bradsarno

When the sea is pissed off 
 
A couple weeks ago on the North Shore of Kauai.
 

Seascape in Thailand, Koh Tao island.
 
 

The Aftermath by Ladimannskipanni, on Flickr

I think the X30 is hands down the best kept secret in the high-end compact world. Smaller sensor, yes, but image quality and shooting experience are arguably better than the 1" offerings out there. It's a stunning camera. 
 
B

When in auto modes, the EV compensation dial will choose various combinations of aperture and shutter speed and ISO to increase or decrease the exposure. When in manual mode as you suggest, the only variable left for the EV dial to control exposure is the ISO. So in that case they are virtually doing the same thing, but only in that particular situation. If in aperture or shutter priority or fully auto modes, that exposure compensation dial will control more variables than just ISO. 
 
Also, I believe that in this case you describe, the EV dial will only have an effect if it's set to Auto ISO. If it's set on a particular ISO value putting you in FULLY manual mode, the EV dial will not do anything. 
 
 
 
B

I think this 18mm f2 lens has something very special going on with it. My only gripes have to do with what happens at the far sides with the digital distortion correction, that could have been done by Fuji just a bit better. So avoid group people shots with faces at the extreme edges.
 
And sharpness, well, this lens is plenty sharp, often VERY sharp where it matters. That's a non-issue for me. People should make more photos and stop peeping. Sharpness is generally not what gives a lens its character and special qualities. 
 
What I love about the little 18 is its look, how it renders a well placed subject. Shooting with an 18mm on a cropped-sensor is an art. It's easy to take boring shots if you don't make your subject and your viewpoint interesting, easy to make everything seem blandly distant. But when done well, this lens really has a special pop to it, a nice 3D realism. I also love its color and contrast and a certain liveliness about it. Even it's bokeh is nice. 
 
And don't forget, f2 is fast. That's a real factor to consider. 
 
It focuses quickly too. 
 
It's affordable, especially used. 
 
It has a fairly close near focus distance, not quite macro, but nice and near. It's small and light and has a great hood. It has the nice aperture ring and focus ring. I think it's quite the special lens, often misunderstood, tragically underrated among the XF collection. A well kept secret actually. 
 
Highly recommended. 

Problem solved.
 
So I did a factory reset today and found that the color in live view become the same as the final image. After I changed the setting back one by one, I found finally figured out what has been causing the problem – RGB settings. I changed to AdobeRGB after I received the camera (don’t ask me why, I did the same thing for my X-E2, X100S, X100T…), and it is the AdobeRGB that caused the color in the live view to be different than the color in the final image. After switch back to sRGB the color became the same. I called Fuji customer service that they are saying it is normal, just two different standards. I was just amazed by how the color are that less saturated for AdobeRGB.
 
So, from today on, I’ll stick to sRGB…

My X-E1 with the cheap K&F adapter using a beat up $20 Super-Takumar 50mm F1.4, probably at about F2.8 or so. 

I think this 18mm f2 lens has something very special going on with it. My only gripes have to do with what happens at the far sides with the digital distortion correction, that could have been done by Fuji just a bit better. So avoid group people shots with faces at the extreme edges.
 
And sharpness, well, this lens is plenty sharp, often VERY sharp where it matters. That's a non-issue for me. People should make more photos and stop peeping. Sharpness is generally not what gives a lens its character and special qualities. 
 
What I love about the little 18 is its look, how it renders a well placed subject. Shooting with an 18mm on a cropped-sensor is an art. It's easy to take boring shots if you don't make your subject and your viewpoint interesting, easy to make everything seem blandly distant. But when done well, this lens really has a special pop to it, a nice 3D realism. I also love its color and contrast and a certain liveliness about it. Even it's bokeh is nice. 
 
And don't forget, f2 is fast. That's a real factor to consider. 
 
It focuses quickly too. 
 
It's affordable, especially used. 
 
It has a fairly close near focus distance, not quite macro, but nice and near. It's small and light and has a great hood. It has the nice aperture ring and focus ring. I think it's quite the special lens, often misunderstood, tragically underrated among the XF collection. A well kept secret actually. 
 
Highly recommended. 

I agree. I shoot primarily people, and I'm happy with the 18mm. The only reason I don't use it as much as my 23mm is because I shoot at 1.4 pretty frequently. I'm growing to prefer the 18mm focal length, and for shooting JPGs, the 18mm is perfectly fine. I definitely notice softness and some distortion in the corners when I'm shooting RAW, but like I said, since I mostly shoot people, that doesn't really affect me. 
 
I really need to shoot this lens more. It's easy to forget how fast f/2 actually is when you normally deal with 1.4 and 1.2 lenses.
 
Depending on your usage, I'd say I highly recommend the 18mm. It's small, fast, affordable, and image quality is at least good enough IMHO. The only thing I wouldn't really recommend it for is landscape/architecture, where you don't need the speed and distortion is more important. But for people, low light, and as a walk-around lens, I think it's great.

My X-E1 with the cheap K&F adapter using a beat up $20 Super-Takumar 50mm F1.4, probably at about F2.8 or so.