Anyone else sending an X-Pro1 back?

[david.elliott]

Ok... here is the dirt from my discussion with one of the techs at Fuji.

1. If you have a problem you can't resolve, take the battery out of the camera for 4-6 hours. They said this is likely to do some kind of deep reset. I actually did this by accident the other night and wondered why all the things I set did not "take."

....

Dante

Thanks for the info. I'm not too keen on item number one in the list. I always remove the batteries from my cameras if I'm not going to use them over a weekend or a few days. Guess I need to break that habit unless I want everything reset. Good to know at any rate.

 

[pkreyenhop]

Depends a lot on the temperature: I took the X100 on top of an extinct vulcano where it was quite frosty. I got 20 shots in a row and then one shot per 5 minutes of the battery warmed up in my pockets.

That's interesting - I seem to be able to get well over 300 exposures out of my x100... probably over 500 if I pushed it. In fact I've never had the battery run out. But I use OVF all the time, no LCD, and don't chimp very much at all. What are you doing that's using so much battery?

 

[Dante_Stella]

Not sure. OVF, auto-review for 1.5 sec, occasional exposure bracketing and motion panoramas (the bracketing goes into that total). Even counting the typical number of shots in a pano, it's still well under 200. The bracketing and panos shouldn't work any disproportionate load on Li-Ion batteries - but I got the same thing with the Fuji battery, a Targus, and a Delkin. Could also be that this camera is in some undocumented "high-power" mode where all current feeds the AF system to make focusing amazingly fast.

If you really want to see 90 shots per card, stick an Eye-Fi X2 card in there and transmit into your phone in direct mode. Ouch!

Dante

That's interesting - I seem to be able to get well over 300 exposures out of my x100... probably over 500 if I pushed it. In fact I've never had the battery run out. But I use OVF all the time, no LCD, and don't chimp very much at all. What are you doing that's using so much battery?

 

[gavinlg]

Not sure. OVF, auto-review for 1.5 sec, occasional exposure bracketing and motion panoramas (the bracketing goes into that total). Even counting the typical number of shots in a pano, it's still well under 200. The bracketing and panos shouldn't work any disproportionate load on Li-Ion batteries - but I got the same thing with the Fuji battery, a Targus, and a Delkin. Could also be that this camera is in some undocumented "high-power" mode where all current feeds the AF system to make focusing amazingly fast.

If you really want to see 90 shots per card, stick an Eye-Fi X2 card in there and transmit into your phone in direct mode. Ouch!

Dante

I imagine that the auto review in the OVF would be the culprit. I bet it takes a bit of power to slide the shutter across the eyepiece and get the evf running, slide the shutter back, and re-start the frame line overlays for each shot. Another interesting thing to note about the auto-review (if you didn't already know this) is that leaving it on will cause banding in high iso pictures - above iso1600. It's fairly slight, but it is there. When you turn it off, the banding is reduced a fair bit. It's speculated that the auto review causes some sort of radio interference with the sensor/processing and thus the banding.

 

[Spyro]

Ok... here is the dirt from my discussion with one of the techs at Fuji....

thx for that

 

[splitimageview]

its a run-of-the-mill APS-camera after all

And the M9 is a run o' the mill full frame DRF.

 

[Shade]

It has its drawbacks, and while I agree to some, if not all, your statements, I intend to keep the camera as my second body, as I think it's nice to have a great quality output camera that autofocuses when you need one.

 

[furcafe]

We may be losing @ life, but @ least, for now, we don't have to listen to the stupid aperture chatter.

This is like rule no.1 of the fuji X ownership club - turn quick start ON and turn power save OFF. If anyone is using their x100 or x-pro with power save on, you're losing at life. AF is much quicker with it disabled. It says this in the manual too.

 

[kievman]

I gave up on this camera when I heard that it's viewfinder was considerably different than the X100 and it did not have a rangefinder like the X100 I bought a Refurbished Nikon D5000 body for a lot less money instead. The Nikon has much better AF all around and especially in low light the body on the D5000 is very small and compact and very unobtrusive unlike the bigger Nikon D700 D300 and D800, And best of all- the D5000 is very quiet with the shutter release set in quiet mode. As far as blowing money on digital cameras go it was the best 369.95 I have spent so far on digital (crap) cameras - Kievman

 

[Lss]

Now, with that said let me advise of the following:
A) using the EVF to focus (because the OVF framelines do not give a good indication of proper framing - I guess that's a "strike" against the X-Pro1 for those keeping count) you can "zoom" in to get a better visual confirmation of focus. I have done this with "longer" m lenses on the X-Pro1 - I've used my 90mm with no issues and it really takes me about the same amount of time as focusing with my M7s - think of this as having a viewfinder magnifier lens (you know those 1.25x lenses you can screw onto an M-mount viewfinder).

Is the magnified part overlayed on non-magnified view that gives the framing or is it full frame only? Cameras like Sony NEX do the latter, which makes magnified mode useful mostly for static subjects. Which in turn makes (in particular longer) manual focus lenses useful mostly for static subjects.

What could actually be useful is an overlayed EVF patch with magnification in the OVF mode. It is easy enough to learn to use the framelines properly.

B) The EVF is surprisingly good especially in low light - I hated.. I mean viscerally hated... EVFs in the past but this one is actually usable in my opinion.

Compared to something modern like NEX-7, or something good from a few years back like Panasonic G1?

 

[dcsang]

Is the magnified part overlayed on non-magnified view that gives the framing or is it full frame only? Cameras like Sony NEX do the latter, which makes magnified mode useful mostly for static subjects. Which in turn makes (in particular longer) manual focus lenses useful mostly for static subjects.

What could actually be useful is an overlayed EVF patch with magnification in the OVF mode. It is easy enough to learn to use the framelines properly.


Compared to something modern like NEX-7, or something good from a few years back like Panasonic G1?

The magnification is "full frame only" as you state. I would concur that longer lenses (I use a 90mm as my long lens) are not the easiest to focus on a moving object - I would not be using the camera to try and capture a speedy little toddler with that 90mm at f2 - I cannot speak to the 60mm Fuji (which would act as a 90mm on the camera) and if the AF would be "good enough" in that situation either since I don't own the 60mm.

I have, in my mind, the last EVF type camera I used - the Olympus EP-2 - which also had an EVF and was also full framed when zoomed to focus manual focus lenses. This camera is at least as good as that but is also far better imho - because I don't need to have a "bulky" external finder that needs to be added to the camera - it already exists in the Fuji finder - the EVF, to me mind you, is actually better than the Oly EP-2 that I used to own.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[Dante_Stella]

I don't think it's the slider; cameras with far larger numbers of moving parts shoot more exposures on a lower-capacity CR123As (like the Contax AX, GA645), etc. The finder display is an LED, so it shouldn't take much power.

It may require a tremendous amount of power to stitch panoramas.

By the way, it looks like the the X100 motion panorama thing sometimes doesn't work where there is a lot of natural polarization in the sky - such as high in the Andes (the symptom is where the sky already looks darker in real life). You get false signals that the camera is off the pano axis and then weird stitching errors.

Dante

I imagine that the auto review in the OVF would be the culprit. I bet it takes a bit of power to slide the shutter across the eyepiece and get the evf running, slide the shutter back, and re-start the frame line overlays for each shot. Another interesting thing to note about the auto-review (if you didn't already know this) is that leaving it on will cause banding in high iso pictures - above iso1600. It's fairly slight, but it is there. When you turn it off, the banding is reduced a fair bit. It's speculated that the auto review causes some sort of radio interference with the sensor/processing and thus the banding.

 

[gavinlg]

By the way, it looks like the the X100 motion panorama thing sometimes doesn't work where there is a lot of natural polarization in the sky - such as high in the Andes (the symptom is where the sky already looks darker in real life). You get false signals that the camera is off the pano axis and then weird stitching errors.

Dante

Yeah I found the same actually. Trip to the victorian high country got me a lot of inconsistent panos. Something I considered as well was that maybe the leaf shutter isn't super consistent with shutter speeds when fired in quick succession?

 

[Audii-Dudii]

I gave up on this camera when I heard that it's viewfinder was considerably different than the X100 and it did not have a rangefinder like the X100

I'm new here and don't wish to offend anyone, but at the risk of feeding a troll, I'll note that your wording here suggests that you have not actually used an X Pro 1 yet...

I bought a Refurbished Nikon D5000 body for a lot less money instead. The Nikon has much better AF all around and especially in low light

And if you haven't used an X Pro 1 yet, then this statement of yours is certainly suspect, as you have no firsthand basis for making such a comparison.

All of which, of course, makes me wonder what your point in posting any of this was... <shrugs>

 

[irq506]

Dante, that wouldn't be enough of a reason for me to return it only after having it 5 minutes.

i b*tched about it before I had it and then I bought it on the premis that if I dont like it I can shift it on, and in the three or four days that Ive had it, its certainly quirky and and the controls are goofy, and Fujis insistence on making us re-learn cameras in their language is a little bothersome but thats fine.
Im sick at the moment and so have been only in the house playing with it and reading the manual- yes new camera new conventions that have to be learned means I have to actually 'read' the manual!

So what the gist is -for me- that its a really well endowed machine with a very healthy set of options which are very much designed to give you the user a good connection between film and its translation into digital from Fujis perspective. Until now all Ive had is an Xpan and an M6 and a GF1 for 'sketching' with, and until now, the making of images has been settled in what film I choose to use, how I develop it, and how I prepare it after the scan. This camera seems to offer me much of that choice, but in its own language and yet has the option to name it after its film which is a terribly nice feature despite me being a mostly Kodak user for E6 and C41 and then Neopan for BW.
The BW out of this camera as well as with the other Fujis is wildly hot stuff.. It really says to me that Fuji mapped the heck out of their negative densities and tone maps and wrote some astoundingly flexible algorithms for their digital cameras. Im impressed. I eat film for breakfast, and Im impressed to the point that I may actually take this camera seriously for serious image making in the future.

In terms of comparisons to the other X series cameras, I dont know I wasn't interested in the X100 or 10 they are cameras that have fixed lenses, so I never used them, I like rangefinders because I can actually see though them and focus through them better then I can with any other cameras. I also have a billion dollars invested in a trickle of Leica lenses so Im waiting for an affordable M something to come out for normal human beings with normal incomes.

I borrowed a NEX7 two weeks ago to try out and its the alternative for me if this doesn't work, the VF on it is actually very surprising in that its actually easier to focus through then Id expected and it really doesn't need the peaking that Id borrowed it for initially. Now, taking it that I got this XPro1 because it was a pretend RF body and had an OVF and the sensor was pretty hot stuff, the OVF is actually completely worthless if you are not using the fuji lenses, because theres no focus confirmation of any kind with it, which is a big let-down one which I contemplated just walking out of the shop and not getting it, but Im an optimist and I had two other reasons to try it, the sensor and the fact that it was the right shape in my hand and thats part of what gives me confidence in the field when working professionally with cameras.
The sensor is completely insane, never have I been able to get the kinds of shots I have been able to get on this camera in just a few days of playing with it. Ive shot lots and played with it and all im going to say is that its the best thing Ive ever seen outside of my friends Leica S2. ..and maybe what Rollei Digibase 200 CR with its extended latitudes for E6..
Handling, well I have to wear specs, id prefer contacts by my eyes are on strike right now and contacts are out of the question, its a pain to wear them and use cameras even this one, its better then a Leica but not as good as a Hexar or Ikon. The button placements are ok, the ones where your thumb are are too far over for my hand to hold the camera securely and have access to them. Ill be getting that grip or an alternative one asap. I love how on both the NEX7 and on this you can completely disable the LCD on the back which is usually the first thing I do on these digital cameras, Ill be putting a piece of gaffers tape over it soon. No screens for me thank you very much.
I wonder if there will be a thumbs up for this at some stage.

 

[Dante_Stella]

Irq506, I am coming from a solid X100 background, so there really should not be any surprises in its bigger brother. Some things we're just stuck with due to focal length increases; other things need to be fixed.

The focusing thing needs the most help; if you focus and refocus at the same object several times (such as shooting a person's face in S mode), you often randomly get hunt sequences. The X100 gets there more definitively and is quicker to declare a focusing fail. One thing that would be a great benefit is a focus range limiter. You could do it like setting the aperture range on the old Nikon F meters: focus near, focus far, done. These lenses have distance encoders, so the camera could keep them limited to, say, 1m to 3m if you wanted to shoot mostly people pictures.

These should also be shipped in their highest-performance modes out of the box, so that people don't get a bad first impression. I'm sure that my camera was set to minimize the chattering (who cares....). but it was not a feel-good moment (hour/day/couple of days) to see this functioning in power-save mode.

Pictures look really good so far; a 35/1.4 has more DOF than a 50/1.4 - so for the equivalent field of view, more things are in focus. Looking at the noise reduction, which shows some signs of aggression at 1,600. It would be nice to be able to use Lightroom. Currently, Lightroom 3 won't import anything - neither the JPGs nor RAWS, meaning that it takes some sorting every time you dump a card. This is a problem with Lightroom; it should be importing any image file, whether it currently recognizes it or not.

Exposure looks more accurate off the line than the X100; the hybrid viewfinder also seems to show the exposure more accurately than the X100's does.

D

 

[j.scooter]

Currently, Lightroom 3 won't import anything - neither the JPGs nor RAWS, meaning that it takes some sorting every time you dump a card. This is a problem with Lightroom; it should be importing any image file, whether it currently recognizes it or not.

I am using LR3 and import with no issues. I connect the camera via usb to the computer and the import dialog pops up and shows XPRO1 connected.

 

[jsrockit]

I gave up on this camera when I heard that it's viewfinder was considerably different than the X100 and it did not have a rangefinder like the X100 I bought a Refurbished Nikon D5000 body for a lot less money instead. The Nikon has much better AF all around and especially in low light the body on the D5000 is very small and compact and very unobtrusive unlike the bigger Nikon D700 D300 and D800, And best of all- the D5000 is very quiet with the shutter release set in quiet mode. As far as blowing money on digital cameras go it was the best 369.95 I have spent so far on digital (crap) cameras - Kievman

Spoken like a true rangefinder / mirrorless enthusiast.

 

[Dante_Stella]

Bizarre... on my system, it shows a bunch of un-previewable RAW files as icons, no JPGs, acts like it's importing stuff for a minute or two but then nothing. If it works via USB (wow... it's been about 8 years since I've actually used that to import...), then there must be some file system issue that my Mac or the Sandisk card reader is is choking on. Thanks for the tip.

Dante

I am using LR3 and import with no issues. I connect the camera via usb to the computer and the import dialog pops up and shows XPRO1 connected.

 

[jsrockit]

The only thing that truly bothers me on the camera is that the 35mm lens is very noisy...especially up close. Like it hasn't been lubed right or something.