darknj

This is a rather difficult advice to give. If possible I would say, take some gear and go into a shop and try one of them for a spin, that would give you exactly what can expect out of them and how they would look/feel. As for me, my daily drive bag has been clearly taken over by the Peak Design Messenger bag, I know they are releasing a smaller version of it, which sound just as good, but I still prefer my daily bag to be larger. It's easier to manager a half empty large bag, than try to find more space in a bag that is clearly too small for your sudden increase in gear. If you need to carry an ultrabook laptop, I will not take anything smaller than the DNA 13 with only the exception of the DNA 11 if you happen to be using a Microsoft Surface. Now if photo editing on the spot is not needed, just go take the DNA 8, I have been able to cram my X-T1 with 35 F1.4, 18-135 and 10-24 into a much smaller bag and still be able to carry 2 extra batteries and a smaller 5200 mah powerbank, battery charger for the camera and enough cables to juice up anything in an emergency.

When you change AF, the camera will remember the last setting it was used, for example if you have set a 5x3 zone for AF-C, it will switch to that zone whenever you use the mode. As for setting them up, you move the af point around, you change the size with the thumb wheel. If you want to change the type (single point, zone,...) you will need to have a Fn button assigned to it. I used the up arrow button on the cross pad on the back of my X-T1 for that purpose and used the front Fn button move the af point. All this can be found in deeper details on the online manual, since it changed a lot since the actual make manual got printed.

Double check the connectors on the lens, that could be something there that could be blocking it. Also, I guess you check that you have the lens correctly locked into the mount right ? I have had some issues with the 35 F2 where it was misbehaving because I didn't turned it fully in.

Use a smaller zone, like 3x3 is sufficient for most things for AF-S. The zone focus works a lot better for AF-C where you have something to track or things that move kind of fast. But if you have a busy background where the focus could be grabbing it, it's better to use single point. Personally I switch between 3x3 for all purpose shooting, single point when I need precision (cranked up 2 slot from smaller point) and 5x3 for AF-C for movement tracking. It's not perfect, I don't ever think it would be but once you know how each AF work, it's a lot easier to figure out why it's behaving in such a way.

Where is it dark ? On your computer's screen ? The camera's LCD ? Also, daylight with full bright sun ? Overcast cloud ? Very heavy cloud ? Don't forget that the XF 100-400 has F4.5 at the widest, that's a rough 2 stops lower than most Fuji lenses and about a stop from most zooms and you lose even more light if you zoom fully to 400 mm. If you auto ISO is capped at a lower value, like 800, it's quite normal that your picture will be dark if you had the speed set at 1/1000 of a sec. Please give us the details about the picture you took so we can get a better idea of what happened.

You are aware that in the long history of photography, the "standard" 35mm film format makes no sense right ? It was mostly marketing that pushed it to be the currently known "standard" format. For a long time it was mostly large and medium format. The 35mm format was considered something silly and utterly small compared to the larger brethren. And if you are wondering why not FF Fuji, I am simply going to repost a video of Zack Arias: He pretty much sums it up for a lot of APS-C users. Another point for APS-C, at least for me, focal reducers. Agreed, it adds some softness but getting about a stop worth of light it's just plain great.

One thing to bring into attention, there have been several reports that even with the 100mm Lee filter holder, the 14-24 lens has some vignetting @14. It might not be much, but better to know about it first. Another alternative would be Benro, they are doing quite decent filters with a slight green color shift in their big stopper, nothing really major and it's only noticeable under very specific circumstances. For the rest of their line up, it's quite good and priced correctly for their quality.

Pay attention to the generation of the lens, Helios 44-1/2/3/4. The swirly bokeh was due to a lens defect that got corrected starting the 3rd gen and almost fully corrected in the 4th one. Usually legacy lens hunters go for either 1st or 2nd gen, the later being a tad bit cheaper and slightly more contrasty than 1st gen (YMMV). Shoot wide open with a focal reducer for maximum level of swirlyness, but you will lose in sharpness while doing so, it's not a huge amount, but it will be noticeable if you have rather large prints, like A4 size for example. That aside, I love mine a lot, it's easily my most used legacy lens. I have added a Super Takumar 105 F2.8, nicknamed Bokehnator and a Vivitar 24 F2.8 for when I need to go wider.

You are aware that they do have a 10-24 F4 right ? And that lens is not THAT expensive compared to the quality of it. Making a cheaper 10-18 F4 lens would be rather detrimental to their whole lens line up. The XF mount is really still quite young, they can't really afford to make lenses that would overlap other for no good reason, except being cheaper. The XC lens line, while very well received, is not selling that well compared to the much better XF lenses.

16-35 F1.4 ?! I guess you meant the F4, right ? If so, you can easily replace it with the Fujinon XF 10-24 F4, as for the 2 others, you have the two 2.8 zooms. B But please do not even try to compare the AF speed, the D810 is far more accurate and faster than the Fuji's bodies, at least currently.

The 50-140 is rather expensive, I could easily get the 35 F1.4, the 18-135 and the 60mm for the price of that single lens. And when you have kids running around, you want something smallish for agile movements, the 50-140 is big and heavy. I would hate if I had to lug that huge piece of glass around every time I want to take a quick snap of my children.

Considering that almost everything on the camera connects to the board, it's a reasonable price for such a critical component. A colleague broke his D800 shutter recently and it could end up costing that much to replace it.

I would like to offer the 60mm macro instead of the 56, almost same fov but a lot cheaper, the F2.4 is good enough with a bit of light and macro part does come in handy at times. The 90 is really one of the sharpest lens on the current line up, but you really need a lot of room otherwise be stuck with only portraits. Get one of the F1.4 lenses (16, 23, 35) for low light and like you said, the 18-135 to add more flexibility. Or at least the 18-55 if you don't need the extra range.

Really ?! Gosh, that X-Pro1 would never had gotten my attention at that price ! Thanks for the correction, I wasn't aware of how expensive it used to be at release.

Heck no ! The X-Pro2 is 50% higher than the X-Pro1 at release date. And the new tech is the expensive part, a lot of us are thinking that the X-T2 could also be bigger due to the 4k film feature and overheating issues. Thus it won't be the same internal infrastructure as they need to arrange everything to allow better heat dissipation while still maintaining WR and the possibly roomy EvF that we all got used to from the X-T1.

Meh... who cares about where it is being made if it works well and you don't have any issues with it ? Beside, what else is NOT made in China these days ? Has anything being made locally with the same price range performed any better ? I have seen XF lenses made in Japan failing most QC and I know my XF 18-135 is performing perfectly fine for something that was made in China...

The XF 60 lens is slower when compared to the 35 F1.4, the AF is even more noticeable, specially in low light with the 35 F2 version. That aside, I love the 60mm for general portraiture work and used as a small tele for reporting. Do take into consideration that it is really not a fast AF lens, it's among the slow ones, like the 56 F1.2. So if you plan on taking fast moving subject, you will be very disappointed with it. For the rest, I find to be just right for general purpose photography where the speed is not a factor, it even works on the street if you have a bit of time to frame your shot.

Or do the lens swap in a bag that carries your lens, plenty of tricks to use. Or even better, teach you lil' one how to use a camera and what can or can not be touched. That's what I did with my 6 years old son, I started by teach him how to hold a camera and how to take pictures, about 6 months later, I got him an old Nikon 1 V1 with Nikkor 1 10mm F2.8 lens. He nows enjoys his own camera, can shot decently something in the frame, knows basic composition (ie. placing ppl where he wants them to be), can do short films and most of all, learned that he can move around to get the picture he wants because of the fixed lens.

Going to play the devil's advocate here for a moment, but my 335 Billingham has served for close of a decade now, you can see that it has seen much better days, but that bag is a trooper, it still a good bag whenever I need to mule around FF bodies and lenses and the zipper are still in pristine conditions. Billingham bags are super expensive but they will stand the trials of time and come out victorious while others will have replaced several parts already. I have often considered getting myself a Hadley Pro but the usage I would have of it does not justify its price. The 335 was a self gift for when I started this whole thing and I am glad that I did.

There aren't any "smart" adapter, at least as far as I know, that works on the Fuji body with other lenses, all of them lose the connector with the aperture control and need to manual focus. Hence some of us prefer to use legacy lenses where the aperture control is still on the lens instead of being on the camera body.

Weather resistance is something that could be of importance. I know it is for me. But that aside, the X-T10 has some more features for the auto mode where you can pre/auto-select some kind of profiles but you only get jpeg out of them. For the rest, it's fairly the same thing, small bits here and there like the EvF that is smaller on the X-T10 and no alternate eye-cup like the X-T1.

It's provide a 30 mb file from a 16MP sensor, to give you a point of comparison, a 12 bit lossless raw file from the Nikon D800 is about 35-40 mb. I think it's very safe to say that Fuji raws are already lossless

Oh don't worry about that, at one point, you will have them all

No worries, just making sure that the fundamentals have been done. If there was dust inside the lens, that could be leading to connector issues, that could be the reasons your aperture is no longer usable correctly.

I know it sounds silly, but did you checked that the switch is not on A on the lens ?