mjh

A more current version of Lightroom would do the trick.

The output of the ADCs on the sensor chip is 14 bits and 14 bits per pixel get stored in raw files created by the X-T1 and X-T10 (in two bytes per pixel).

How would you know that Fuji’s daylight white balance was 5200 K? It is not like there was a colour temperature embedded in the raw file. A raw converter takes the white point data as specified in the meta data and applies some algorithm to translate that to a colour temperature value and a green/magenta bias, but as the algorithms differ, so will the values displayed by different raw converters. Having said that, it is true that Fuji cameras will produce Fuji colours – they always have, just like Canon or Olympus cameras yield Canon or Olympus colours, respectively. Fuji has always tried to have their digital cameras mimick the characteristics of their film emulsions.

Are you sure that’s the image you wanted to show? Because, quite frankly, I don’t see the ‘bow’ you are referring to. And I’ve really tried, carefully scrutinising the image at 400%. There is a very slight (sub-pixel) inclination in both rows, that’s all.

These are fairly typical cases of longitudinal chromatic aberration where the colour of the fringing depends on whether the subject is in front of or behind the plane of sharpness. Even the best corrected lenses (corrected for lateral chromatic aberration that is) can suffer from this phenomenon – see the Leica forum for examples of fringing produced by some much more expensive lenses. Obviously firmware version 4.0 has no bearing on this.

Not ‘instead of’: Fuji employs Sony sensors (custom versions with X-Trans rather than Bayer CFA array) now and will probably continue to do so in the future. Just with sensors based on whatever is state-of-the-art then. Scaling down the full sensor resolution to obtain a HD or 4K video stream is always tricky and the X-Trans pattern doesn’t make this any easier. Sony did choose a 42 rather than 50 MP sensor for the Alpha 7R II just to simplify creating video images – the CFA pattern is just one factor to be considered.

Holding back a camera ready to ship so not only the troubled camera division is losing sales, but the (quite profitable) Sony Semiconductor divison is losing even more sales as they cannot market their new sensor to Fuji, Nikon, Ricoh etc. – sounds like a completely crazy idea. But this being Sony, who knows …

Fuji appears to follow a conservative approach, adding new features but keeping as much of the user experience intact as possible. One could say they didn’t want to rewrite the whole manual (or at least they didn’t want to change too many illustrations) … Whether this decision will be popular with owners of an X-T1 remains to be seen; Fuji seems to care most for those who prefer to feel right at home again even when there is some new functionality added.

Sony’s sensors were good enough for Fuji during the last couple of years; why do you think that would change? And even the sensor developed by Fuji are manufactured by Toshiba.

Yeah, but nobody is suggesting the button should be used while shooting. Again, ‘shooting mode’ doesn’t imply shooting. The camera is in shooting mode most of the time it is switched on and the delete button could just as well be assigned some function in that mode.

While that may be true, ‘shooting mode’ is not the same as ‘shooting’.

I never attempted to explain how the zone system works. My post was about spot metering assuming a 18% percent reflectivity which was quite useful with silver-halide film – make sure that middle gray gets rendered as middle gray and the highlights and shadows will take care of themselves (obviously the zone system adds a lot of sophistication to that simple rule). With digital photography this rule doesn’t work at all as the highlights require serious attention; it is rather the midtones and shadows that take care of themselves (or that we can easily take care of during raw development) after we have made sure that the highlights are preserved. Thus my contention that spot metering isn’t as useful anymore as it used to be. Having said that, one can use the built-in spot meter as one would use an external spot meter, i.e. for measuring highlights and shadows individually and choosing an f-stop and shutter speed to deal with the measured scene contrast.

It is certainly not unheard of. The delete buttons of my X10 and XQ1 double as drive and exposure correction buttons, respectively, when the camera is in shooting mode.

Also pressing the delete button on its own does nothing; you need to take further action before an image gets deleted.

Obviously, but then I never said one did.