Herco

For limited numbers of images (up to 100k or so), the Lightroom or Capture One Catalogue usually will do. If you work in projects -like I usually do- Capture One Sessions is a much better option. I can also recommend the DAM (Digital Asset Management) of ON1 Photo Raw as it keeps raw and jpegs nicely together when you cull them. For large numbers of images Photo Mechanic is by far the best. It's often used by journalists and other pro's who have to search for certain images based on content. Either way, it's good to setup a file/directory structure on your PC/Mac that has some kind of system. E.g. per year/month/topic... before you load the images into a catalogue. And don't forget to backup...

Leica is 'victim' of the US trade taxes imposed on German products. Here in Switzerland Leica prices are a lot more agreeable. There isn't a day that goes by when I don't cherish my Q2 Monochrome. The 'victim' of that -unfortunately- is my X-Pro2...

I've been told by a Fuji rep. in London that the X-T4's build in Japan were part of the first series (start of production) that was predominantly shipped to the US to overcome trade taxes or kept in Japan (made here sentiment). Goal is to have all the X-T's and 'lower' manufactured in China and the 'flagship' cameras (GFX, X-Pro's and the next X-H) in Japan. There shouldn't be a difference in build quality.

You probably need to switch off Preview Exposure in the Setup/screen setup menu.

Hi Steve, it might be a good idea to rent or try one for a couple of days and use it just like you'd use any other camera. The GFX platform is great, but not for everybody's needs.

A few years ago, Olympus launched the Air. A very small M43 mount+sensor where your phone could clip-on. The mount could take the excellent but small Zuiko lenses and the M43 sensor was way bigger than any smartphone sensor. The idea was not too well executed, but in fact it would have been a great travel package. Just the Air, one or two Zuiko lenses and your smartphone. I guess to expensive for most smartphone-only shooters and to quirky for traditional amateur photographers.

Correct. Whenever you've defined a custom profile under the Q menu and you make one-off changes to that (e.g. change the film simulation or the shadow value) the camera will remember that setting. You have to actively select the original custom profile again to go back to it. The active profile is called Base (e.g. C3 Base) whereas the original one is just 'C3'. A bit confusing, but it is designed on the idea that the current camera setting should always prevail if you switch off and on your camera.

You may also want to check-out the free version of Capture One Express for Fujifilm. It lacks a few pro-features that can be found in the paid version, but it has all the film simulations and doesn't require the camera to be connected. Good to know about X Raw Studio: it only works with the exact same type of camera with which the image was shot. So if you ever upgrade your X100V to another Fuji model, you can't reprocess your X100V images through X Raw Studio anymore.

These are two very different cameras and if you’re equally value stills and video I wouldn’t recommend a GFX100(S) for that. We’ve had the GFX100 here for a couple of months and though it is great for stills, it is a bit cumbersome for video. The AF works fine in single mode, but in continuous mode when shooting video, it can hunt quite a bit depending the lens and it often looses focus with moving subjects. Next to that the processor in the GFX100(S) is still the same as in the X-T3 and 4 and with the pixel downsampling (from 100MP sensor to about 10MP for 4K) it struggles in processing power. Don’t get me wrong, the GFX can do video, but its certainly not designed for that like the A1.

You can assign Natural Live View (or Preview Pic. Effect as it is called on older models) to a function button and use that to toggle the function on/off.

Adding to the good advice from Olaf: you’re not mentioning whether you look at raw or jpeg images on your computer. If its jpeg you may want to check which film simulation is active. Some film simulations have subdued colors and whites can be a bit greyish or blue-ish depending on the WB set. Most neutral ones are Provia and Pro Neg Std. The selected film simulation will also impact the preview jpeg in the raw file. Finally, did you calibrate you laptop monitor?

There's a very good Zeiss Touit 12mm for Fuji X mount. Not cheap, but well-adapted to Fuji. A 10mm f2 would be pretty big. Comparable lenses in FF are often f2.8 for that reason. Most users don't need f2 in an ultra-wide.

I disagree that it should be a commandment. A car magazine usually tests one car out of the production line. Not three or four. We can assume that the car represents all copies and the performance and quality is more or less similar. Fuji should take care of good QA and minimize the sample variation. I now have a history of 6 Fuji cameras bought of which 2 had to be swapped for a new one as well as 14 lenses over the past years of which 4 had to be replaced or repaired. All almost straight out of the box. That is considerably more than all other brands combined that I have owned over the past 40+ years. Last year I had a GFX50s and a GFX100 over for a trail period. One of the lenses showed again signs of poor QA. For various reasons I decided to stick to my H6D. For other professional work I moved away from Fuji. For personal work I’m just too fond of my X-Pro2. My point is that with Fuji I hear lots of people brushing poor performance off with “ahh, you had a bad copy”. That’s not normal. These are expensive cameras and lenses and they should work within a very narrow sample variation.

Hi Jerryy, your advise in points 1, 2 and 3 is indeed correct. The color space however (I guess you refer to CIEXYZ) doesn’t affect the histogram reading. I would also recommend to set the tone controls to -1 or -2 to create even more lattitude in the ultimate raw file when exposing the image. The confusing issue remains that even in raw-only, the histogram keeps working based on the jpeg settings. Whether the jpeg is stored or not. Fuji did indeed rename the menu options between the X-T2 and the X-H1. It was quite confusing. The underlying function however did not change. Natural Live View On (or Preview Pic. Effect Off) is meant to give a view as close as possible to what the human eye sees. Our human eye can bridge a much larger dynamic range than the camera sensor. That’s why Fuji boosts the DR by approx. 1-2 stops when you switch on Natural Live View. In order to correct the histogram reading (not the screen view) you therefor need to also select DR 400%. Not only Rico advised this, but also a Fuji rep I talked to when switching from Canon to Fuji in 2014 and couldn’t figure out what was ‘wrong’ with the histogram.

I have both the 14/2.8 and the 16/1.4. The 14 is almost as good as the famous 16/1.4 provided you stop it down to F4 (which is quite often already the case for DOF and exposure). It's just a little slower and noisier to focus. And of course slower aperture. That's it. It too has that great manual focus with the clutch. Don't worry about it not being WR. Usually most people take good care of their lenses and don't need it anyway. I've had the 16/2.8 as well, but I sold it. Just like the 23/2 it is nice and sharp in the center, but gets really soft towards the corners and edges. For architecture and landscape it is not what was acceptable to me. Your mileage may vary. It also suffers a bit from longitudinal chromatic aberration which is harder to correct in post. It's nice, compact and not expensive though.

I think this is very recognizable for a lot of enthusiasts. What I notice in workshops and talking to photographers is that they view every image as important and spend roughly the same amount of time on every image. Let me give some of my thoughts on this. For my professional work I have a different workflow compared to my personal work. Professionally I shoot mostly tethered in the studio. With Hasselblad to Phocus software or with Nikon Z to Capture One (C1) in Sessions. C1 is setup to automatically apply the Style and some other editing tasks like Curve, Camera, Lens and sharpening/noise reduction. During the shoot we'll mark the images as 'keep/delete/don't know'. After the shoot the Art Director will make a final selection. Sometimes out of a 1000 images we only keep 4 or 5 for further processing. The editor or designer will work on those images remote. First the basics in C1, then the details in Photoshop. Each end shot easily takes 30-60 min of work. For my personal work I do all the culling, editing and exporting myself. The import/culling process is the most important. Here you define how much work you'll end up with. I notice that amateurs rarely are selective enough. They tend to keep most of the images even though they have multiple shots of the same scene. You don't have to throw them away, just don't import everything. Be very selective. I often import only 5% of the images. Sometimes because they're technically not good enough, but mostly because they're lacking artistic quality. Of course you shoot for your own enjoyment, but while culling your images think: "what would a viewer think of this? Is it worth looking at?". If not, don't import. At importing I use the Camera Profile, Lens Correction, Curve and Style that I want, so I don't need to revisit that. Then I'll revisit the images one-by-one and decide which ones I want to further work on. That is again a subset of what is imported. I only work on the images that will be exported for print or publish in my portfolio. The rest will stay there un-edited. When editing start with keystone corrections, cropping and white balance (WB can often be done in batch mode). Then I move to overall exposure, contrast and color and then the work that needs to be done in layers (like dodge and burn, color editing, vignettes and cleaning). Finally I have export recipes in C1 that almost automatically create the files for print or publishing. I rarely do a lot of sharpening and noise reduction. That is taken care of by the defaults in C1. Only the occasional NR for high-ISO images. Most of the work takes me about 30 sec per image unless I go into 'layer-work'. That may take 5-10 mins per image. It saves you a lot of time when you know what you want to do with an image and have a workflow. Moving the sliders back-and-forth takes a lot of time and isn't very useful unless you have a goal in mind. So, take some time to look at an image without adjusting. After editing, step away and if needed revisit a few days later. Just staring and trying usually doesn't make it better. There are excellent resources online to help you develop your own workflow. Scott Detweiler, Scott Davenport, Thomas Fitzgerald, Hudson Henry and Anthony Morganti to name a few. And of course the YT channel of your favorite raw editor.

Hi Jerryy, to my knowledge the Natural Live View actually makes it worse. It increases the Dynmic Range by 2 stops, so in order to get the correct histogram you should set DR at 400%. At least that’s what I’ve learned from Rico Pfirstinger. To quote his excellent book: “Important: The Natural Live View of the X-T2 extends highlight dynamic range by two stops, rendering the live histogram inaccurate when shooting with DR100%, DR200%, or DR-Auto dynamic range settings.” Excerpt From The Fujifilm X-T2 Rico Pfirstinger This material may be protected by copyright. This is from the X-T2 book, but to my knowledge is hasn’t changed in newer cameras.

Hi Olaf, you're right about the processing and taste of simulations. Nevertheless, it would be good if Fuji would include a setting that bypasses all Highlight/Shadow, Color, Film Simulations etc. for the sake of unaffected Histogram readings. As it is now implemented, even in case you shoot raw-only, the histogram displays the effects of the active Custom Settings. You have to consciously create a flat profile in Custom Settings and select that, in order to get the 'raw' histogram.

Hi Dave, without wanting to add more confusion 😉 I wouldn't necessarily call Fuji's JPEGs better than Canon's. Amongst fashion and portrait photographers Canon is renowned for their representation of skin tones. An area Fuji usually struggles with. Let's say they're different... 🙂

Perhaps try with another set of SD cards. In case a card is (slightly) corrupted the camera takes a longer time trying to read it at startup. Having said that, 20-25 sec is really way to long and you should have had an error message at around 5s or so when it can't read the card properly.

First of all, the shorter the focal length, the less noticable the impact of OIS. It’s easier to steady a shorter focal length by hand. In order to compare, you need to set both lenses at approx. the same focal length (e.g. 23mm) select an object at 2-3m distance (max.) and make shots with longer shutter speeds. Then you should see similar OIS impact. If not, you could have the 10-24 checked. If you’re a videographer, you could do similar and walk around. OIS should create a steadier motion with less shake. Note that some waivy background in video is ‘normal’ with some Fuji OIS lenses. In fact the new 10-24 MkII is worse in this than the older version.

Most likely because the X-S10 is too new to be listed. Most 3rd party lens manufacturers go over extensive testing before they claim compatibility. Give them some time. Either way, bear in mind that 3rd party lenses sometimes have unexpected issues. E.g. the Viltrox 23/1.4 mentioned by @jacobus had some issues with X-Pro3 bodies. It was scuffing the lens release button. Viltrox now issues a warning for that, but did not (yet) fix the problem.

With Fuji raw files the raw converter matters but no so much for sharpness and contrast. Mostly for artefacts and noise reduction. Lightroom or Capture One shouldn’t be really different when it comes to sharpness. In all honesty you’re comparing a pro-grade full-frame camera like the 5DMkIII (had one for many years) with a consumer grade aps-c camera which most Fuji cameras are. On top of that you mention L-glass which is Canon’s most discerning line of lenses. Without exactly knowing which hardware you’re comparing, my guess is that your expectations are a bit too high. I use Fuji for personal work and have used it for a few years professionally as well (X-H1 a/o with red badge zooms and fast primes). I’m very happy with the results but they’re not in the same league as my current full frame Nikon Z’s. Let alone the Hasselblad H6D...

I see your point, but there's an easy way around this. First you have to know that all film simulations and settings like color, highlight/shadow tones, grain et cetera only affect the jpeg image and not the raw (RAF) file. However, within each raw file there's also a small jpeg included for preview purposes. Regardless of whether you shoot raw-only or raw+jpeg, that embedded jpeg will also be created based on your settings and selected film simulation. It is used for display purposes like the EVF/LCD but also in preview mode in Lightroom and Capture One. Now the tricky part: that preview jpeg is also used for your histogram. So the histogram actually doesn't show the 'real scene' but the jpeg interpretation of it. If you expose using that histogram it will also affect the raw. So there is an indirect impact of film simulation and H/S settings to the raw file. The setting of Natural Live View alone (or: Preview Pic. Effect) doesn't solve this. Fuji should have included a 'neutral' or bypass mode as well (like e.g. Nikon) but unfortunately they don't. However, there's a way around this. Create a 'flat' profile for when you are only interested in the raw file. You do that by selecting a film profile with less contrast and neutral colors like PRO NEG STD (or PROVIA/STD) and set the Highlight and Shadow tone to -2 and color to 0. Keep WB and DR on auto and switch on Natural Live View. Now we get a flat neutral image (real scene) with a live histogram that resembles the real values. Using that histogram we can expose exactly how we want the shadows and highlights to be. Further on in post you have the largest possible latitude in your raw file.

Fujifilm X Acquire doesn't support the M1 Macbooks (yet). Usually Fuji is really slow in adapting it's software to these new platforms... I guess that's the downside of freeware.