milandro

flower power

Bingo! Seriously, all this “ buzz” about how the cameras will be after the rejuvenation treatment has created some expectations pretty difficult to fulfill. Especially when one considers the fact that a lot of people out there are using ( I am not) adapted lenses or lenses such as the Samyangs which aren’t autofocus! Face and eye detections are nice only if they are fail ( and fool) proof if they aren’t it’s nice to have there to use in a pinch when one is shooting fast but I wouldn’t relay on it just yet, for any serious work and would rather use the trusted and old methods which have served us properly up until now.

I have given it a shot ( nice pun!) , actually a few shots. For now only with a 35mm and the 60 and it worked fine when it comes to face detection part of the deal ( it detected also as a “ face" a bronze head which I have a t home. As you can see, I didn’t do the eye test on the head because it has a blindfold ) and it was a little less satisfactorily when it came to eye detection performed on my wife’s eyes ( although she doesn’t wish her image to be published on line, the eye detection wasn’t very precise with her, switching all the time from one eye to the other to no eye and selecting just face... by the way the left eye, is the subject’s left eye not the eye on the left from the person shooting )... face detection works better but eye detection need a bit of work to be done for version 5.0 of the firmware!)

I hope you don’t mind me telling you this... but it is “ hear, hear” ( this is not written in a rebuffing spirit but simply an informative one) http://grammarist.com/spelling/hear-hear/

I haven’t experienced anything of the sort but I don’t own a 23mm. Yesterday I got some “ moving targets “ coming out from the shade with leafage in the background, in a situation not unlike the one you are showing us, and I have to say that nothing like that that you are presenting was showing ( sorry I didn’t keep the shots they were nothing special to me and just made them for the purpose of testing the autofocus tracking). Try re installing the software after putting the whole of the fuctions back to factory standards and then start from factory standards and move back to your preferences. I know it is a pain to do but this is not the way the camera would perform unless something had gone wrong with the update or your setting hasn’t translated well after the updating.

true this is a not very nice aspect of the macro function but even when you did press the macro button you had no idea of how close you were to your subject and if you were too close.

this is the page where you can contact the Tokyo Fujifilm Headquarters I am sure they will be interested. Make sure to link this thread too. https://contact.fujifilm.com/cgi-bin/mail/form.cgi/contact_tokyo_headquarters

well, got out to shoot some flowers ( on S mode) and people on bicycle and motorbike with the 50-230 ( at 230) and the autfocus tracking was impeccable. So no complaints.

As in all new things which need some adjusting to, one needs getting used to things being new.... until Fuji won’t change everything once again ( I know, I know, it is not that everything has been changed ... !). I suppose the anticipation for the new software and the much talked about improvements before its release had created in most of us the sense that something unique and revolutionary was going to take place. Perhaps some of us now think that none of this really happened or are even disappointed of what we were given... for free. I have tested the single shot autofocus features ( which is the way I use the camera the most) and 2 of my lenses ( 35mm and 60mm) seem to have been somewhat ( much?) improved. The 10-24mm doesn’t appear to have been improving all that much ( but it was good already before) and the 50-230 seems even to be slower than it was ( I cannot corroborate this with anything more than an impression). I have yet to test the camera with the tracking moving objects which is something that I really very seldom do. I appreciate however the concise instructions given at the beginning of this thread. It is becoming evident that this concise approach (If you want to achieve this............ do this 1) 2) 3) would be a very nice thing especially for those, like me, who don’t always use some of the features of the camera .

I think that the design and layout ( buttons and dials instead of screen menus) of the camera attracts a large number of “ senior” photographers and that might be why it appears that the typical Fuji client has come from a long film camera experience. I was attracted to this before I was even given the chance to see what the camera could do. I bought at first an X-E1 and a 35mm to get a “ feel” of the camera and it did please me both in “ buttons and dials” and then in the results that It gave. But, frankly speaking, the results are very good with any camera claiming professional quality this days! Prior to this I used, professionally, a number of Canon and my experience culminated with a 7D Mk II. I shot mostly stills with it and had the camera 100% of the times on manual focus. I never bonded with that camera though, it was a mere tool, but the files were precisely what we ( I worked in a studio with several people working there, some specialized in PP only) were looking for for the editorial job that we were doing. Now that I have left any professional practice ( but of course still have a professional attitude) I have elected this system to be my system of choice. Its quality is such that it allows anything I might want to do and a lot more. @epscott I really don’t think that my film experience plays any role in my using a digital camera. The way I see it is that they are different media and there is not much us (for me) to compare them. One thing I do think though. Much of its own language was found by photography as opposed to other visual arts, by forming a “ grammar and syntax “ based on the boundaries defined by their technical limitations. Before photography, visual arts didn’t use images which were blurred because they were not in focus or affected by motion blurring, also the perspective was represented in a different way one images were captured on film and contrast became a different entity. When I taught photography I always identified in this, the limits, the origins of the photographic “ grammar and syntax” . I feel that digital photography is still trying to find and define these two important entities ( one can work within these or without these but one needs knowing what and where they are in order to affirm them or deny them).

Of course an email would include a formula to differentiate between those who tear the plastic because they have rubbed the camera against an hard surface and the ones who have had this happening to them without any plausible reason implying their responsibility. Yet, as any consumer association will tell you, especially if you collect several people reporting a malfunction, Fuji will ne better advised in honoring not alone the guarantee but in doing this down the line, even when the guarantee has expired, if we report this as a production defect. Unfortunately in my neck of the woods (the NL) we don’t even have our own Fuji repair lab ( or at least we didn’t have it last year) and cameras need being sent to Germany and they take 15 days, minimum, for any, even small, thing. If I were one of the people who have reported this I would report it to Fuji Japan.

Well, OP has asked precisely about a snorkeling solution, hardly anything more complex than that since he indicated a depth of 0.5m! For everyone else there are undewrwater cameras ( Canon makes un up to 30m. ) and rigid housings. One day someone will come up with a good system underwater camera, the ( Fuji ???) equivalent of a Nikonos.

I am sure that the way the guarantees are honored, greatly varies from country to country and what’s true in one place won’t be necessarily true in any other. Norms, legislation, statutory rights and or common law ( which is the part of law deriving from previous judicial precedents rather than being written) vary enormously. The guarantee protection for the normal use of a camera is one year at the very least ( normally two years in most EU countries) but that is not what we are talking about here. We are talking of a possible production defect with an essential part ( for the weather sealing it is essential) failing and rendering the camera no longer usable under the conditions which the camera had been promising to be operated. In many countries if an object which useful life is several years past the one or two years guarantee ( we are not going to throw out our cameras after the terms expire) , the guarantee extends to the reasonable expectation that the camera would work in all its parts even past the one year guarantee and the customers can successfully claim a guarantee even way past expiration. In case of a manufacturing defect showing itself after the guarantee has expired one can make a very sound case and expect the defect to be repaired way past whatever little guarantee they’ve sold you the camera with. Of course what one does with his camera is one’s own business, but Fuji Japan has, for sure, a different attitude towards this than the local importer.

the Asahi covers are very nice, unfortunately (and they tell you so too...) installing them automatically voids your Fuji guarantee.

I suppose that removing the the accessory “ door “ would make the WR no longer applicable and voiding any guarantee that you might have. Even if your guarantee has expired, you might still be entitled to this being repaired since this would qualify as a part malfunctioning, not because of use but because of a defect which might or might be not due to improper use but more likely to some problem with the material the camera is made. It looks bad and it would be interesting to hear whether this is happening to more cameras.

on the other hand now we have so many different options in terms of PP software that one could conceivably treat those as the “ film” choice we once had. Anyway, as I said, different medium.

I am not sure whether having shot much film gives me the possibility ( or the authority) to say whether “ film” per se was any “ better” than digital files, let alone to say whether Fuji got it “ better” than anyone else. The mediums are different enough to be, in my not so humble opinion, impossible to compare. I don’t think that it is “ necessary” to have worked with film to learn photography. Most of us don’t even print ( much, any or anyone at all ) their digital files and only ever look at the majority of their pictures on a screen rather than in print. The results are so different that I feel comparison is often pointless. As for Fuji getting it better than other digital cameras with their sensors, in all truth I am “ just” (pre)occupying myself with making pictures and let the pixel scrutiny to those who have an inclination to do so. I don’t.

well you know about "people who have a problem for every solution” ?

download it here http://www.fujifilm.com/support/digital_cameras/manuals/pdf/index/x/fujifilm_xt1_manual_en_es_ru_zhs_04.pdf it has a Dutch version too

more improvement to come then...

thanks, look forward to see the results of a ring light especially on close up portrait. The performance of the 60mm is seriously improved by the new software, I find.

All is set, the 60mm, the slowest of my lenses , has received a boost and works much better that it did before. Transition between macro and infinite is not instantaneous ( how could it be?!?) but the macro setting no longer requires to be enabled ( well, it is no longer there!) for the camera to be performing in macro mode (a general improvement with all lenses but one which particularly affects the 60). When operating within any given range ( macro, medium distance and infinity) things are very much faster than they were before although a little lag still persists with subject lacking contrast ( especially white ones). The face and eye detection seem to be operating rather well on this lens too. I don’t know whether I am ever going to use this function much but it might come in handy.

it is really not a very good idea to risk your expensive camera for something like shooting at less than a meter of depth. Horror stories are just around the corner and you might easily live to regret having done that! It would be so much easier to use a dedicated camera for the purpose and for the required “ depth” you could spend very little money indeed! Fuji has 3 different models in this category. The newest of them should be the FinePix XP80 a camera working up to 15m depth. But you can easily fond a secondhand older model XP-60 ? for very little money! So many people buy one of these cameras and never really use them! A camera “ bag” like an Ewa or a Dicapac, can be very dangerous to use and a rigid case will cost you more than a dedicated camera will cost you. Unless you are willing to risk your expensive camera, my advise is to use a dedicated camera for the purpose.

well, the only consolation would be that if there would have been anyone to tell you about THOSE prints he or she would have told you about those prints made by them in Singapore but chances are that if you live somewhere else the information would have been of little use to you the moment you would have stepped into someone else’s shop to have prints made since they would have used a completely different se up. There is no doubt that you can have X trans files printed at very large sizes with very good results. The best thing to do is for you to go to the nearest or best printing service available to you and, after a preliminary discussion on what to do (or NOT to do) with your files and how they want them to be given to them to assure the best results to have a test made. This could be even a portion of the file but in that case remember to look at it from the appropriate distance that the whole of the print would be looked at. This article explains the concept in detail http://www.photokaboom.com/photography/learn/printing/resolution/1_which_resolution_print_size_viewing_distance.htm

if there is anything revolutionary in the X Pro to come ( why 2 could be a 10?) it will be only logical that they wait for the impact of the X-T series has settled before they come with something which makes that series look obsolete. Whatever will come will come later rather than sooner.