Hey guys
Searched everywhere for others that had the same problem as I, finally found it.
Backstory:
I have had a X-T10 for over a year with my 35 mm 1.4 R as the main lens. Been extremely pleased with the results. ver crisp and sharp images and those lovely lovely Fuji colors. I used to be a RAW shooter, but do not wanna spend too much time tweaking images, so 70% og the images taken with the X-T10 are being used as SOOC jpegs. Exposure and WB are in 95% of the time spot onI am Graphic Design er by trade, so I am extremely picky with colors and sharpness etc. but so far I love the Fuji cameras and lenses. I do use Iridient Developer for the best images, to pull out more detail and a slightly cleaner look.
However, three things that I did not like with my X-T10 was:
1. Autofocus performance. Simply too slow. And yes I know that the 35 mm 1.4 is slow and noisy, but the characteristic of that particular lens just keeps blowing me away.
2. Waxy skin tones from ISO 1600 and above. Even at NR -2, its too smooth.
3. Slow overall performance and too low resolution. Slow to start, slow to to da anything. I do a lot of tight crops, and sometimes I'd wish for a higer resolution sensor, 20-24 MP.
Fast forward to now where I have bought the X-T2 for the above reasons two weeks ago. Love the form factor, handling, performance, high ISO files, Acros Sim. and so much more. However I was extremely disappointed with the AUTO exposure of the X-T2.
As you both mentioned, it severely underexposes shots by at least ⅓ of a stop, sometimes up to 1/1 stop, especially outside with high-contrast scenes against the sky. It does really try to preserve the highlights at all costs, and that very fine if you're a RAW shooter, but for SOOC shooters, this sucks!
It doesn't really matter what metering mode you use, it's still off. At first I thought I had a lemon, but then I tried resetting the shooting menu, and it helped! It's still underexposes, but it seems much better now than before. Also, when using the eye-detection, exposure seems like it fluctuates, while acquiring focus, so I am not using this for now. It's mostly down to ⅓ EV now, I have that fixed on + ⅓ for now.
It seems like the X-T2 is much more sensitive to metering that with X-T1 / X-T10. I do wish that there was a setting to shoot for either:
A: Preserving Highlights, for jpeg shooters
B: Preserving Midtones / Shadows, for RAW shooters
Especially for portraits, I much prefer to have midtones/shadows preserved and highlights close to being blown. I do hope that this will be addressed in a firmware update, alongside some tweaks to the Film sims, which I think were better on the X-T10 (I used a color+2 boosted CC most of the time).
Anyway, did any of you ever solve your underexposing woes? Did you take you return your camera, or just leaned to live with it? I can recommend resetting the shooting menu, at least for me, it helped.