Dis

Solt lakes of Russia. X-T1, XF 10-24, XF 18-135
 

 

 

 

 

Tom, her necklace attracts attention a lot just as it's an ad., but it's not in focus. IMO that's irritating. I'd love to see this picture with enough DOF to cover both her face and her body.

Solt lakes of Russia. X-T1, XF 10-24, XF 18-135
 

 

 

 

 

Solt lakes of Russia. X-T1, XF 10-24, XF 18-135
 

 

 

 

 

Solt lakes of Russia. X-T1, XF 10-24, XF 18-135
 

 

 

 

 

Solt lakes of Russia. X-T1, XF 10-24, XF 18-135
 

 

 

 

 

Solt lakes of Russia. X-T1, XF 10-24, XF 18-135
 

 

 

 

 

Solt lakes of Russia. X-T1, XF 10-24, XF 18-135
 

 

 

 

 

Solt lakes of Russia. X-T1, XF 10-24, XF 18-135
 

 

 

 

 

Solt lakes of Russia. X-T1, XF 10-24, XF 18-135
 

 

 

 

 

I owe to x100 series for these images.
 
 

KirillSokolovWhat's with her finger and the lip?

As always it's worth to upgrade to a direct replacement model only if you're a working photographer who uses camera every day or you have extra money. 

Because the X-Pro1 was a phenomenal camera when it came out and thus also when Rockwell wrote his review of said camera. However, like most people with a website consisting of hundreds of pages, he probably doesn't keep revisiting and updating the content already posted, but continually moves ahead with new stuff.
 
This said, there is nothing weird about "loving" the X-Pro1 (when it was released) and now being "unimpressed" with the replacement camera, now. It is probably his opinion that the X-Pro2, apart from the more megapixels of the sensor, is not really that much of an advance over the X-Pro1, as a lot of the old niggles are still there.
 
And similarly I won't be much impressed by the X-T2 sufficiently to entice upgrading from the X-T1.

I think the X-Pro2 menu organization is better than Ken Rockwell claims. There are a few things that could be better/more accessible but that does not mean the whole thing is disorganized. 
 
I doubt I will ever use ISO 51K so I don't care if it is less readily available. Pretty trivial complaint I think.
 
At first I thought it was too clumsy to have to go into the menu to switch from Card1 to Card2 when viewing images, but then I found the shortcut. Problem solved (and was mainly user ignorance)
 
Rockwell mentions the clock and formatting cards. I never format cards on a shoot. I have spare cards ready to go. I also don't expect to ever think about the clock while out shooting. Screen brightness is also not readily accessible, but so far I have not needed to adjust it while shooting... and I have been shooting at night, bright sunlight, overcast etc.
 
There is a User menu that can be configured how one wants. I put a few things there to make them easier to get to. So I think the complaints he mentions are a bit obscure and in most cases there are already ways to address them. I understand that as a reviewer, he is not actually using the camera much and in his work he uses many cameras. 
 
If the X-Pro2 is your main camera or one of them, it is relatively easy to become fluid and fast with it in terms of intuitively navigating the functionality. I appreciate his interest for the functionality to be as easy as possible and I can imagine improvements for the X-Pro2 but I have also never tried a single camera that did not frustrate me in some manner. 
 
My only significant complaint about the X-Pro2 menu is I want to be able to control which menu is the default when hitting the menu button. 
 
Oh, not menu related, but I'd like when using film simulation bracketing to be able to use C1-C7 including the different adjustments. 

http://kenrockwell.com/fuji/x-pro2.htm
To those who don't know Ken's reviews, don't take his words literally. He loves to exaggerate his real impressions.

Interesting review...although a lot of copy & paste on the viewfinder. Do not agree on the landscape colors for Fuji in general. But in most cases, he has some fair points about each camera he reviews, and a lot of subjective exaggerations and complaints that are not consistent. He for sure knows how to stay interesting and drive traffic...

KR is quite successful blogger. Thus he is not an idiot by any means. Nevertheless in order to synthesize not an idiotic advice from his article, you already have to know a lot, which makes the advice quite useless. There are lot's of correct, wrong and exaggerated info on the website so one has to sort very carefully.

KR is quite successful blogger. Thus he is not an idiot by any means. Nevertheless in order to synthesize not an idiotic advice from his article, you already have to know a lot, which makes the advice quite useless. There are lot's of correct, wrong and exaggerated info on the website so one has to sort very carefully.

I find Ken's reviews helpful... not so much his personal conclusions, but the info he provides. When I first tried my X-Pro2, I discovered the same thing. The auto brightness on the EVF is crap. It goes from washed out to too dark. I turned it off and have left it off since.
 
He is also right about the area af focus. I mostly shoot single focus point because it too often gets it wrong. 
 
I read a number of X-Pro2 reviews that did not mention these things. His review of the good and bad about the X-Pro2 is accurate. Now all his stuff about who a pro is, what they want, and his subjective conclusions, I mostly consider to be noise in otherwise useful reviews. 

If I am out photographing an event in the daytime with one body and one lens, it would be the 18-135
 
The 16-55 or the 18-55 kit lens are both just not quite enough reach for me as a single lens option.
 
I'd love to see a 16-80 f4 OIS WR Fuji lens. 

There's really no substitute for true DSLR focus speed. Well, actually...there's no substitute for high-end DSLR speed. A pro class DSLR like a 5D3 or a Nikon D800 will be a heck of a lot faster than the X-Pro or the X-T1 but c'mon they also cost several times more. 
 
In low-light I find the EVF makes the biggest difference. It's like night-vision and the X-Pro has gotten even better than the X-T1 at this because of the even higher refresh rate. The new Arcos filter looks fantastic in low-light. It's a little HDR looking when you pump up the dynamic range but all handheld. LOVED shooting with Arcos. 
 
And the noise...there's definitely visible noise at 6400 or 12800 but the detail is still sharp enough in most situations. I'll post some samples in a bit. JPEG only though...I have no way of processing these RAW files so I've just resized JPEGs.
 
The noise looks quite good though. Can it really be called noise at this point? I can still tell it's digital but it does give shots...texture. 

Does it have a rear sync with external non-TTL flashes?
How about a PC sync terminal, does it have a rear sync?

Didn't really notice a diff in AF between the two except that some features (like face detect) don't work with the OVF.
 
I didn't try the zone tracking. I don't do a lot of that, really.

There's definite improvement here. I shot mostly in downtown Vancouver at night but I did find focus snappier than on my X-T1. I usually used the EVF and having it in ISO12,800 looks like night-vision most of the time. 
 
 
I could not get it to take only one picture with 8.0fps selected. At least two each time but it didn't black out anything with the animation. 
 
Single shot time is improved. Seems to process quicker (I use the same Samsung 90mb/s cards in both).