X100 - niggles and annoyances

[peripatetic]

1. Startup time.

This is really a bit slow. I can't think of a recent digital camera that is so slow to get going. I find myself counting 1,2,3,4 just to give it time to wake up.

And as bad as it is coming out of OFF mode, it's even worse coming out of power standby. Reminds me of a photocopier.. (I believe Fuji make copiers - is this a co-incidence???)
My internal monologue goes something like:

Will it wake up or won't it?
will it - won't it?
should I switch it off and on again?
Ah wait there is something.
No - has it crashed?
Oh now it seems to be on.

Possibly they can make some improvements in firmware. I hope so. The key for now seems to be simply being patient and do an internal 4 second count.

2. Teeny tiny OK button in the middle of the Command Dial. Really this thing is more appropriately sized for the forefinger of my 2-year-old daughter! Have to use the inside edge of my thumbnail. Must remember not to trim it too close or round, otherwise I'll not be able to access the menus for a week until it grows back!

3. Exposure compensation dial is a little close to the edge of the camera. I'm constantly changing the darned thing without meaning to, sometimes with my thumb, but usually as I put the camera into and take it out of my jacket pocket. At least it's easy to see that I've messed it up, but I'm developing the habit of checking it frequently.

4. There are an awful lot of buttons to remember. Different ones launch different things, but then require you to use the Command Dial to navigate, or another button. Eventually one gets used to this I suppose, but as a user interface design it's not ideal. Some things are accessed via the menus, some things cannot be. Weird and confusing. It all just seems needlessly complicated and such a tremendous contrast to the analogue control dials.

These are not by an means deal-breakers and I certainly wouldn't want anyone to think they should not buy the camera simply because of these things.

Probably none of these can be addressed with the current iteration of the hardware. So something for Fuji to think about for the X100 MkII.

Blog post

 

[bobbyrab]

I managed to look at one for a few minutes last weekend, really liked the view finder but my overall impression was of it being really fiddly with too many surface buttons, I've got quite stubby digits though, so I'm sure others will find it fine, but I'd prefer it if they lost some of the buttons into the menus, and better positioned what they left, more like the Ricoh digitals.

 

[robbeiflex]

All of the above applies equally to the functioning of my two year old Blackberry. Are you sure it's the X100 you've been using? 😉

 

[rover]

So far I really like the images I have seen from this beast. It is good to hear some comments regarding its use to go along with them.

 

[peripatetic]

All of the above applies equally to the functioning of my two year old Blackberry. Are you sure it's the X100 you've been using? 😉

Haha. Maybe they were designed by the same people.

If people haven't been following my series of X100 posts I don't want them to get the wrong impression.

I LOVE THIS CAMERA. It's what I've been wanting for years. But it's not perfect.

 

[Pinphot]

Are you on a Mac?

Are you on a Mac?

1. Startup time.

This is really a bit slow. I can't think of a recent digital camera that is so slow to get going. I find myself counting 1,2,3,4 just to give it time to wake up.

And as bad as it is coming out of OFF mode, it's even worse coming out of power standby. Reminds me of a photocopier.. (I believe Fuji make copiers - is this a co-incidence???)
My internal monologue goes something like:

Will it wake up or won't it?
will it - won't it?
should I switch it off and on again?
Ah wait there is something.
No - has it crashed?
Oh now it seems to be on.

Possibly they can make some improvements in firmware. I hope so. The key for now seems to be simply being patient and do an internal 4 second count.



Blog post

Two things I've found.

Firstly the X100 does not like cards formatted in another camera. When I first got mine, I swapped an SD card straight out of my Panny GF1 and the camera was taking perhaps 30 seconds to boot, if at all and was manifesting all the issues you highlight above.

Secondly, are you on a Mac? i know you're not supposed to remove the card from your card reader without dragging it to the trash or ejecting the card in the finder, but I've done it for years with no problems on any other
camera. Do this with the X100, and the file root or something seems to get corrupted and the camera is very reluctant to reboot once the card is reinserted in the camera. The only solution then is to remount the card in the mac and eject it properly. I'm having bootup/crash issues sometimes too, but this seems to fix most of those problems. If neither of my suggestions work, then I have no more ideas. Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Mark

 

[peripatetic]

Yes, working on Mac. And I did once take out the card without ejecting and have a 30s delay on startup. So I don't do that any more.

Also I have formatted the cards in the X100.

I am using a 16Gb card, but I do have a 4Gb one. I have seen people suggesting that the larger card might be an issue.

I guess I should try the 4Gb one and see if it makes a difference.

 

[Niels]

Card speed should have an effect. Fuji recommends 30 Mb/s cards. I use 45 Mb/s and havnt got boot times as yours, by far (allthough not lightning fast).

At work, might get to test later.

Kind Regards


Edith: Test, quick and dirty - not as big a diff as I thought there would be. Statup time (Off/On) with 8G 45 Mb/s slightly less than 1 sec. With an old 2G unknown-speed-card clearly less than 2 sec. Well well, hopefully there should be larger diff when shooting burst frames >G<

 

[foolproof]

One thing I have noticed is that the focus distance scale seems to read incorrect sometimes. This happening seems to be effected by aperture. F2 and 15ft distance and the scale will always show 15ish. Change the aperture to say, f16, without moving at all or indoor light changing and it'll show 7ft. Resulting image is fine and focussed at the 15ft item. No biggy as I only use the scale for mf zone focussing but does anyone have a reasonable explanation for this?

 

[ZeissFan]

Oh damn. And here I thought we had the holy grail of cameras. Guess not. Maybe the X200 (or will it be the "X1xx" or the "Xx00"?) will revolutionize electronic rangefinder digital photography for the masses.

 

[Niels]

One thing I have noticed is that the focus distance scale seems to read incorrect sometimes. This happening seems to be effected by aperture. F2 and 15ft distance and the scale will always show 15ish. Change the aperture to say, f16, without moving at all or indoor light changing and it'll show 7ft. Resulting image is fine and focussed at the 15ft item. No biggy as I only use the scale for mf zone focussing but does anyone have a reasonable explanation for this?

Distance scale will show different values when focusing on the same object with same setup. Not much, on a 4 m target it may wander +/- half a meter. Also it will allmost allways fall to the short side, so diff between actual range and distance scale may be up to 1 meter on a 4 meter target. And yes object is sharp on pics, so I really dont care.

Well thats my X100 anyway. Im beginning to think of her as Birgitte >G<

Kind Regards

PS: and I like being with her :=)

 

[former member]

Smaller cards produce faster start-up times in many of the digital cameras that I have seen.

Many of these issues sound like early firmware to get the camera out the door. I suspect a V1.1 or so will fix a lot of these issues. It did on my Olympus EP2.

 

[Keith]

Oh damn. And here I thought we had the holy grail of cameras. Guess not. Maybe the X200 (or will it be the "X1xx" or the "Xx00"?) will revolutionize electronic rangefinder digital photography for the masses.

Was that fun?

 

[gavinlg]

^ hahahaha..