I'm glad to hear that new firmware is in the pipeline. After playing with the camera for about an hour I've uncovered a few bugs that make it incredibly frustrating to use in manual mode.
- The histogram does not respond to changes in exposure in manual mode (both in evf and ovf). It only responds to adjustments made using the exposure compensation dial, and even then it is often incorrect, especially in ovf.
- The shutter speed often "gets stuck" and does not respond to changes in shutter speed when in manual mode. For example, the shutter speed dial will say 250, but the camera thinks it is on 60 and takes the photo using 60. This happens both with evf and ovf.
Basically, I want to set the ISO at 400, use the ovf with manual controls, and have the camera respond quickly and correctly to changes in aperture and shutter speed. I don't care about changing ISO easily, macro modes, auto-ISO, ND filters, movie modes, raw or jpg settings, etc.
These complaints aside, it really is a nice little camera. It is just frustrating to have so many problems that could have easily been fixed had Fuji spent a little more time on the details.
Edit: A little more testing reveals that descending through shutter speeds works fine. For example, I can go 4000, 2000, 1000, 500, 250, 125, 60, 30, 15, ... just fine. But on the way back up, the camera responds with 15, 30, 60, 60, 60, 60, 1000, 2000, 4000. So the camera gets stuck and 60 and comes back to life at 1000. Can anyone else confirm this behavior, or maybe I have a broken camera?