Firmware not the same for X-T1 and X-T10?

[dickbarbour]

I was under the (apparently mistaken) impression that FW 4.0 brought the X-T1 up to the latest functionality as represented by the X-T10. I was just watching Damien Lovegrove's comparison of the two cameras (see Fuji Rumors section of this forum) and he mentioned being able to control ISO using the front command dial with the X-T10. I don't see any way to do that with my X-T1; I get the same old aperture or shutter-speed choices for the front and rear dials. I would very much like to be able to do this, as the locking ISO dial is my only real gripe with the X-T1. Am I mistaken about this? If not, I wonder why Fuji hasn't made this flexible option available on the supposedly top-of-the line X-T1?

Dick

[adzman808]

Probably because of the dedicated ISO dial on the X-T1, Fuji expect you to rotate that instead of the front dial

[dickbarbour]

Yes, they probably do expect that, since it's the only way to set the ISO. 

I suppose they don't want to admit the ISO dial is a pain in the neck, and that by allowing the command dial (or the Q menu) to set ISO nobody would use the dedicated dial any more. I know I wouldn't.

Dick

[flysurfer]

You can change ISO with any command dial, front or back, or you can also use the up and down selector keys. You can use any of the 7 Fn buttons to pull up the ISO setting in order to change it. You can also use the Quick Menu to pick a new ISO setting. Additionally, you can store different ISO settings in your 7 Custom Settings, so changing ISO by selecting a different custom set is also an option.

 

Obviously, the X-T1 is much more limited "thanks" to its manual ISO dial. Hence no ISO in the custom settings and only one global Auto-ISO choice.

[jeremyclarke]

One important distinction that may be worth clarifying is that the ability to "change the ISO with command dial" on X-T10 is probably not what you think. It's not that you can set the dial to directly change the ISO, it's that the command dial on the X-T10 is ALSO a function button (when depressed) and you can set THAT to be ISO, then use the dial itself to change the value and depress it again to confirm. 

 

On the X-T1 the equivalent would be to assign ISO to the front function button, since it exists to replace the "missing" function button on the dial which can't be depressed on the X-T1. You'd have to use the function button AND the dial in that case, just like if you assigned ISO to the back function button on the X-T10. 

 

As pointed out it's mostly irrelevant because Fuji chose to not allow ISO as a function button on the X-T1, presumably because the complexities of overriding the mechanical dial were too complicated to execute or deemed too complicated for users to have to deal with. 

 

Personally I prefer the X-T10 system because like you I found the X-T10 ISO dial simultaneously too tedious to use and too dumb to reflect what I really want to do, which is switch between AUTO-ISO configurations rather than absolute ISOs.

 

90% of the time I can get my ISO right just by changing between the auto-ISO options, but the X-T1 makes it really hard to do because there's no function button for it and the Q menu doesn't show what's IN each auto-iso config, only it's number. On the X-T10 the ISO function button menu shows you the "contents" of each auto-ISO config as you scroll through them, which to me is the ideal functioning. 

 

I wish the X-T1 ISO dial had positions indicating the auto-ISO slots, THAT would be useful. Ideally you could switch between them and as you do a graphic would flash on screen indicating the parameters (max-ISO, min-shutter) for that auto-iso slot. This would give the best of both worlds and personally it would redeem the ISO dial in my eyes. 

 

Of note: The way it REALLY should work on both cameras is that they let us configure the front command dial to change settings directly, so we could just spin it to change the ISO rather than having to push->spin->push to change the value. That would match how Olympus and Sony make the dials work and would speed up usage significantly. Currently both the front and back dial have confusing and rarely-needed effects on how the auto-exposure chooses values, which I'd rather disable entirely, let alone be able to set the dials things I actually want (ISO, focus modes, shutter modes).

 

On the thread's subject line: "Firmware not the same"? 

 

Just to get back to the inherent question the answer is that the firmware has MANY differences between the two cameras that I never realized until I started posting my experiences with the X-T10 here and got confused responses from X-T1 owners. A lot of little things were improved in the X-T10 firmware but went unchanged in the updated X-T1. None are really important that I've found so far, but some are really valuable updates in my eyes. Either way, anyone who assumed (like me) that the firmware was basically the same thing running on two bodies turned out to be wrong, they are different operating systems that happen to have most of the same features. 

 

The best example I can think of now is the Face Detection button, which on the X-T10 just enables/disables FD directly, but on the X-T1 brings up a stupid menu with only two options, tripling the number of button pushes needed to use it and forcing you to use the D-pad rather than just the one function button. A super valuable update if you use FD and I find it hard to understand why it wasn't backported to the X-T1. 

 

The ISO menu is the other example I can think of but as already stated, it has a better reason for not being there: The physical dial. 

 

Overall my most charitable guess is that the updates they didn't backport to the X-T1 were left out because they didn't want to "change" things they didn't have to. Maybe Fuji believes people who have had the camera for year(s) and are used to them don't want to have to learn new behaviours (like the FD button) even if they are better. I humbly disagree if that's the case, but there's a logic to it.