X-Pro 1's Achilles' Heel

[CopperB]

I took my x-pro 1 to a club to shoot The English Beat last night, hoping its high ISO performance would shine. The lighting was, as expected, terrible. What didn't shine was its AF. The focus lag was horrendous. The EVF was desperate. I had most success using the OVF to get any chance of a shot in focus. Even then, the focus was hit or miss. MF wasn't useable in the low light and trying to guesstimate via distance was a bust. Pretty disappointing especially because I was hoping I could start leaving the dSLR at home for concerts/clubs. Perhaps it will perform more reliably at larger concert venues with pro lighting. Here's the best I could do, given the light, camera, and inability to vary my position without being trampled. All were shot with the 35mm 1.4

ISO 5000 f1.4


ISO 6400 f2


ISO 5000 f1.4


ISO 5000 f2


ISO 5000 f2

 

[rover]

Those are great shots.

 

[gavinlg]

Make sure you pick points of contrast to focus on. So for instance when you have a guy standing with stage lights behind him, try to focus on the side of his head, which is shadowed, contrasting with the bright stage lights behind him, instead of trying to focus on his face which is one big low contrast shadow. Same with any AF camera, although mirrorless cameras take a little more care with this.

 

[rxmd]

Contrast AF in "ISO 5000 f/1.4" type lighting is always going to be a challenge I guess, and guesstimating at f/1.4 is hit and miss with any camera.

Either way there are great shots.

 

[gavinlg]

Also, I'll quickly note that the focussing speed will surely be upgraded through the next few firmware updates - the x100 started off as a slow focuser but after a few little updates it's truly quite impressive now. Focusses better than my 5d in most situations.

 

[floyd]

Finding this one of the real frustrations of this camera, superb clean images at high ISO if you can get the AF to work which it doesn't always do even in high contrast areas.

 

[Aristophanes]

I tried the X-Pro 1 in the camera store and, as I like to do when I go in in the evening and talk to the sales staff, I asked them to dim the lights to check out the low-light performance.

For an AF camera, the AF is not very good. For a very expensive camera, the AF is not very good. In fact, it wasn't very good in better light. Too many shots were a struggle. Used the 35mm lens at various apertures. I tried some manual focus...ugh.

So I took a Nikon D3100 out and tried the same and the D3100 blew the AF of the X-Pro 1 out of the water. No contest, the smaller Nikon DSLR won handily.

They did not have a Ricoh GXR for me to try as comparison. They were sold out of the Fuji X100's.

My conclusion is that the X-Pro 1 is an AF cameras by design, and the AF lags considerably what one would expect for the investment.

It was also bigger and heavier than I thought. Lenses look to be excellent and much cheaper than M-mount. Lens + body may be more compact than a DSLR, but giving up the DSLR's advantages like bang-on PDAF is a serious concern for the price of the X-Pro 1.

Confusing camera.

 

[Spyro]

Nice shots, I hope you didnt miss anything important.

Yep AF is a bit 90's to be honest 😀
It gets a bit better with the 18mm, much lighter lens, less glass to move, and because of the larger dof prefocusing in zones becomes more relevant and usable. But you do lose one stop.

I think in those specific conditions your best bet would be a fast M lens with a real focusing ring wide open. That way you can see your dof even in the crappy EVF and move it around quickly, and if there's any smearing in the corners it's probably irrelevant for this kind of photo. But I'm yet to test and confirm all that, it's 4 weeks since I ordered my M adapter and Hong Kong post is still playing funny buggers 😡

 

[CopperB]

My reason for going for the xpro1, in addition to hi ISO performance and Fuji colour, was to stop carrying around a D90 as a P&S for street shooting, especially with a trip to India coming in the fall. I'd hoped it would serve my concert photography as well. I suspect I will end up selling my s5pro and picking up a used D700 for my dSLR needs. I hate to give up my s5. The colour is spot on and it is great for portraits especially with the 85mm 1.4 on it.

 

[CopperB]

Nice shots, I hope you didnt miss anything important.

Yep AF is a bit 90's to be honest 😀
It gets a bit better with the 18mm, much lighter lens, less glass to move, and because of the larger dof prefocusing in zones becomes more relevant and usable. But you do lose one stop.

I think in those specific conditions your best bet would be a fast M lens with a real focusing ring wide open. That way you can see your dof even in the crappy EVF and move it around quickly, and if there's any smearing in the corners it's probably irrelevant for this kind of photo. But I'm yet to test and confirm all that, it's 4 weeks since I ordered my M adapter and Hong Kong post is still playing funny buggers 😡

I've ordered a Kippon for my M mount glass. Hopefully that will improve things.

 

[Keith]

I'll be interested to see how the OM-D handles similar conditions with the descriptions I've read about the camera's AF.

For the cost of the Xpro I would have expected better ... but as Gavin says these are early days!

 

[jsrockit]

It's funny how there is so much contradictory info about this camera.

 

[Keith]

It's funny how there is so much contradictory info about this camera.

Not just this camera .... every camera! 😛

 

[furcafe]

Hmm, that's not good news, as I'm looking to use mine as a D700 substitute & I've had problems using even that beast's autofocus in crap lighting. From looking @ your EXIF, it appears the lighting actually wasn't that bad, by my club standards @ least (e.g., 1st shot @ 1/250th sec., so equivalent to 1/60th sec. @ ISO 1250, which is considerably brighter than some places I shoot!). I take it you converted to B&W because of red gels?! 😉

I'm going to be using mine to shoot an office party then a show tonight (as a backup for my M9) in a club w/good lighting, so I'll have to see for myself.

P.S., being of a certain age, it's good to see that the English Beat are still around!

I took my x-pro 1 to a club to shoot The English Beat last night, hoping its high ISO performance would shine. The lighting was, as expected, terrible. What didn't shine was its AF. The focus lag was horrendous. The EVF was desperate. I had most success using the OVF to get any chance of a shot in focus. Even then, the focus was hit or miss. MF wasn't useable in the low light and trying to guesstimate via distance was a bust. Pretty disappointing especially because I was hoping I could start leaving the dSLR at home for concerts/clubs. Perhaps it will perform more reliably at larger concert venues with pro lighting. Here's the best I could do, given the light, camera, and inability to vary my position without being trampled. All were shot with the 35mm 1.4

 

[rbelyell]

i love fuji, not only the great x100, but way back to the 605 series, and 645 medium format. but this is supposed to be an autofocus camera, and so lack of AF ability, especially after the x100 experience, and even more especially at this extreme price point, is really inexcusable.

having said that, in these particular conditions, i personally would probably not trust any AF. imho, the best you can do is manually prefocus on a static point like the microphone and leave it there and hope for the best. while this cam, like the x100, is not intended for MF, its really not that hard to do on a static point using the cams magnification. and given its universally acclaimed high iso ability, especially if shooting b&w, i would try like heck not to shoot wide open.

 

[Keith]

Low light shooting with any AF system is fraught with danger IMO. I do a lot of low light work in galleries with my D700 and I've never considered the AF to be viable in these conditions. I use fast primes and focus manually!

 

[Paul T.]

I used my Hexar AF in conditions worse than that last night and it focused perfectly.

(at least I think it did, who knows when I'll process those shots, and whether the roll of TriX I found at the last mo' was dodgy...)

 

[Spyro]

Forget the Hexar AF, it's a low light monster. This baby would focus in a zipped up film changing bag, if they made one big enough to beat the 0.60m min focus distance. Active infrared is in a class of its own.

 

[crispy12]

Shoot it like a rangefinder! Pre-focus, plan in advance not reactively. Unfortunately these tactics are quite primitive for such a modern, expensive camera but you make do with what works! Worked out great for my x100.

 

[furcafe]

Do you recall in which AF mode the demo was set, "Area" or "Multi"? So far, it seems that setting the AF mode to Area in the X-Pro1's Shooting menu + setting the focus mode switch on the front to S (Single AF) is the most like using a RF or "single point" + "single servo" on a Nikon dSLR. With these settings, the X-Pro1's AF appears to work reasonably quickly & accurately (but more like my old Kyocera Contax G2 than an autofocus SLR) in decent to bad light, @ least in my current "test drive" use.

I tried the X-Pro 1 in the camera store and, as I like to do when I go in in the evening and talk to the sales staff, I asked them to dim the lights to check out the low-light performance.

For an AF camera, the AF is not very good. For a very expensive camera, the AF is not very good. In fact, it wasn't very good in better light. Too many shots were a struggle. Used the 35mm lens at various apertures. I tried some manual focus...ugh.

So I took a Nikon D3100 out and tried the same and the D3100 blew the AF of the X-Pro 1 out of the water. No contest, the smaller Nikon DSLR won handily.

They did not have a Ricoh GXR for me to try as comparison. They were sold out of the Fuji X100's.

My conclusion is that the X-Pro 1 is an AF cameras by design, and the AF lags considerably what one would expect for the investment.

It was also bigger and heavier than I thought. Lenses look to be excellent and much cheaper than M-mount. Lens + body may be more compact than a DSLR, but giving up the DSLR's advantages like bang-on PDAF is a serious concern for the price of the X-Pro 1.

Confusing camera.