BobJ

Not sure what went wrong for you. I have an X-T3 and do not have any real exposure problems. The XT-30 is smaller and lighter but the X-t3 is, as you say, weather resistent and has a much better viewfinder. I would say plump for the X-T3 if you can get one within your budget.

The firmware update may be coincidence. I had this experience with an x-t2. it was caused by a faulty SD card. Swopping them around will not work. The bad one will cause this fault in either slot. Replace both in the first instance and see what happens. I do hope that it is that simple for you too.

So Fuji released another firmware update on November 11th - 1.02. I haven't got the patience to repeat the exhaustive tests I did before but with some quick tests I believe that the issue has been resolved. The 16-80 now shows no more shutter induced softness than the 18-55 and this is such a small effect that it can only be seen by careful pixel peeping at 100%.

Thanks for bringing this to the attention of others. I recently bought the 16-80. I have done some tests with my X-T2 on the 18-55 and the 16-80 on and off a tripod and with ES and MS for each case, taking three images each time to try to eliminate other variables. I switched the OIS off when the 18-55 was on the tripod but did not switch it off (in the camera settings) for the 16-80. I set both lenses to 23mm and used iso to vary the exposure. The results (dozens of images - took ages) showed that the 18-55 was affected. Some shots were slightly sharper with the electronic shutter. This applied on or off the tripod. The 16-80 was affected more than the 18-55. It does seem to be more sensitive around 1/100 to 1/200th. I didn't expect this result but it explains the somewhat variable results I have been getting. This means that if it is shutter shock then at slow shutter settings, where the vibrations have died down for most of the exposure, and high speeds which are presumably too fast to record the after shocks, the effect will be negligable. So it looks like it could be the shutter. The 16-80 seems to be affected more than the 18-55. I don't yet know if switching the OIS off in camera with the 16-80 helps. it's worth noting that the effect is small. You can see it plainly at 100% magnification on a 100ppi monitor but this would equate to a five foot wide print at that resolution. Still, it is disturbing. Fortunately for most of my photography I can use the electronic shutter. Sony had this trouble with the original A7 and A7R.

A good copy of this lens should be very sharp, but I have seen a bad copy. A friend bought an x-t2 together with an 18-55mm. Compared to my copy it was awful! So Fuji do make the odd bad lens. However the results didn't look quite like yours. I suspect you do have a bad copy but before you jump to conclusions you might like to do some better controlled tests. Remove any filter that you have attached. Poor quality filters can give this kind of effect. Take the camera outside as obviously you don,t want to shoot through glass. Select a distant view so that depth of field doesn't matter too much. Switch off the OIS on the lens and mount the camera on a tripod. Do not extend the centre column. Take test shots using the two second self timer to avoid shaking the camera. Take one at max aperture and one at f5.6 at 18mm and 55mm. It's possible that the OIS is responsible in which case you will have to switch it on and try some hand held shots. Good luck

I rarely use video but a couple of days ago I wanted some of the grandchildren. To my surprise after about 10 seconds the video would stop with a write error. this was at 25fps HD. I tried all sorts including different cards. Eventually on a whim I changed the full Hd movie output from SD FHD HDMI FHD to SD-HDMI FHD, tried to take a video, which of course didn't work, then changed the setting back to SD FHD HDMI FHD. Voila! I don't know what that was about but It's been ok since. I hope that this may help someone else. I guess cameras nowadays are not really cameras. They are computers with a camera function.

I handled an X-H1 for a few minutes at the Photo Show on Monday. The thing about it that immediately impressed me was the viewfinder. It's seriously good. I can't afford one though - oh well.

Wow it's a minefield isn't it? I really can't add anything other than to agree that the main benefit of carbon fibre is said to be vibration damping. A tripod forms a torsion spring (try twisting the head of extended tripods, it's a good way to compare their stability) attached to a mass - the camera. As such it will ring at its resonant frequency when something disturbs it. A lossy material like wood or carbon fibre will damp the oscillations better. Having said that everyone got on just fine with aluminium before carbon fibre came along. So I think it's probably a bit academic and the carbon pods are not usually much lighter than the aluminium ones.

Hi Kimballistic. With respect I don't think that you have quite understood my point, which maybe I made poorly. I agree that "very bad" or "excellent" are scientifically meaningless. However exact measurements of lens performance are not really relevant since in the scenario you mention the lens would only be the limiting factor if it had an MTF that was huge compared to the sensor's, so that the product of the two was mostly determined by the lens. This is never likely to happen in practice. My point is that the system resolution is always a product of the lens and sensor resolutions so a higher resolution sensor will always improve the system resolution with any lens. It is highly unlikely that one or the other could be a limiting factor. Diffraction is bit of a minefield but you are right. As the pixel pitch becomes smaller so diffraction starts to occur earlier, but the system will also also have greater resolution. in other words, if you were content with the same resolution as the wider pitch sensor gave then the limit would be much the same. And of course smaller sensors need shorter focal length lenses for the same angle of view but the result is better depth of field, so that f11 is about the smallest aperture we can use before diffraction starts to become a factor but a full frame camera has to be stopped down to f16, its diffraction limit, (roughly) to get the same dof. At the moment, as far as I am aware, apsc sensors with pixel counts larger than 24mp are not available. I personally don't believe that they have reached some kind of limit though. It looked like full frame had "topped out" at 12mp, then it went to 24, 36 and now 50. I would guess that full frame will go to around 80mp within the next couple of years.Sony is almost the only game in town now. The latest tech is never released straight away though. Sony will need to recover their development and tooling costs and a profit from the existing silicon first. It may be that Fujifilm are aware of a new sensor and working on a model to incorporate it. In the meantime they have to defend their present situation, much as they did with their statement about IBIS being impossible, while they developed it and no doubt agreed to patent payments. That's just my opinion of course.

Sorry, but this sounds like bull****. The fact is that the sytem resolution is a product of the lens resolution and the sensor resolution and neither is limited by the other. The system MTF is the product of the sensor MTF, the lens MTF and the MTF of any other component such as an anti-aliasing filter (not present in Fuji cameras). Obviously if a lens was very bad then that product would remain low with an increase in sensor resolution. However the Fuji lenses are mostly excellent so I doubt that they could limit the system that much. Professor Bob Newman explained the physics very clearly in article in Amateur Photographer March 10th 2012. They said that it wasn't possible to put IBIS into the bodies because the lenses would not allow it. That was clearly was not true either.

I have just acquired a 56mm. At f1.2 the centre is very sharp but the extreme edges are fairly soft. By f2.8 the edges even up. The lens is essentially a portrait lens and I did expect that sort of behavior from it, which is common in such lenses. Also the test was made with a flat target. Many lenses have field curvature which means that a flat target test will be misleading. However it should be sharp in the centre.

In the case of one edge being worse than the others, this could well be a lens collimation fault where one or more elements are badly aligned in your particular example. I have suffered this myself, although it wasn't a Fuji lens. Despite many people swearing by their 35mm f1.4, the copy I have anyway is definitely not one of Fujis best designs for sharpness. But sharpness is only one aspect of a lens. There is a huge price difference between Leica and Fuji lenses. The Fuji lenses are excellent for the price but you cannot expect them to compete with what are essentially hand made, money no object lenses. You can get an adapter to use Leica lenses. No autofocus possible though of course.

Well the 10-24 is a lot more useful than a 16 for the obvious reason that it covers more focal lengths! Only you will know whether your personal style will benefit but I find that a lot of my work makes use of around 20 to 24mm and the longer focal lengths of the 55-200 with occasional use of wider down to 10. I believe that the 10-24 is considerably larger and heavier than the 16 though.

Regarding the raw conversion question. From what I have read about Luminar, it has a different and simpler approach to Adobe Camera Raw as used in Lightroom and as yet does not have any cataloguing tool. Capture One Pro 10 is said to be one of the best but is considerably more expensive than Luminar. I use Lightroom and for some images X-Transformer for conversion. I also use Photoshop which is why the Adobe subscription model is ok for me. Use the jpegs for now or convert the raw to DNG with adobe's free tool, or even better, X -Transformer. Then you can use your existing version of Lightroom. Portraiture can be surprisngly challenging in a living room. Whether you decide to go with flash or continuous light don't buy more than two lights and a reflector and learn to light with one light at first. You will need a light modifier such as a softbox. It is quite feasable to use small strobes but the lack of a modelling light means that you will,find it difficult to learn about light. Don't underestimate window light. It is can be very beautiful. If you feel that you need a plain background there are pop-ones that can be packed away.

Konzy, I really enjoyed reading about your "journey" and your last attempt is amazing. I used to list astronomy as one of my hobbies but I am getting too old and soft to go out in the cold late hours! Finding a dark site is the key but it is getting increasingly challenging nowadays.

A beautiful shot. Very much appreciated. I have been to Lewis and Harris and I would like to return. It's a very inspiring place, and very windy. My manfrotto 190 was blown over but thankfully it didn't have the camera on.

Sorry, I only just loked at these but I enjoyed them very much. Great photography.

JJC are making these. I am using them in my bags, but not attached to the lid! They make changing a lens so much easier, especially if you have a spare compartment with one in. You can find them on ebay. In the UK they are about £17 for four.

Asathor, the Fuji batteries are not Nimh (nickel metal hydride). They are lithium ion. They do of course gradually lose their capacity. Unfortunately for us this happens faster if they are stored fully charged. I don't think anyone mentioned that battery drain is greatly affected by the lens that you have attached. The 50-140, with its three fast linear focusing motors plus ois eats batteries, especially as it is liable to be used with continuous af.

I am only an amateur but I sympathise having come across this problem when I took my first Fuji, an XE-2, on a workshop in Romania. I had three batteries, which with luck would last a day, but I only had a single charger and had to keep getting up in the night to switch batteries. I had come from a Sony A77.

I suspect that at least one reason that Fuji have not yet used IBIS is that Sony (via Minolta) and Olympus hold all the patents and Fuji don't want to pay to use them. I have had several cameras with IBIS from Minolta and Sony and have never had a problem. I have never experienced the problem of stabilisation causing blurring at higher shutter speeds either. I suspect that it is a myth as it would be very easy to design the system to alter the response with shutter speed or indeed to switch it off. I can't believe that the engineering can be that bad as not to do that. If Fuji could put OIS into all the lenses that could benefit from it we wouldn't need IBIS.

I like my 18-55 too, but it could be better. If only it was 16-55. It's just not quite wide enough to cover my landscape requirement. The 16-55 f2.8 is also sub optimal for me - just too big and heavy and an f2.8 aperture is not necessary. If Fuji made a 16-55 f4, constant aperture with IS, that was somewhere between the two existing lenses in size and weight I would be happy. Test the lens straight away. I have a friend who had a bad copy. He was probably just unlucky but it may be that the quality control on this lens is not all it might be.

Thanks Laurence. That is very useful.

The Iridient offerings seem ok. Iridient X-Transformer works well with Lightroom now that it has a plug-in. I have also heard good things about PhotoNinja. SilkyPix has a strange name because it is Japanese. I would imagine that being Japanese it will always work with Fuji files. I used it many moons ago when i had a Minolta. At that time it gave great colour but was lousy at noise reduction and had a truly awful UI. In fairness it may have been improved since then.

I guess it depends on how big you go. 50cm is about the largest print I need to make. Mind you, anything over that will benefit from more pixels. The Sony a7 Mk3 or the Fuji GFX 50s maybe. All way beyond my budget though.