darknj

Panasonic and Olympus have both heavily invested into the 4/3 and m4/3 systems, and even now they are still struggling to keep their head out of the water. The format clearly saved Olympus from banrukpcy some years ago but nowadays where the mirrorless is getting more common and we have Sony landing with their A7 series, you almost don't have to compromise between camera size and sensor anymore. The X-T1 (440g) is lighter than the OM-D E-M5 MkII (496g) and the A7RII (625g) is not that much heavier and has no compromise on the IQ. With every new advance of the larger sensor in the mirrorless world the 4/3 system dies a bit, the last bastion that holds them up is really that ocean of lenses, many of them are great primes.

I agree with a lot of what you said, but it doesn't explain why the motor would be adjusting anything while we clearly disabled the OIS, that should kill part of the motors function. Also, by changing that to manual focus, the motor shouldn't be doind anything but hold everything in the last known states until the focus is changed. Anyway, after a long night of research and way too little sleep, I couldn't find much about Fuji's Linear Motor except it could be borrowing some part of the technology of MagRail trains, which could then explain the humming as the force field would need to be running at all times no matter what. If it was a "regular" motor that moves with cranks and nooks, we would 'feel' it even a tiny little bit. Considering how photographs pay attention to details, I don't think one of us would have missed that behavior. In short, I have no better idea of what is happening inside the lens...

Usually one takes primes for speed and/or low light and zooms for praticallity. A setup that I like is the 18-135 coupled with the 10-24, toss in any of the F1.4, maybe the 35 for low light and that's more than enough for pretty much 90% of the time.

Not at all, theGX8 is a 4/3 sensor camera, just like the GX7 before.

Agreed, if they do release it, I will be heavily looking into it and which lens system they are going to use. As for the N1 and FX 70-300 VRII version, I didn't noticed that much softness, on a FF body it does show, but on a the N1 it is still decent in my books. But as I said, the biggest con is the weight and size of the N1 + FT mount and FX lens but I usually have a monopod or a tripod when I need to shoot at over 300mm, handheld doesn't really work that well with me on such lengthy zooms.

At the current moment, Fuji is at a sate of "Can't really mess up that badly anymore" which gives them some leeway but can be also unforgiving if they do mess up badly. The X-T1 is commonly agreed to be a great camera, the X-100 series still has a lot of fans and all 3 models are seeing decent sales on regular basis, even the X-Pro1 is much loved. It's not often that we see a company releasing that many bodies that are all well loved by the general community, the only other company I can think of is Sony which seems to be pushing out a new body of the A7 series every 6 months. But before the X series, the imaging department of Fuji wasn't really that developing, they were clearly loosing ground against Canikon and the smaller sensor was, and still is, dominated by the m4/3 cameras with an ocean worth of lenses. This makes the whole smaller than APS-C market rather crowded and one would need to be really striking to leave a mark. As for the Nikon being half hearted on the Nikon 1 series, I am rather unconvinced, they have released consistent camera bodies, clearly lots of experimenting but the glass is there to back it up. The first iteration was rather bad and ppl still use the awful Nikkor 1 10-30mm to measure the system while there have been better lenses released afterward, the 32mm F1.2 sure is pricey but I swear I can pull picture of it that won't be a shame to put next of FF cameras, the wide angle zoom is also very impressive, the distortion is kept to a minimum, absolutely no vignetting and CA needs to be hunted for. On the other Canon is just joking around when they made that EOS-M series, pretty much everything on the series is awful, mostly because of that awful sensor (Please Canon stop making sensors, just stops, it's getting embarrassing. Sincerely, The rest of the Photography world).

Nikon AF-S VR Zoom-NIKKOR 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED Lens, about half the price of the Nikkor 1 70-300 and about a sharp, yes it's heavier but at when you are at that point, you don't really care having a weird looking Nikon 1 with a super long range zoom. Or if you want to get even cheaper, AF Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6G, no longer VR but heck it's about 1/5th of the price of the Nikkor 1 70-300 and again, just as sharp a tiny bit lighter. Of course you would need that FT mount adapter but it is worth the price if want a small wildlife camera body. The cons is obviously the size and weight but the Nikkor 1 70-300 is already big and chunky, so you wouldn't feel too much differences.

Me neither, still finding the subject rather intriguing and that got me curious... Quick, to the Google mobile !

I know that at this point I am hi-jacking this thread but, doesn't that sounds weird ? Why would the motor hold the AF group in position when you manually focusing and the OIS is off, wouldn't it make more sense to enable it only when needed ? Or could there be some kind of lag for the LM to enable and disable itself ? If that's the case, that would be mean the LM lenses draw more power from the battery than non LM lenses.

I knew that the 56mm was noisy too but I didn't knew it around the level of the 35, the 27mm is softer on that side. But I had no idea the 18-135 was at a constant humming, never noticed! I am assuming it's the linear motor in action ? And you are right, I have shot with the 18-135 for over 6 months now and I never noticed any sounds from it. The 35mm sounds like an old man ramblings, not really that annoying but definitely there.

Now, go get a temp tattoo of it on your arm

On the plus side, the button is so small that you can just forget about it and it's well enough placed that you would never press it by accident, which is funny, its kind of they designed it to be there if you really want to press it. Otherwise it's just way over there in a corner... alone...

Funny you would mention his name, Zack Arias is among my most favorite ProTogs right next of Benjamin Von Wong. Zack's advice helped me greatly to pick my gear along the lenses, I still refer to his blog posts when wondering what I should be getting next.

The not enough programmable buttons is something Olympus is quite good at addressing, on the OM-D E-M5, if you can press it, you can basically change it into whatever you want, which is really impressive work on their side.

Actually, it's not that bad, I tried them and didn't liked them mostly because you have to wear a freaking belt, which I hate to do, thus not my style. But for those "lighter" cameras, it's not too bad stress wise. Provided you don't start running around, but for casual walking, it's sufficient enough and won't be risking damaging anything.

Just as a quick note here, the 35mm is a LOT noisier than the 18-135, even the newer 27mm produce more noise when focusing than the 18-135. You really have to be focusing on the noise to hear it adjust itself otherwise the lens is super pratical to have. What really makes it shine is the 5 stops stabilisations, I have done plenty of shots at 135mm at 1/15 handheld and it came out sharp, something that spoiled me to no end if I use it for too long and swap back to either the 27 or 35 and wonders why the picture is blurry at 1/20 handheld and then realise the mistake and adjust the speed accordingly.

The X serie was defined by the new lens mount, the XF mount. So it could be that the remored new 1" camera might be able to use the XF line of lenses ? I don't know, it's pure speculation anyway. Yes, the P900 is a 1/2.3" sensor but it's also backside illuminated, which helps greatly with low light, considering how far the lens extends on the P900, it's is really much welcomed. The Nikon 1 70-300 (189-810mm FF equiv) is rather impressive but one could do slightly better with any FX mount long range lens. But as said, I really don't see how Fuji is going to make itself come out if they do release something like that.

Thank for the battery feedback, I was really worried about the battery usage, the cable does sounds a better idea, I guess I will need some more time to consider the purchase.

It might seem weird but why did he swapped to an even older camera model with lower performances ? Is it because of the lens selection ? If so, I can get behind that, the m4/3 has currently the nicest lenses selection among all the formats. Except those super weird tiltshift lenses or that Nikon lens that adjust the front and/or back bokeh level, or something like that...

You will be pleased with the 18-55, it's really a nice kit lens, much better than what I am used to on the Nikon side. As for the SP-1 printer, I have been mulling around the idea of getting one for either work or pleasure but still not certain about it. Can you tell me how greedy it is toward the batteries ? I tend to travel light, packing my 18-135 along the 27 and 35 lenses, that covers up pretty much all my needs, thus having an extra piece of equipement that would need to use batteries and thus extras isn't that appealing but on the other hand being able to just hand out a picture that was taken a couple of mins ago does sound great.

GAS much ? Or just showing off Then again if it is your working gear, one doesn't have much to say. But as hobbyist... sheesh, you sure do like redundancy !

Vajazzle ?

I came into contact with Fuji because of the ratio IQ and size, both the D800 and D3S are too bulky for my smaller asian hands. I was looking around for a good while for a step up of my Nikon 1 series camera, maybe not something that would be super snappy but something slower, something that would allow me to actually think about the composition and careful controls about how I want things to look or feel. Spent a good 4-5 month looking around and came into this short list of candidates: - Sony A7R or A7II, smallest FF ever at, super bad cons, very expensive lenses and very poor choice of them, only 6 of them were released at the time. - Olympus OM-D E-M5 MkII, great at everything and the 5 stops IBS got me drooling but the IQ wouldn't have been that much better than my Nikon 1, I wanted something more drastic as improvement. And that was it, Fuji didn't even made into the initial list at first, then I walked into a camera shop where one of the Fuji representative was doing a small show about the X-T1, I had a small time with the X-Pro1 before and while it was enjoyable it wasn't exactly what I wanted to use, the mix of OVF and EVF didn't really worked for me. The Fuji guy then passed me around the X-T1 and it felt good in the hand, lord and behold when I looked into that super wide EVF, it was spacey, reactive and I could visualize the shot even before pressing the shutter. Along the histogram and rest of information displayed. I was pretty much sold at that point. The match came between the E-M5 MkII and X-T1 after that experience in the camera shop. Fuji won my wallet after some more research about the mentality of the company toward the users, mainly the FW updates, that's something almost non existing on the Canikon world, the less they talk about it, the better it is. Got the X-T1 with the 18-135 initially because WR and also, the camera was meant as my hobby only, no work assignment with it, just pure photography fun time so I wanted a decent "do it all" starting kit. The 35mm and 27mm were purchased maybe a week after. Now several months later, I still love my X-T1, not certain I would upgrade when the X-T2 gets released, I might think about it for the X-T3. Next targeted lens, that lovely 10-24mm F4, been saving money up for that one, with a bit of luck, I might be able to get it around late October right before my trip to Taiwan.

The GX8 is an impressive camera, specially in respect of its sensor size, the IQ looks really beautiful but I am not certain that the group of users that wants the X-Pro2 would want the GX8, the latter still lacks the finer control that Fuji has blessed us with the X series. And I have to admit that I grew quite fond of the Fuji colors. In overall, it more like something you would certainly consider if one isn't waiting any of the next generation of flagship cameras from Fuji.

I usually always leave the camera in the bag in Auto ISO limiting it to 3200, same goes for Aperture and have the speed on the new T mode on the X-T1, around 1/180 just in case I would need to grab the camera to capture something quickly. But when I have enough light I tend to swap it to ISO 400 and adjust as needed. I have no issue on leaving the camera deciding things for me, if it gets me the shot, that's matters to me the most.