Shawn S

The time when I would actually reformat the card is if I need to remove a lot of files as the exFAT filesystem isn't the best.

Can't be bothered is a bit harsh - I can't see any rationale for why it is required. It is using a standard formatted card. I view the cards as pre-formatted to the defined standard when I buy them. I'm happy to not follow instructions or recommendations for things which are a little enthusiastic and perhaps put in there to cover themselves. At worst case following the recommendation will shorten the life of the SD card by unnecessarily rewriting the card. If I were concerned, I would then also need to reformat the card every time I used it in my laptop, which is fairly often as I don't do file transfer over USB cable.

No problem! I should have been a little clearer - I get the twinkling on the screen, but the resulting image is not affected. It's only on the display.

I get exactly the same behaviour on my X-E2 with ISO>=4000. Never happened on my X-E1. I assume the noise is due to the newer sensor.

Interesting... I never bother formatting the card, not even for updates to firmware for body or lenses.The XE1 & XE2 firmware have been stable enough at reading/writing the exFAT filesystem, and popping it in and out of my laptops has never impacted readability either. I am curious whether the cards you used were indeed previously formatted....