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Hi from Québec

rlx

New Member
I live close to Montréal. I do Photography as an amateur mostly to document interesting views, persons or things I come across. I just recently started to carry a tripod with me. I am a generally impulsive photographer: my eye sees something and I want to record it right away the best I can.

I ended up with a Fuji XE1 with the kit lens, hoping for a lively camera with an EVF. I then got an adapter for my old Zuiko 50mm 1:1.4. I then added some inexpensive legacy lenses to learn about the many focal lengths. I liked the 27mm, the 50, the 90, the 135 and the 200 (all quite inexpensive). Except for the Zuiko 27mm which I found quite weak on the borders at all apertures, I still have them all. I ended up with more Fuji glass. The FX27mm took the place of the Zuiko 27mm, the FX60 has a softer bokeh wide open than the Zuiko 50 mm (onion ring) althought the resolution of the Zuiko 50mm appears to match the FX 50mm in the details (almost). Finally I got the 90 mm for portraits and group pictures and I love it.

It turns out that I am quite happy with my lenses.

The story is different with the XE1 body which I find to be perfect for anything slow like portraits, landscape and tripod use, but is so slow at everything that it doesn't match my intuitive style of taking pictures. I didn't upgrade yet since I didn't get a chance yet to test the third generation cameras.

Anyway I often carry a pocket Panasonic superzoom when I go out for a walk and I find that I also get nice pictures that way, maybe not as technically perfect as the Fuji pictures but often looking very nice at normal viewing distances (the raw's are quite poor though).

My best way to view pictures is with my Samsung Note4. I am near-sighted and the pictures look like they fill the whole wall in from of me. I edit using a 27" monitor that also shows nice colors.

I guess that's it. Nice meeting everyone here.
 
Hi rlx,

thank you for your introduction! :z04_whip2_1:

The story is different with the XE1 body which I find to be perfect for anything slow like portraits, landscape and tripod use, but is so slow at everything that it doesn't match my intuitive style of taking pictures. I didn't upgrade yet since I didn't get a chance yet to test the third generation cameras.

Regarding AF, a lot changed with the newest generation XT2/XPro2/XT20 and very likely also for the recently announced X-E3. Only the Fuji X100F lags behind. It is faster in AF than the X100T, but not as fast as i.e. a X-Pro2.

I really hope that a Fuji X100"X" will come in 2018. Finally with a newly designed 23/2.0 lens and with an AF at least on par with the X-T2.
 
Right, AF is not always fast. However my comment refers mostly to the manual focus mode. There is the shutter lag that is inconsistent on full press on the shutter. There is the locking of magnification while the camera is writing a file even if there is only one picture in the buffer. And the camera boot is a couple of seconds too slow. Basically the OS of the camera is totally dedicated to AF mode and MF mode appears to be some kind or retrofit (a set of software patches if you will). In my view that's basically a software architecture problem. I am not sure this limitation comes from Fuji since Fuji gets drivers and libraries when they get the sensor from Sony. It seems to me not many people really use manual focus mode otherwise there would be more complains on the forums. AF mode is generally much better integrated except that liveliness is then limited by the AF capabilities. It's obviously a different ball game to focus an APSC sensor compared to the tiny lower res P&S sensors of the prior generation. I used a Fuji F20 P&S for years and that camera is very fast, I didn't expect the XE1 to be such a step back in liveliness.

Thanks for your welcome and nice to meet you dirk.
 
Hi rlx,

I will try that out with my X-Pro1 this weekend as soon as I have the time. I am curious whether I will have the same problem in manual mode like you with your X-E1. When I had my X-E1 a few years ago, I never used it for manual focus...
 
I use MF mode with manual lenses obviously and with a 200mm I will need to 'track' my subject if he moves even slowly. This leads to two problems. First if using magnification to fine tune the focus the shutter lag may go up up to 500 ms (full press with display mag on). Second just after taking the first shot (raw mode), I wish to quickly get back to magnified display to continue focus/tracking my subject (a slowly moving bird say) but the XE1 is not going to show the magnified display until after the buffered image has been flushed to the SD card. My workaround is to shoot jpg so the delay stays short. If using a Fuji lens, the focus ring remains locked until after the buffer is flushed. The shutter lag in manual mode on the XE1 is 250 ms if using a manual lens (compared to 70 ms from the half pressed position). This compares to figures like 50ms for a 1970 Olympus OM1 that needs to park a mirror and move the iris to the shooting aperture during that 50ms interval. It's not just a small inconvenience, it's a game changer for someone used to anticipate and factor in the shutter lag when shooting in a dynamic settings. 200ms is quite long.

Fuji has come up with the MF-AF mode to address that problem when using the AF mode. That fix does not work with manual lenses and it somewhat shunts the MF mode when using Fuji lenses. That means that exposure is fixed at the time the shutter is half pressed.

I have measured the shutter lags at the time using a computer microphone so those are not just 'feelings'.

I am just clarifying here. I have been using the XE1 for over 5 years now and I live with those issues. I have not much enthusiasm left for the newer models though and I won't be until I hear that Fuji has improved its software architecture.
 
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