Last week I was in Stillwater, Oklahoma to ride the Landrun 100 gravel road race & ride, pics can be found here. While there I got to see one of my closest friends’ businesses, JB Camera Designs. JB Camera Designs makes hand crafted wood camera grips and accessories that are aimed to improve ergonomics and add protection to cameras. They are hand crafted right here in the good ol’ USA out of beautiful hard wood, bambo, plastic and/or machined alloy. On top of that, all three employees are photographers and the two primary craftsmen are also engineering students. What a cool college job.
While I was there, JB and crew (Ean and Eli) were putting the finishing touches on their new grip for the Fuji X Pro 2. In fact, the grip being produced in the photographs below is now mounted to my very own Fuji X Pro 2. I shot all these images with the X Pro 2 with either the 16mm f1.4 or 35mm f2 in RAW + JPEG with the JPEG setting to Acros with medium grain. I thought it fit the handcrafted nature of the grips. All these images shared are from JPEG as I have not processed any RAW files yet from the X Pro 2 but I find the JPEGS more than pleasing so it hasn’t been a big deal for me.
Below are some shots from my time at JB Camera Designs while they were making there new Fuji X Pro 2 grip, recently launched and available for pre order at Amazon. I grouped the images into some of the steps. These grips are a labor of love. All the details of the how and what happens at each step are not really mine to share so I’ll just share pics. I can tell you that the grips I am using on my Leica M and my Fuji X Pro 2 are really beautiful, fit perfectly and in my opinion have improved the overall shooting experience. I especially like the new grip with my larger Fuji lenses and especially with the 90 f2. It has really helped me improve my grip to stabalize my shooting with this longer and heavier prime.
A couple of notes before moving to pictures.
- Click on any picture in the tiles to make larger or move to slide show.
- My friend JB did give me this grip. I just want to be up front and honest here. He’s a close friend and this was a gift. I am thankful. I make no money from this nor any affiliated link. I just enjoyed the experience and wanted to support my good friend. I like the pics too!
So with that out of the way, let’s get to pics of the new Fuji X Pro 2 grip.
Wood selection and initial preparation
Cutting, shaping, smoothing, sanding and prepping
Branding, finishing and adding alloy barrel grip
The finished product! I love it.
I wish I had a studio to shoot images of the final product installed on my X Pro 2 but I don’t. But…Here is a shot taken with my little Fuji X70 for you to get an idea of what it looks like on the camera. I took this on the way home from Oklahoma. I had 12 hours of driving that day and needed a nice espresso! I snapped a few pics and then hit the road. Sorry for the poor picture quality on this one, but it’s all I’ve got.
Thanks again JB. Great seeing you and meeting your crew!
ImagineGnat 
Because of seeing this beautifully detailed article, I just purchased one for my Xpro2. Perfect timing- I was just getting ready to check out with a camera supply website with fuji’s generic version before I thought to look around.
Thanks so much!
Thank you Bill. I am certain you will enjoy it. I shot mine today with the 23 and 90. Makes the camera very solid feeling in hand. Enjoy.
Will they be designing a grip for the X70? The leather case by Fuji doesn’t appear to add much grip at all.
Rudy thanks for the comment. When I was there he was testing prototypes for the x70. The issue is the placement of the tripod hole/threads. The placement on the x70 requires a unique bolt and a bit less elegant solution. I will follow up with him today and recomment with an update. Thanks again.