rival Eastman Kodak was descending toward bankruptcy — it recently emerged from Chapter 11 proceedings — Fujifilm was transforming itself from a maker of 35-millimeter film into a provider of digital imaging technologies.