Larry Bolch

10mm is enormously wide, with a field of view equal to a 15mm on a full frame. It allows the shooter to greatly emphasized perspective. I have a lens just slightly wider and results can be dramatic. At 24mm you are approaching the FOV of a "normal" lens—110° - 61.2°. The cost is an f/4.0 aperture. While the lens is extremely useful for architectural interiors, you will find that either flash, very high ISO settings or a tripod are required even with the excellence of its stabilization. Outdoors, hand-holding is no problem. The 16mm has an 83.2° FOV, comparable to a traditional 24mm lens—substantially wide, thus a very popular focal length. At f/1.4 it is at home in low-light, allowing one to work at a party with reasonably high shutter speeds, getting in a good bit of environment as well as well as the subjects. Great for capturing the whole scene at wedding receptions as well as in church where flash may not be permitted. Nice for night-time street photography when including the environment is an important element. Two choices for wide or super-wide photography. I could well see both in a photographer's bag. Shoot with them in your imagination considering the great difference in aperture. If you will be mostly shooting from support where you can use relatively long shutter speeds, the 10-24mm certainly is the more versatile. If shooting hand-held, with a need for mobility and decisive moment fast reactions are key, then the 16mm will serve you very well. Same price for each, just match your choice to your needs.

I would far rather buy a functional camera than one with unfinished firmware loaded with bugs. I love the idea of Kaizen, however, and am happy to be an early adopter. Use firmware updates to add and refine features as they are developed, not to just swat bugs like CaNikon.

Met with my dealer this afternoon. She has 50 on order and assured me that pre-order was not needed. Whenever it ships, she will have a unit for me ready for pickup.

Actually, a wider range of three lenses would be more useful. 20-21mm or even wider, classic 50-55mm and 100-105 at the least. Just like with a medium-format film camera, the extra size lets one crop with minimal loss of quality. While this might not be possible with conversion lenses, it certainly would be possible with interchangeable lenses, and Fuji mastered those back in the 1940s. At the present time, Hasselblad shoots with Fujinon glass.

Generally, when combining them, I use ±2.0EV and three exposures from the D700. Shooting a sequence of nine and picking the ones I want is a minor convenience, but with the X-Pro2, I will be able to use the EC knob to move the three shot sequence up or down in overall exposure. Having the 2.0EV spacing pretty much solves my gripe.

The lens I left at home would invariably be the lens I use most. I bought my X-Pro1 and X100 for a number of reasons—weight and bulk, was one of the primary reasons. I find that wherever I am shooting, it is not unusual to find the subjects compelling me to use pretty much everything I have in the bag from the 8mm Samyang fisheye to the 60mm f/2.4 macro. Were I to go to London, my bag would serve me perfectly.

I think the M8 scandal illustrates the prime difference between Leica and Fujifilm. As I recall, Leica absolutely denied there was a problem at all for more than a year. For a while, there was a rumour that owners would be able to ship the camera back to Germany and pay to have it fixed. Then they offered to sell M8 owners a correction filter for something like $250US. After much more weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth by the owners, they gave the correction filter. Much time had passed. Fuji ships the cameras the moment they are fully functional and then there is a steady flow of firmware upgrades to not only swat bugs but to add new features to the cameras. Even after the X100 was replaced, did a firmware upgrade come through improving the already fine camera. In the past, my policy was to never buy version 1.0 of anything remotely digital. At least with Fujifilm, I am no longer afraid to be an early adopter. (The first camera an employer put in my hands was a Leica and I used them throughout my long working life.)

Traveling light, I generally carry a monopod with a ball head. When shooting, if there is something to lean against that will gain me a couple of stops. When traveling by vehicle, then I carry a substantial tripod—as well as the monopod. In both cases, I would strongly suggest shopping in person. A long time ago, I was given a quite expensive tripod and everything about it was wrong. I could not return it nor get rid of it without setting off a terrible row, and the thing would not wear out. Eventually, the marriage DID wear out and I went tripod shopping and the tooth grinding ceased.

If one is a terminal klutz who routinely destroys cameras, knocking off external controls, driving buttons into the camera body, then I suppose a fully articulated LCD may be a bad idea. It actually has the advantage of being able to be turned against the camera body when not needed making it far less vulnerable than a fixed LCD. Over the past decade and a half, I have had a number of each type of LCD and the utility and flexibility far outweighs the potential vulnerability. A catastrophe that would break the LCD would be devastating to the rest of the camera. Neither a deal maker nor breaker, but certainly an incentive to buy.

In fact I have. In 35mm days there were half-frame cameras and some very good ones. I have an Art Deco Olympus PenFT that was also had interchangeable lenses of high quality. Users most definitely distinguished half-frame from full frame. It went in the other way as well. My WideLuxe140 used a panoramic 24×59mm format, and theHasselblad XPan made by Fujifilm(TX1) and rebranded by Hasselblad used 24×65mm. The Robot Royal 24S had 24×24 mm frame size. So yes, when discussing them the term full frame or standard frame was certainly used.

A number of months back the rumor was that the a7000 sensor was the hold-up. It was said that Sony was willing to sell the sensor to Fuji, but only after they had first crack at it for their own camera for six months. My guess is that the sensor presented problems. This may indicate that the sensor had to be bypassed, or that Fuji was able to negotiate away the six month period of grace. We will find out fairly soon.

For nearly a decade, there has been a very significant tax by the EU on any camera that could record more than 30 minutes. Rather than raising the price on all still cameras with LiveView, camera makers limited recording time. The EU has not been particularly interested in adjusting the tax even though they don't seem clear why the tax should exist. However, heat generated by the electronics also presented a serious problem as well as another reason to limit recording times. This has not been a problem with video producers, since almost all shows are done with takes of only seconds, allowing the point of view and field of view to be changed to enhance storytelling and avoid the boredom of long shots. While such information is obvious to anyone watching TV or movies, somehow this seems to not get through to amateurs—along with using suitable camera support.

The existing and future line. While 4k video has four times the information of HD, the sensor remains the same size. An HD image is only two megapixels, and 4k is eight. However, both are generated by the full 16-24MP sensor. No change whatever is needed in the line-up of lenses.

Focus peaking is turned off by the half-press. Just shoot. Legacy glass designed for film cameras can be a disaster depending upon the design of the lens. I have two Canon Serenars of considerable age, both with flat rear elements. Film is matte, but sensors are shiny, so the light bounces back and forth between them, destroying contrast. Many very fast vintage lenses are notoriously soft wide open. They were designed to help focus SLR film cameras in low-light and could be used wide-open in an emergency but at considerable cost in sharpness. Working for a morning paper, much of my work was in available darkness. The classic f/1.2 58mm Nikkor helped a lot, but I tried to keep it at a minimum of f/2.0-2.8 for the actual exposure. At the time, Nikon made the f/1.2 Noct-Nikkor, which was optimized for widest aperture shooting, but at the price I could not convince my boss that it would provide enough return on investment.

For decades, my AI-S f/2.8 55mm MicroNikor has been one of my most used lenses, both for macro photography and as my normal lens. At the time of purchase, it was considered one of the sharpest lenses on the planet. It came with a 27.5mm extension tube for extreme closeup. Mounted on a standard adapter, it provides an 82.5mm field-of-view. With the Metabones Speed Booster it goes back to the normal 55mm FOV at f/2.0. In every way, it works just fine. Given the option of two focal lengths with apertures to match, it provides great versatility. That said, the superb 60mm f/2.4 Fujinon is optically on par or even better, and has the advantage of autofocus. Other than testing, I have not actually used the 55mm on any shoot. The 60mm is just too convenient, with no trade-off in image quality.

The best settings are the ones that match the view of the subject matter to your visualization of it. The best settings for product photography in the studio may well be entirely different from a cityscape at twilight. Portraits by window-light may require something radically different from a sun-drenched landscape. This is the reason why you buy a fully adjustable camera instead of a point and shoot. You are in control, not a programmer in Japan. If there was an actual "best", there would be no need for all the choices. So it is up to you to choose what best matches your expectations and taste in each individual situation. To the best of my knowledge, all X-cameras have a built-in RAW converter that allows you to apply any setting after the fact. The factors work the same whether applied before or after the exposure. The camera shoots a file with the raw data from the sensor. If JPEG is chosen for the output, the camera then applies whatever settings, so the results will be the same whether applied by you after the shot or applied by the camera automatically. Pick a typical situation and photograph it. Choose each one of the settings and bracket it, saving the resulting JPEG. Take notes and compare the effect. This will give you far more personally meaningful information than any long and conflict-ridden forum thread. Highlight Tone and Shadow Tone are not very intuitive terms. The neat thing with the built-in converter is that you can do this at leisure in your cozy chair. Next use this knowledge to analyze the test exposure, and optimize it. The best settings for that situation is the one that gives results that most please you. When you next find yourself in that location and you need to shoot JPEGs use these settings as your starting point. At the most, you may have to do a bit of fine tuning to match the dynamic range, tonal curve or whatever. The more experience you have, the quicker that you can make an analysis without necessarily doing a lot of test shots on location. My taste may be very different from yours, depending upon our individual styles of photography. Your settings as listed above may be totally repugnant to me, given the environment and shooting conditions. And of course, the opposite is just as true.

If it is about photography give me the richest and most advanced toolset I can use. If I don't need a feature at the moment, next week it may let me overcome a rare and difficult photographic situation, and because I truly understand my cameras, could be my photograph of a lifetime. If it is about cameras, by all means go for Leica. Every time they remove a contemporary feature, they add $1,000US to the price and the suckers buy it. Why? Because it is ridiculously expensive, and Leica has mastered selling mystique. The same people who buy Leica, show up at exclusive car auctions with a 2005 Ferrari Superamerica with less than 1,000 km on the odometer, because they need the garage space for the Bugatti that is on order. They won't drive the Bug any more than the Ferarri. Connoisseurs of stuff bought as objects to hopefully raise their personal self-image. As an aside, the first camera an employer put in my hands was a Leica IIIg and I still have my battered M3. However, at that time, they were tools for working photographers, not chest jewelry for dilettantes and wealthy collectors.

The opposite of pure—reducing a state of the art digital camera to the limitations of a film camera. Purism with a digital camera implements the state of the art features available at the time of manufacture in my opinion. A stripped down digital camera is simply a crippled camera that would require constant workarounds to overcome its limitations. That is totally contrary to the spirit of digital photography.

Almost certainly—assuming there is a compelling reason to buy the new camera. It is a whole lot smoother to change cameras than to change lenses, The dominant lens will be on the X-Pro2 with the main alternate on the X-Pro1. It may not entirely eliminate swapping glass, but it will help.

Pixels are much over-rated. A decade and a half back, I was shooting with a Coolpix 990, at 3.34MP. I shot a close-up portrait of a Macaw and a friend wanted a print of it so I gave him a copy of the file. I was shocked when he said he had it printed at 24×36! Eventually, I visited him and was amazed at the quality of the image. From anywhere in his living room where it hung, a casual viewer would never question the lack of detail. Certainly my X-Pro1 would show a lot more crispness and detail if prints were side-by-side and viewed at reading distance. At normal viewing distance, not so much.

Out of the camera, 72 ppi is meaningless. It is just a placeholder. It becomes meaningful when you go to make a print. At that point, a print resolution is applied in software that will match the pixel dimensions to the size of paper. When viewed on a monitor or on the Internet, it has no application or significance.

Upon buying the X100, I discovered that the flash alone was enough to justify the purchase. Fuji calls it "Super Intelligent" and that is not hype. The tube is as near the optical axis as is physically practical. When used as the primary light source, it is as ugly as light gets—having a light coming from the bridge of your nose. Used for fill, it is astonishingly good. Even in the harshest of sunlight, the flash opens up shadow detail and rarely is there a secondary shadow. Best at -1/3 or -2/3EV it delivers natural looking images with great consistency. If necessary, at ±0 it will balance a dark subject with a bright background, better than any leaf shutter camera I have ever used though the natural look is not quite as good. Above all, it will synch at any shutter speed and is so consistent that one can trust it totally. I assume that it works as well with the X100S and T. Covering a party for the daughter of a friend, the X-Pro1 was doing a fine job with the ambient lighting early in the evening. Then a DJ began working, ambient light was lowered and powerful blue and red LED panels began to flash. Skin tones were destroyed. Switched to the X100, the disco lights still showed, but skin-tones were restored. The ambience of the lightscape was preserved, with LED light visible in highlights, but people looking fine. Very nice results! I worked in sub-tropical latitudes for nearly two decades, dealing with harsh overhead light constantly each mid-day. I would have killed to have a camera that worked this well. Nice little camera in every way, but incredibly capable with fill-flash.

Having spent much of my life shooting film, I would rather carry a tiny battery than 15 extra rolls of film to get the same number of exposures. 20 seconds to change it, and I am back shooting again. My Nikon D700 battery is enormous in comparison and so is the camera. I just can not get exercised over a battery that only does 300 or so shots without changing.

I have a bunch of analogue lenses, but they are a mixed bag. On my X-Pro1, my f/1.8 105mm Nikon performs brilliantly. If I mount it on an adapter, I have the field of view of a 157.5mm lens, and on the Metabones Speed Booster, a f/1.2 105mm. However, it is big and heavy and I don't carry it much. I have the Fuji M adapter for 50mm and 90mm Canon Serenars, and both are disasters. They were fine on film. However, the rear element of both is flat, and I suspect that there is a repeating reflection between it and the sensor. Film does not reflect. Furthermore, sensors need the rays of light to strike as close to a 90° angle as practical. This is the case with current lenses designed for digital cameras, but not necessarily with lenses from the film era. Excellent lenses for film cameras can fail miserably on digital. Back in film days, I rented Fujinons for large format photography whenever they were available. Even though these X-camera lenses are more consumer-priced than industry-priced, quality is superb and you have easy aperture control and autofocus, which adapted lenses lack. I assume that our Fuji lenses are so affordable because they can be made in sufficient quantity. Fujinons for video, on the other hand, start at around $3,000US and top out at $233,490.00 for a 101× zoom. Whether watching a movie or TV show, odds that it was shot with Fujinons is high. Fuji has been in business for over 80 years, producing lenses primarily for the industry, but their skill shows up to our benefit now that they are also in the consumer market.

Very much so. Hasselblad will sync up to 1/800th of a second. Mamiya offers a mix of leaf and focal plane lenses. Schneider Kreuznach provides lenses for Phase One and Leaf (if they are still around) with leaf shutters. Pentax went with focal plane and I don't believe have any leaf shutter lenses, however, they did have at least one leaf shutter lens for the film 6×7. Leica has a mix. Leaf shutters historically have been primarily for medium and large format cameras.