kimcarsons

Yeah, I'm not saying Sony makes a better camera, was just referring to the AF capabilities (more points, more modes, works better) Canon's Dual Pixel AF beats the pants off of everything else though. For me the really tempting thing about the Sony system right now isn't a Sony product at all, but all the third party adapters. You can get an A6300 and a TechArt Pro adapter together for less than an X-T2 and have the ability to autofocus with your collection of vintage/manual lenses. How cool is that? Hopefully some of these smart adapters will eventually make it to the Fuji system...

No, it's not safe. The only reason I didn't return mine when I had the chance was that Fuji was supposed to come out with a firmware update the day after my return deadline which I hoped would fix some of the issues. That update was delayed by a month and didn't really do anything but add compatibility for the new flash. Camera is still far too buggy for the price tag. Ditto for the X-Pro2. I think the X-Pro2 is finally coming down to a fair used price (~$1100), but IMHO neither camera is really worth the retail price. Myself and others are paying for the honor of beta testing the product while it depreciates. I'm not saying the either camera is a lemon exactly, just not really worth the premium price. You also have to ask yourself, do you really need the new camera? The stills quality is pretty much the same. Video quality is much better but still quite quirky to use. Autofocus is a little better in some circumstances but in the real world ends up being just about as effective as the X-Pro1 (with latest firmware). It's really no comparison to Sony's A6 series AF or Canon's Dual Pixel AF (despite what certain reviewers would have you believe... Seen many X-T2 vs Sony vs Canon shootouts? Nope, just comparisons to the Nikon D500) The X-T2 is certainly a nice camera, but ask yourself if you really want to pay $1600 for a brand new, slightly improved X-T1 that's less reliable? Forget I said all of that... Wanna buy my X-T2? ;-)

All I can say is I've never noticed this not being a problem with Fuji cameras. Unless the focus box (in whatever mode) is filled entirely by the foreground subject, the camera will likely focus on the background.

OK. The weirdness continues. I bought a Sandisk Extreme Pro UHS-I card. The problem is greatly reduced (delay shortened) with this card, but, and here's where it gets really weird, it's still a greater delay than the UHS-II Lexar 1800x card using only the UHS-I pins. This is weird because the 1800x card is SLOWER in UHS-I mode than the Extreme Pro. So it definitely seems like the read/write speed doesn't have anything directly to do with it, and it's some other card compatibility problem (and I tend to blame Fuji here because I have several cards that work fine in other devices but produce read/write errors when used in certain Fuji cameras). I guess the Extreme Pros are OK, as it's only $20 for 32GB (vs the $40-$60 for a 32GB UHS-II card). The delay is still noticeable, but not a hindrance like it was with my other UHS-I cards (1-2 seconds vs 3-4).

Did you ever say which lens you were using?

The 14mm 2.8 is what sold me on the Fuji system. Sharp and small. The only thing not to like about that lens is that it's the lack of WR. I had been using the Sigma 10-20mm before moving to Fuji. Having the ability to zoom was nice, but not that big of a deal.

Your settings are basically identical to mine (except I never use anything other than DR100). What do you think it is about the lighting conditions that triggers the issue? Is it something I could recreate at home?

Have you tried resetting the camera? I have an X-T2 and I've never seen it do this, but I also don't think you've given enough information to allow people to replicate your settings. Another user on the forum has claimed to have a similar problem with the preview that only occurred when the JPEG colorspace was set to AdobeRGB. Have you tried using sRGB?

I always keep it on boost mode too. Boost mode has nothing to do with it.

One interesting little update. My Lexar 1800x UHS-II micro sd card's adapter broke. So I put the card in a UHS-I adapter. Well, still no delay when switching to EVF! So it seems that this UHS-II card using only the UHS-I pins works fine. That's not super encouraging though, because it means that, no matter the specs, every card I buy is a total gamble, with the odds strongly favoring this delay. I think I'm about to order a Sandisk Extreme Pro UHS-I card, and see if that helps (I never needed UHS-II anyway, just want to get away from this damn EVF switching delay).

It's kind of a catch-22 with the aperture. A smaller aperture gives you more depth of field, so the pumping is less noticeable, but a smaller aperture also makes the camera switch from phase to contrast detection AF, which inherently hunts more. I think the face detection mode is always using contrast AF (when it's locked on to a face anyway) (I've heard that the Sony implementation of face AF is able to operate with phase detection, but it seems that Fuji hasn't figured out how to do that yet). When using an aperture wider than f/5.6 and not using face detection, the AF-C in video isn't too bad. Another complicating factor is that some of the lenses (e.g. the 35mm/F2) have focus breathing which makes the pumping of the autofocus much more noticeable/distracting.

This behavior sucks. It would help if there were an 'AF sensitivity' setting for video that would allow the user to make it less aggressive at hunting. How much it does hunt depend on the lens and the lighting (and the aperture!). You definitely want to make sure the firmware is up to date on all your lenses.

You can forget about correct skin tones over grass like that. It's like putting a big green reflector under someone's face.That's definitely a scenario where you're going to have to fix it in post (with local adjustments). (however, I will say that the more limited tonal range of the Classic Chrome simulation does a pretty good job of fixing the skin on shots with foliage involved---might not give you the look you want though). I use B -2 R +2 on the X-Trans III cameras. I find that B -1 R +1 works best on the X-Trans II and I cameras. Auto white balance is never going to be 100% consistent, but that puts it in the ballpark for me.

Well, anything can be fixed later if you shoot RAW. In my experience, the number of times I think to myself "Hey, I like the JPEG just as well as my RAW processing" drops off sharply above ISO 1600, and no amount of tweaking of camera JPEG settings changes that. I mean, in camera processing simply can't beat being able to selectively apply NR to shadow areas, avoid edges, adjust chrominance and luminance NR separately, etc. (in other words, tailor your processing to each image).

You can do whatever you like man. I think NR - 4 looks a little too rough on color images. For black and white it's fine. But again, it's your photo. As for the white balance. It definitely leans to the cool side out of the box, which makes people look more corpse-like/waxy, which is something you indicated you wanted to avoid. Try warming it up a bit, you might be pleasantly surprised.

Try NR-2 and Sharpness -2. Also consider shifting the white balance away from cyan a few points.

Adding fake grain? Wow, that's taking it a bit too far if you ask me. The point is that you have a choice of software with which to process the RAWs---and aren't just stuck with whatever limitations Fuji wants to enforce. That choice includes Free Software options which don't try to do all the thinking for you and won't add NR, grain, distortion correction or anything else unless you explicitly request it.

Fair enough. Now to dig a little deeper: I don't think the gain structure has anything whatsoever to do with the waxy skin tones issue. The workaround you mention contains a hint to the actual cause of the problem, though. The reason such a trick works is that Fuji's in-camera processing that determines the strength of the noise reduction effect applied is mapped to the ISO as shot, not taking the "push/pull processing" gain into account. None of Fuji's cameras allow the user to control the strength of noise reduction for each ISO, but I guarantee you there is such a mapping in place in the firmware (some cameras from other manufacturers do allow the user to edit this curve, which is welcome). The result is that at ISO 800, you may like the look of NR 0, but at ISO 6400 you find that NR -2 looks better (bearing in mind that NR 0 at 6400 is really applying a stronger effect than NR 0 does at ISO 800 due to the non-editable strength curve), but if you want to enforce this preference, you'll have to change the setting yourself, every time you change ISO. I'm not aware of any camera that allows the user to configure luminance and chrominance NR separately, but it is obvious that (to some extent due to the requirements of X-Trans demosaicking) Fuji's chrominance NR is too aggressive. If all of this sounds like a huge headache, well, yes, I agree, and that's one of the many reasons why most serious photographers shoot RAW, so they can worry about all this later when processing the images on a desktop computer.

How the heck can you operate a touch screen without looking at it? The whole purpose of having physical buttons is to be able to operate them by feel, not sight. When you array them together in a column like that you require the user to remember the SEQUENCE of the buttons and count them with their fingers (a task they're very unlikely to succeed at) rather than to remember (vaguely) their positions, and home in on them by feel (something most people can do easily). Good examples would include the Pentax K-5, K-3, the Ricoh GR. Bad examples would include most cameras ever made, including very recent ones: Pentax K-1 (they foolishly took their notes from Fuji on this one and added some superfluous dials) and anything ever made by Sony. Most of Fuji's devices appear to have been designed with the idea that the operator will be: 1) In bright artificial light (i.e not dim light and not daylight) 2) Will be holding the camera at arms length 3) Will be wearing false fingernails or have freakishly long natural nails 4) Will have the right hand completely free (that is, not in any way gripping or supporting the weight of the camera). Now, to be fair, this is probably a totally reasonable set of assumptions for the Asian market. However, it is very a poor set of design constraints for many situations. Especially variations on street photography. (Hold a flash in your left hand, the camera in your right, now try to change the aperture... No bueno? How about the shutter speed? Ok, you can do it, but only if you're in the right mode to start with. Oops, dropped the camera!) In your render you have light and shadow and pretty shading, but you have no concept of gravity, orientation, weight, grip, etc. It's a HUMAN INTERFACE you're trying to design, but you left out the human. You've required false fingernails (because no human has a thumb small enough to hit one of those buttons without mashing at least two of the others as well) You'll never improve on Fuji's own design if you can't even wrap your head around what's wrong with it in the first place. You're just taking the Apple approach of "ergonomics are hard, let's just take away all the physical controls and make usability the app developers' problem." That might make for pretty renders, but it doesn't get the job done any better.

I think you've confused yourself regarding what ISOless means. A dual gain system is explicitly NOT "ISOless", that is to say, you will get different results shooting at ISO 200 and boosting to 1600 in post than you would shooting at 800 and boosting to 1600 in post. ISOless means, very specifically, that shooting at the base ISO and boosting in post produces EXACTLY the same result as shooing at the desired ISO in camera.

On what (Fuji) camera do you have to go into a menu to move the focus point? Even the X-Pro1 doesn't require that. Just one push and then the D-Pad moves the point. The exact same number of presses as the joytsick on the X-Pro2/X-T2 in Press to Unlock mode (which is pretty much required if you don't want the point always moving around on its own)

Try thinking less like a brand manager and more like a human animal with eight fingers and two thumbs. The best designed devices can be operated without looking at the controls, and preferably only using one hand. Sleekness has no real utility.

As long as we're piling on idiotic limitations: Why the hell does the AF point lock when you engage auto exposure lock? It really seems like the designers at Fuji are far more concerned with aesthetics than usability. So many elements, like the absolute dials and the joystick, seem to be there to make a statement, without sufficient attention being paid to how they will actually serve (or hinder) the user. If they hired just one good designer (preferably a photographer as well), they could vastly improve the ergonomics of their cameras...

Try to imagine hitting the correct button with that camera held up to your eye...

Oh, but I almost forgot: For me the real killer feature of the X-T2 and one of the two reasons I prefer it over the X-Pro2 (the other being the tilt screen) is a silly little thing they could have done ages ago, even back with X-Pro1: USB Charging! No longer do I have battery anxiety or have to carry a extra batteries and a charger. I just carry a little USB power bank (that I have anyway for charging my phone) (it's also a flashlight...) I don't think I'll ever buy another digital camera that doesn't charge over USB.