Vaquero Photo

Gentlemen, I want to apologize if I offended anyone. I can see how opinions about the points I made can defer and I therefore only want to elaborate on one of the points in questions. Flysurfer, you mentioned that the light level scale shows you exactly in third stop increments everything from zone 2 to zone 8. This assumes that one stop equals one zone of the zone system, which is incorrect. The number of zones (or the latitude of each zone for that matter) depends on the dynamic range of the medium. The X-Trans-II sensor has a dynamic range roughly between 12 and 13 stops, depending on the ISO value. To assume that 1 stop EV = 1 zone is therefore not correct. I furthermore just want to emphasise that I like the Fuji -X system more than any other mirrorless system on the marked. I do, however, fear that Fuji will be overrun by sony and the MFT system if it doesn't offer something truly unique. I therefore just thought about what Fuji should in my opinion do to further develop the x system in accordance with what the x-system stands for to achieve a competitive advantage. I sincerely apologise if anyone took offence or felt that these thoughts were close to spam. I would, however, find it quite interesting whether other Fuji users would have similar ideas or suggestions to make the fuji x cameras something truly unique and an even better tool for photography.

Hey Antoni, thanks for you reply. You are right in one regard: 'Horribly wrong' certainly is an exaggeration. A more appropriate title may have been 'five desirable improvements' or something like this. Nevertheless, I stand by my points, please let me elaborate on them: 1) Even Leica shutter speed dials have half stops, which matches the half stops of the lenses. The shutter speed dial of my friends M9 is really quite easy to turn with your index finger, which makes manual shooting a joy. Fuji could do something like this. 2) I shoot raw, I mostly use spot metering for tricky lighting conditions and have to move the camera around for this. In my experience I get better detail if I don't have to push or pull the exposure in post. 3) The 60mm is the closest to what I want, but it is not a great lens to use. 4) As explained, I hate carrying around extra equipment. I agree that this would be a novelty, but IMO Fuji should strive to offer something unique and this was just a suggestion for a great solution. 5) I'm not an engineer and don't know if it would be possible to fit a larger battery in a x100s successor. However, if it is possible, it would be a great addition. I see your point with the comparison of the canon 1dx and the 5d mark III, but these cameras are very different in size, given that the 1Dx features a built in battery grip. In contrast with that, the Fuji cameras have roughly the same size and - again - the main mantra of this system is portability. More uniform equipment - the batteries just being one example - could be great addition to the system. Anywho, thanks for your input!

Hey Patrick, as you know, we all love your site. I personally literally visit it every day. However, here is a simple suggestion how you could turn your great rumors site into a phantasmic site: Currently the rumors are only organised as a newsfeed. This is great when you viisit regularly, but not so great if you want to get a quick overview on what's coming up. Instead you could implement a simple and well-designed overview page on Fuji bodies, lenses and other stuff. In this overview page, you could label the different items with colours depending on whether they are rumored, confirmed or released. Clicking on the overview item would lead to the rumoured specs or - at a later stage - to the reviews etc. essentially similar to when you type in a certain model name in the search dialog. To show it a little bit more graphically, I was thinking about something like this: 1) Bodies - X-Pro2 (rumoured) Rumoured spec 1 Spec to etc - X-T2 (rumoured) Spec 1 etc. etc. - X-T2 (released) review 1 review 2 etc. - Medium Format Camera (rumoured) Link to Rumour 2) Lenses - 90mm (released) Review You get the Idea 3) Other gear - Fuji-X-Tshirt (released) Buy here - Great Fuji Flash (lets hope it ever comes) I don't know whether it would be vastly difficult to code something like this, but this would be done well, it could be the most comprehensive and simple overview on existing, rumoured and upcoming Fuji gear ever. To someone like me, a site like this would be insanely helpful to plan for future purchases. Let me know what you think.

When the Fuji-X-system was released, I was very exited. Finally a system that does so many things right that so many camera manufacturers have been getting wrong for the last decades. However, after using the X-System for a while, I started to take issue with certain features of the Fuji-X cameras or in some cases the lack thereof. I have therefore written this little rant and would be a much happier X-shooter if Fuji could implement these suggestions in the future. 1) The Manual Controls of the Fuji-X Cameras are insufficient, especially the Shutter Speed Dial I am not at all satisfied with the shutter speed dial of the X100s and the X-T1 (I haven’t tried other cameras so far). It is far too hard to turn, it isn’t nearly large enough and only offers adjustments in full stops. The whole point of a manual shutter speed dial is to enable the photographer to shoot comfortably in manual mode and avoid the use of fiddly plastic dials. However, when you use the shutter speed dials of the Fuji cameras, you have to resort to using the flimsy plastic back dial to adjust the shutter speed in third-stops, which completely defeats the purpose of having a metal shutter speed dial in the first place. Ironically, the Sony A7 and the Olympus cameras offer a much nicer manual shooting experience, even though both cameras still have the traditional PASM mode dial. There are furthermore lenses with aperture rings for the MFT and the Sony system, which means that Fuji practically doesn’t offer anything unique in this department anymore. I find this really strange, especially since Fuji should have some experience because of their analog rangefinders like theGF670, which had a shutter speed dial that even incorporated exposure compensation into the shutter. Conclusion: The manual controls of the Fuji-X-system are nothing more than a gimmick and do not encourage to 'get out of auto'. 2) The Metering System fails to achieve be a useful for landscape photographers Given that we can use electronic viewfinders with both cameras, I simply don’t understand why Fuji doesn’t incorporate some sort of indication showing what the camera meters on. It would especially be helpful to be able to see the spot of spot metering and it would be even better, of you could move the spot metering spot around. This would be a tremendous help especially for landscape photographers, because you could meter different areas without moving the camera. This could also render a manual meter completely obsolete. It would further be helpful if the user could select the calibration of the light meter. Traditionally, the spot meter only meters medium grey (18% grey or zone 5 in terms of Ansel’s zone system). It would be a tremendous help if you could set the meter to other zones in order to get a perfect exposure in complex lighting situations. Sure, the photographer could also meter the area for zone 5 and make manual adjustments to push or pull the exposure to the intended zone. The problem with that is that the dynamic range of the X-Trans sensors is not consistent for all ISO values, which means that manual adjustments can be rather complicated to execute. Conclusion: If Fuji would include a feature like this, it would easily revolutionise a traditional landscape workflow. Frame, meter, set exposure, focus. All with a tiny instrument and without moving the camera around. I don't see why a system like this isn't the standard for mirrorless camera that meter directly off the sensor. 3) The Lineup is still weak for Portrait, Macro & Flash Photography I really wonder why there isn’t a decent portrait/macro lens for the Fuji System. Both, the 56mm and the 60mm are in my opinion too short to provide flattering compression and the 90mm will be quite a beast and I’m note sure whether it will have any macro capabilities. I also might be a little bit too long for macro work (given that it will have a 135mm FOV). A perfect Lens would be a 70 or 75mm f2 with a well working focus limiter. This lens in combination with the 14mm and the 35mm would make for a hell of a travel/landscape combination and make a very decent fit for 99% of all shooting conditions. The MFT system already offers similarly great combination of three lenses with their 60mm macro, 45mm and 12 mm. This is why am actually considering switching to MFT. A much stranger, but perhaps genius idea would be to build a x100s tele counterpart with a fixed 75mm lens with a leaf shutter. With this combination, I would sell anything else I have an live happily ever after, knowing that this combination would be incredibly useful for flash work (since I could benefit from unlimited sync speeds), as well as 95% of most other shooting conditions. Another Problem in this regard are the sync speeds of most Fuji bodies. My lovely X100s offers phenomenal sync speeds. The EVIL options, however, are even behind DSLR standard. I don't understand why sync speeds of 1/500 aren't possible, especially since Nikon already achieved this with the D40 almost 10 years ago. I am not an expert on technical limitations of camera shutters, but I could imagine that the sync speeds of modern cameras are so low because shutters are build for higher frame rates in continuous shooting. If there is actually a limitation like this, Fuji could use this as an opportunity and build one pro-line body (x-t2?) with high frame rates in continuous shooting and one model with a high sync-speed and silent shutter for portrait and travel photography (x-pro2?). I believe a segmentation of camera bodies would be a very, very refreshing and healthy novelty for the camera market, which is already oversaturated with 999.999 almost identical DSLR bodies. Conclusion: There is a lot of potential for future development and segmentation both for camera lenses and bodies. 4) Flash Speaking of Flash: Flash with Fuji is awful as we all know. Rather than cooperating with what's left of METZ, Fuji should maybe find a partnership with a Flash manufacturer like Nissin or even Yongnuo and do something that hasn't been done before (at least to my knowledge). Some of the Yongnuo flashes incorporate TTL receivers in the the Flashbody. This helps to avoid clutter in the camera bag for wto reasons: First, you don't need to carry a receiver. Second, you don't need a second set of AAA batteries just for the stupid receiver. Now imagine how great it would be if a TTL transmitter for this flash would be built in and fully adjustable from the camera. The Flash and the camera could communicate without the need for any additional equipment and batteries. As a travel photographer, I would be in heaven since my gear would once again be much simplified. If these internal transmitters and receivers would allow for high sync speed (which the Fuji-bodies should have, see above), you could get away with using relatively small flashes, since you could make better use of them. Again: Lighter and simpler gear. Conclusion: Fuji could do a lot to achieve the proclaimed target of mirrorless photography (light and simple gear) for flashwork. 5) Get rid of clutter Finally, I want to address a minor point, that is nevertheless very important to me. I have two Fuji cameras, which use two freaking different kinds of batteries. If I go on a short trip and try to fit everything in my small camera bag, I hate that I have to bring to sets of batteries. Please, Fuji, in the future use the chunky NP-W126 of the X-T1 for all of your High-End bodies. And here is a even greater idea: If you decide on a great option for flash photography, offer us a flash that uses the same rechargeable lithium Ion batteries as the camera! The Godox V850 uses a rechargeable Li-Ion battery, which means that it cannot be impossible. Also, if you give us fast sync speeds (see above) we don't need really powerful flashes, which could make the use of relatively small Li-Ion batteries possible. Conclusion: Please, Fuji, do stuff to help us minimising clutter. All right, that was it for the moment. Let me know what you think.