Fed up with Fuji X - TL2?

[Ken Ford]

I bought pretty hard into Fuji starting about ten years ago - XP1, XP2, X-E3 and X-E4. I still have the last three plus a full set of Fujicrons. I didn’t work with them for a couple of years but recently broke them all out. And you know what? I finally realized that I don’t care for the Fuji experience anymore.

I’m much happier with a stripped down UI, I love my new Sigma BF and Q2M. The Fujis have waaaay too many controls, most of which I never touch intentionally but always bump accidentally. The EC dial is infuriating and aperture rings have nearly undetectable clicks. The X-E4 is much better in this regard, but the EVF is pretty squinty. (I’ll probably still keep it, though since I adore my Voigtlander 35. The second version 27, too.)

So… I’m thinking about offloading most of my X gear and buying a TL2 and Visoflex. I was fascinated by the T when it was first announced, the stripped down UI is hugely appealing. I already have the Leica M to T/R adapter with six bit support so my M lenses are quite usable, plus I’m beginning to pick up Sigma I series primes for the BF that can serve dual purpose.

I’m three quarter tempted to box most all of the Fuji gear up and send it to MPB in trade against a TL2 and other kit. What are my downsides?

 

[DownUnder]

Downsides, like upsides, are entirely personal. To say it super briefly, YMMD.

The only two 'downers' I can think of, would be 1 you will surely lose money on a trade-in, and 2 the learning curve of having to get used to a new camera system. But then we've all done this, and we can survive it.

I too am often tempted to get out of the Fuji game. It took me a year to get used to how my two cameras function - an XE2 which I like and find I'm now using often when I travel due to its small size and weight, and an Xpro2, a camera I lusted after for a long time until one I liked came along at a price I could (barely just) afford and I bought it.

I've also had XTs, a 1 and a 2, but I didn't bond with either, partly for the ergonomics which didn't suit my way of holding and using cameras, largely for the uneven colors mid-tones which annoyingly for me were all over the place. Oddly, the XT1 gave better colors than the XT2. With both it annoyed me no end to do a carefully researched and planned photo session - I photograph mostly colonial architecture - usually in the same lighting conditions, and later discover the colors and tones/mid-tones in my images were so uneven. At first I thought it was me, my way of photographing my subjects, but eventually I decided the problem was with the cameras.

After 12 months and longer of patiently testing my gear, I can now get passably good (for my needs) colors from the XE2 but too often the Xpro2 lets me down. It also makes somewhat softer images than I care for, but I accept this is an entirely personal choice, many others who use Fujis are satisfied with less-than-crisp sharp results. Several RFF posters, notably a certain gentleman in Japan, produce superb images with their Fujis, which has long made me think, why can't I do the same?

I've never had any quarrel with Fujinon lenses. They are all constructed from sturdy metal and they have good optics, even the 18-55 which I regard as one of the best kit lenses ever made. But the cameras, well.

Like the OP I'm now seriously pondering a trade-off to go back to Nikon - I have D700s and D800s and even two now-ancient D90s which go on making wonderful snaps with their long-obsolete 16-year old digitechnology - but I will keep the XE2 as a travel camera. I paid very little for it and it shows its age, but I've now figured out how it works and I make what I regard as superb black-and-white images with it.

The two cameras are well set up for functionality, the XE2 better than the Xpro2 for my wants. Like the OP, I find I use very few of the bells and whistles the two cameras offer. I shoot mostly with Velvia and occasionally monochrome with red filter, and that's about it. Most of the rest of what the two cameras offer I can easily live without.

Of all the lenses I have, I would keep the 14/2.8 and the 23/1.4. The four others I have (including, oddly, two 18-55s) wll likely be traded off later this year, probably for a Nikon in their Z range.

Interesting how we take or don't take to cameras for all the reasons we do or don't.

As for me, well, once a Nikon man, always a Nikon man. My love affair with Fuji will go on, but firmly fixed on the lenses. Not so much the cameras.

A costly lesson for me, this.

 

[shawn]

Why TL2 and external evf when you can get a CL?

 

[Ken Ford]

Why TL2 and external evf when you can get a CL?

The CL doesn’t have the same clean design as the TL2 is the main reason, plus pricing. The T series UI is the big draw.

 

[Ken Ford]

An expensive lesson, this has been.

Still cheaper than boats, or sports cars, or heavy drinking.

My Nikons ain’t going anywhere, they are my “serious” gear for fifty years now - first F, now mostly Z and a smattering of S. Neither are my Leicas, although I could see selling organs to move from my M-P240 to something newer. The M6 stays, and I hold out hope for a EVF only M mount body.

I suppose the smart thing would be to rent a TL2 for a week or two, but I haven’t found anyone doing that.

 

[boojum]

I understand the frustration with mega-menus on cameras. I have cameras with the simple menus, M8.2 and X2D, and also complex mega-menus, A7M III. I take your point but, . . . How often is it necessary to crawl through a mega-menu? Yeah, not very often. And for those instances when I have to crawl through a mega-menu I have a secret weapon: the manual.

There are trade-offs with all cameras. I have not run across the perfect one and I cannot believe that one could please everyone. Just review some of the discussions here about cameras, some very good cameras. I just want the camera to be able to create a good image if I can present it with one. If I can get that I will happily put up with the rest of the problems.

 

[Rayt]

I had the TL for the reasons you stated but it didn’t work for me. In actual use it was a pain in the ass. My thumb kept changing the functions accidentally either by touching the wheels or when I didn’t turned off the rear screen. It was too minimalist. I didn’t like the Q2M either so I suppose it’s just preference. For tiny digital camera for street I’ll get the GR III because the 28mm equivalent is what I need.

 

[trix4ever]

I bought the X100T, Xpro1, Xpro2, XT3, XT10 at various times, always thought they looked like my sort of camera, lots of direct controls and just look great. I grew to hate ever one of them, should have learnt from the first one.
I think the first sensor was the best, every improvement since then was a step backwards, I loath transX, wierd colours, weird texture. They look like they should handle well. None of them did for me.
I had a T and frankly was very disappointed. Very ordinary sensor and the giant screen had a much smaller image area and the UI wasn't as good as I thought it would be. The internal battery died so you had to reset everything after switching it off, so I sent it to Leica who said it was a "hard no" to any repairs to that series and offered me a dirt cheap price on a CL, which I accepted. I now have 2 CL's and prefer them to my SL. Wonderful little cameras and the 11-23mm is my favourite lens. Good luck whichever way you go.

 

[Ken Ford]

I bought the X100T, Xpro1, Xpro2, XT3, XT10 at various times, always thought they looked like my sort of camera, lots of direct controls and just look great. I grew to hate ever one of them, should have learnt from the first one.
I think the first sensor was the best, every improvement since then was a step backwards, I loath transX, wierd colours, weird texture. They look like they should handle well. None of them did for me.
I had a T and frankly was very disappointed. Very ordinary sensor and the giant screen had a much smaller image area and the UI wasn't as good as I thought it would be. The internal battery died so you had to reset everything after switching it off, so I sent it to Leica who said it was a "hard no" to any repairs to that series and offered me a dirt cheap price on a CL, which I accepted. I now have 2 CL's and prefer them to my SL. Wonderful little cameras and the 11-23mm is my favourite lens. Good luck whichever way you go.

That brings up a point that scares me, possibly to the point of abandoning the exercise - obsolescence. I’d hate to drop $1500 on a body with Visoflex if it’s not going to be repairable much longer.

 

[Ken Ford]

I understand the frustration with mega-menus on cameras. I have cameras with the simple menus, M8.2 and X2D, and also complex mega-menus, A7M III. I take your point but, . . . How often is it necessary to crawl through a mega-menu? Yeah, not very often. And for those instances when I have to crawl through a mega-menu I have a secret weapon: the manual.

There are trade-offs with all cameras. I have not run across the perfect one and I cannot believe that one could please everyone. Just review some of the discussions here about cameras, some very good cameras. I just want the camera to be able to create a good image if I can present it with one. If I can get that I will happily put up with the rest of the problems.

It’s not so much the menus, I can mostly ignore those - it’s the plethora of controls. That’s what I’m finding so refreshing about the BF, it’s distilled down to the bare necessities.

Maybe I should move off things that I’m no longer enjoying and double down on the BF for now. Hopefully Sigma will carry the UI concepts forward to other models, hopefully adding an EVF and maybe wireless connectivity. To be honest that would make it just about perfect for me.

 

[Coldkennels]

I also had XTs, a 1 and then a 2, but I found I didn't bond with those, mostly for the ergonomics which didn't suit my way holding and using my cameras, but largely for the mid-tones which I found were all over the place. Oddly, the XT1 gave me better colors than the younger XT2. But it annoyed me no end to do a photo shoot (I photograph mostly old colonial architecture) usually in the same lighting conditions, and later discover the colors and tones/mid-tones in my images were all over the place. At first I thought it was just me, my way of photographing my subjects, but eventually I decided the problem was really with the cameras.

I've owned (well, still own) an X-Pro 1, X-T 1, and X-Pro 2. I still use the X-Pro 2 for work purposes on the regular.

I have found OOC JPEGs from all of them are unpredictable for colour, most notably when using adapted lenses. Doesn't matter the lens or the era - from 1930s uncoated rangefinder lenses to 1970s coated SLR lenses. Doesn't matter if I set the white/colour balance to auto or dial it in manually - it can change from one shot to the next, despite nothing else changing at all, and I have no idea why. A lot of the time it skews oddly purple.

Using Fuji's own lenses reins it in a lot. I usually just keep the XF18mm f/2 and the XF 35mm f/2 on it, depending on what I'm doing.

It's frustrating as I wanted it to be a good way of playing with LTM and Contax lenses on digital, but the combination of the crop factor (which bothered me much more than I thought it would), poor corner performance, and the colour balance issues made it a waste of time. I should have just bought an M240 straight out of the gate back in 2016!

 

[Ken Ford]

In the cold light of day… the TL2 scares me a little. I’ve already dealt with Leica stopping battery support for my M-P240 (they just recently reversed that, but what the hell Leica?) and hearing about trix4ever’s T experience doesn’t give me the warm fuzzies.

Digital rot is a thing. These aren’t LTM Leica bodies that will creak along decade after decade long after I’ve turned to dust.

 

[DownUnder]

I've owned (well, still own) an X-Pro 1, X-T 1, and X-Pro 2. I still use the X-Pro 2 for work purposes on the regular.

I have found OOC JPEGs from all of them are unpredictable for colour, most notably when using adapted lenses. Doesn't matter the lens or the era - from 1930s uncoated rangefinder lenses to 1970s coated SLR lenses. Doesn't matter if I set the white/colour balance to auto or dial it in manually - it can change from one shot to the next, despite nothing else changing at all, and I have no idea why. A lot of the time it skews oddly purple.

Using Fuji's own lenses reins it in a lot. I usually just keep the XF18mm f/2 and the XF 35mm f/2 on it, depending on what I'm doing.

It's frustrating as I wanted it to be a good way of playing with LTM and Contax lenses on digital, but the combination of the crop factor (which bothered me much more than I thought it would), poor corner performance, and the colour balance issues made it a waste of time. I should have just bought an M240 straight out of the gate back in 2016!

I have those two lenses. The oft-maligned 18/2.0 lives on the XE2, I took it out today for a long ramble in a town in Malaysia I'm visiting.

I love my '18, but my big complaint with it is for an aspherical lens, it too often distorts the verticals in the buildings I usually photograph, even when I use a tripod and a spirit level. My Nikon D 28/2.8s rarely distort. The '35 I seldom use, but on the few occasions I've had it on the XE2 it gave me the sharpest photos of all of my Fujinons, so it's a good lens.

I'm now readying to post process several hundred images for my half yearly stock photo presentation to a few publishing clients I have in Europe and Asia. Working with my Fuji photos means hours and hours dedicated to this, which at my age and after most likely more than 100,000 processed images in the last decade, I've grown to resent as time I could be doing more enjoyable things. Which adds yet another 'minus' to my grievance list to Fuji.

For all that I intend to keep the XE2 and one or two lenses as a walkaround/street camera. The Xpro2, well, as yet its fate is undecided, but in Australia there is such a demand for it and resale prices are so good, now may be the time for me to move it on.

 

[Dogman]

Interesting thread. I've been in love with the X-Pro series since 2016. Also bought and tried X-T1, X-E2/2a and, later the XP2 that I've used constantly over the years. But I'm now muddling the fact that I still own a carload of Fuji gear and I seldom use it much. That's because I bought into the Nikon Z system. I've been a Nikon shooter since my interest in photography. They seem to build cameras that fit me. The Z5 got me started and now I have several Z lenses, a million old F-mount lenses that work with FTZ adapters and a beautiful collection Voigtländer and Carl Zeiss M-mount lenses on M to Z adapters. I never thought I could abide, like, much less love any EVF camera until I used the Nikon Z. It's not perfect but it's good enough for this old malcontent.

I'm a B&W shooter. The Fuji film emulations everyone loves mean nothing to me. i shoot monochrome JPEGs and simplify my life. Fuji images are superb. The Fujinon lenses are awesome. Image quality is beautiful. But when compared to the handling of the Nikon Z cameras I've tried, Nikon's are simply easier for me to use, they are actually smaller than the X-Pro2 and they are full frame. The only thing I dislike about the Nikon Z is that you can't lock the AF sensor position to the center and I can't keep from moving it around when I handle the cameras. But the Fujis are worse in this respect because I change settings often and never know what I did. I really hate having to go into the vague menus to find something to change a setting I've inadvertently turned on or off.

If I decide to dump my Fuji gear, I will NOT sell my X100S Fujis. I have two of them and they are simple and fit me perfectly. They produce beautiful monochrome files and superb photos. I also have a personal attachment to them. Those cameras will STAY no matter what else goes.

................................

 

[oldwino]

I owned and loved the TLS/Visoflex combo. The sensor is really good, even today, and the UI was way ahead of its time. With the Visoflex, you can easily use manual focus lenses, too. But it is older tech - the autofocus in particular is pretty slow (glacial, by today's standards). The Leica 18mm was nice, but I didn't care for the 23 or the 35, and choose to use Sigma lenses instead for autofocus. I sold it because, at the time, I needed better autofocus. Today, I would consider another one if the price was right. Batteries are not an issue, as there are third-party batteries being made.

Having said all that, there are many other cameras that do basically what the TL does (albeit with a more convoluted UI) for much cheaper and much "better" (in terms of speed and accuracy of focus). The little Nikon Z30 for instance. Or many of the small micro-four-thirds cameras. The Ricoh GRIII is every bit the equal to the Leica in terms of image quality, and it has IBIS, too.

 

[Coldkennels]

I love my '18, but my big complaint with it is for an aspherical lens,it often distorts the verticals in the buildings I usually photograph, even when I use a tripod and a spirit level.

That's not really a problem I've had with mine. I normally use mine for product photography - just have been doing for the last two hours, actually - and the biggest issue I have is the focus-by-wire controls (I HATE that - I can never remember which way the ring should be turned, and sometimes I find myself turning it only for it to do nothing as I've already hit the close focusing "stop"... just give me a proper helical, please) and the focusing noise. The 35mm f/2 obviously still has the same focusing setup, but at least it's a lot quieter.

But the Fujis are worse in this respect because I change settings often and never know what I did. I really hate having to go into the vague menus to find something to change a setting I've inadvertently turned on or off.

With all due respect, and honestly said without ill-intent... this is very much a "user error" issue. On my X-Pro 2, I've set the four things I regularly change (film simulation, drive mode, image size, and colour balance) to the "d-pad" around the menu button. I think the only time I ever have to go into the menus is to change the "mount adapter setting", which is now on the "my menu" pane which comes up by default. If you're diving deep into menus on the regular, you should really look at changing your button assignments and/or the Q menu.

I'll give Fuji this: they do make everything very accessible and modifiable - holding down any button for long enough allows you to easily remap it to whatever you find useful. I refused to use anything digital before the X-Pro 1 came along because I absolutely hated Nikon and Canon's menus and cryptic buttons in the DSLR era. The Fuji is much more user-friendly in that regard.

 

[DownUnder]

Goldkennels, I do manual focusing also, quite a lot. Those of us who grew up with SLR film cameras - Nikkormats in my case, I still have two FT2s and oh! how I love them - know how to use hyperlocal distancing to its best advantage. My lenses are usually set at f/8 - this seems to cope best with tropical lighting in Asia and Australia, where I do all my photo work - and I find the 'hot-wired' Fujinons can be used to their best advantage (for me anyway) by manually turning the focus dial to the exact distance point I want my images to be sharpest.

Another minus-point for me with the '18 is the focusing point I set it to often 'wanders' off the set mark. I've trained my brain to check the focus every time I move to a new shot - and I usually find I have to readjust it. One of my fears is that I will miss a good image due to off-focusing, but I have a similar problems with colors, and I now do all my valued images at the 0 setting and again at -1/3, sometimes even a third at -2/3 if the light is strong. Which means more work for me at the downloading/keywording/postprocessing stage, but as they say in Oz, such is life.

So for now my Fujis and Fujinons are my travel favourites. I've just picked up an as new Z6 with 350 actuations on its odometer, so like the OP, how long my love affair with Fuji will go on is an open question - tho' I will never, even sell my XE2.

 

[Coldkennels]

Another minus-point for me with the '18 is the focusing point I set it to often 'wanders' off the set mark.

Ah! This is something I forgot about the XF 18/2. I'm not sure why, but the focusing ring seems much more "twitchy" than the ones on my other Fuji lenses. It doesn't take much to nudge it out of place, like you say. Bloody annoying - especially when it then activates the "zoomed in" view for focusing as a result.

I still find hyperfocal shooting much easier with a proper long-throw focusing helical and a good (and accurate) depth-of-field scale, though. Never did get on with the weird focusing scale in the bottom of the EVF in the X mount bodies!

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I have many old cameras.
Never stepped into FujiNoFilm.
Cameras feels cheap after Leicas. 🙂
I didn't went for Leica croppers with bayonet, either.
Got X2 with Leica labeled EVF.
It is awesome, made in Germany camera with Leica labels all over it.
It is very primitive. But still pictures it gives are Leica colors.

 

[shawn]

Ah! This is something I forgot about the XF 18/2. I'm not sure why, but the focusing ring seems much more "twitchy" than the ones on my other Fuji lenses. It doesn't take much to nudge it out of place, like you say. Bloody annoying - especially when it then activates the "zoomed in" view for focusing as a result.

I still find hyperfocal shooting much easier with a proper long-throw focusing helical and a good (and accurate) depth-of-field scale, though. Never did get on with the weird focusing scale in the bottom of the EVF in the X mount bodies!

An alternate way of doing hyperfocal without the possibility of focus creep is to set auto focus to a button to remove it fron the shutter release. Leave the camera in AF mode. Point the camera at something the distance away you want to be focused at and hit AF. Focus is now locked at that distance until you activate af with that button again. The focus dial won’t change anything unless you have af+mf turned on.