bastibe

I use the X-Pro for the viewfinder. That's its reason for being. It's what makes it unique. 

I use the X-Pro for the viewfinder. That's its reason for being. It's what makes it unique. 

After my lengthy reply, I have still been thinking about this. What I'd most like to add isn't an answer to the question "How has your photography evolved", but instead an answer to the related question "How has your photography stayed the same".
And this is what drew me to Fuji.
What has stayed the same is that apertures change several things, and shutter speeds change several things, and sensitivity or ASA or ISO change several things. For each, the brightness level in the image is one of those things - but brightness is never the ONLY thing that changes! And that is not a problem. That is part of what I like thinking about when taking pictures.
I've always used manual aperture and shutter speed. I also used what I'll call "manual film speed", in the sense that I thought about what film speed would suit my needs when loading the camera, though, sadly, in the past the speed couldn't be chosen for each individual shot.
What made me reluctant about getting seriously into digital photography was that the digital cameras I was aware of were designed to shoot on auto exposure. Some of them had ways to shoot manually instead, but typically this involved extra effort to override the automatic, maybe dig down into menus to get to each manual setting. About as much fun as entering a complicated password using a TV remote with just a few keys (we went through that the other night).
What drew me to Fuji, when somebody pointed it out to me, was that some models put dials for all these things right there in plain view. I love that! It makes digital photography OK! And all the other things I mentioned go on to make it great.

Regarding sample variation. I have seen two very bad 18-55s and a bad 10-24, which my friend had to return to Fuji for repair twice before they would recognise there was a problem. I had a 10-24  that was fairly poor at the edges. I sold it. It seems that you can get the occasional bad apple with any lens. I have an 18-55 and the 16-80. My samples are about on a par optically and quite acceptable. I find the 16-80 to be a much more versatile lens. Additionally it has a much more capable ios. It is so good that you can forget about the loss of a stop at the wide end, except in the case of subject movement of course. Most of the reviews of the 16-80 seem to be expecting too much. Remember, it's a 5:1 zoom and is never going to be as sharp as a prime

Welcome to the forum!
I've been thinking about this exact question lately. I did a LOT of amateur photography in about 1978-1985, including my own darkroom with some simple color processes. Much of my attention was on how to do the wet chemistry and using the enlarger. Polycontrast paper, which involved purple and yellow filters on the enlarger, was new, and I tried a lot with that, including burning and dodging with different filters to do local increase or decrease of the contrast. For a while I was on a sepia toning kick. On the camera side of things, I liked macrophotography including a bellows and special bellows lenses, and I worked pretty hard to make depth of field work. Generally I tried to practice better focusing technique, and had about 4 or 5 different focusing screens. I tried to practice better holding technique, too, using tips from archery to control my breath and get less blurry pictures when struggling with long shutter times.
I got into Fuji X cameras within the last couple years. This was my introduction to digital cameras with interchangeable lenses. What evolved the most was that all the wet chemistry went away, including a lot of work that had nothing to do with controlling the images I made. Do I need to improve my temperature control? How fresh are all my batches of chemicals and how fresh do they need to be? Do I need to add a fan because the fumes are bothering me? Can I make a homemade vacuum easel to keep the paper from curling under the enlarger? Can I load some more cartridges today or is it so hot I will sweat inside the changing bag and ruin them all? ALL of that stuff just went away.
Lots more evolved. Autofocus mostly made focusing technique go away, or reduced it to thinking about what part of the image I wanted sharp. Rather than having to decide whether to accept the grain of Tri-X or the speed of Pan-X or compromise on Plus-X, and having to stick with that for the whole session, I get sensitivity that is somewhere between better and way way better. Handheld shots can be so much slower now without shake. And the lenses are faster -- I used to have one lens that went to f/1.4, and now I have several that can do that, and one that incredibly goes to f/1.0. Not only that, I can do focus stacking now, and get what used to be flat out impossible shots.
Long story short, mostly, the hard stuff went away, or at least got several stops better.
I guess the downside is that now I struggle sometimes with software, installations that don't go right, needing to track updates, and camera instructions that are 10 or 100 times more complex. Before automatic exposure and other microprocessor driven stuff came along, there just weren't that many details. My favorite camera, the Canon F-1, did have a battery for the light meter, but other than the meter not functioning it was the same user experience if I left the battery out. Sunny 16 and I was good to go.

I use it 90% of the time and it's in fact the reason I went for the X-Pro series (i could have gone for the X100's but I like the idea of interchangeable lenses). Having the little preview window is a real bonus for those occasions when I need to get an idea of exposure etc (I never could read those histograms).

Somehow, the 35 f/1.4's magic never appealed to me, even though I use it regularly. But to my eyes, it's "merely" an incredibly compact, but optically slightly compromised 35mm lens.
The (old) 23 f/1.4 and 60 f/2.4, on the other hand, I find absolutely lovely. (Actually, my true magic lens was the Sony RX1's, although mated to a less appealing body. The 23 f/1.4 is the closest I've ever come to recreating that magic.) 

Since I’m going to Spain soon, I wanted a light and effective way to back up my SD cards every day during the trip.  There were some old and no longer available devices on the market, but all had limited capacity and rather expensive... or bulky.   
I came across a neat project that uses a Raspberry Pi zero 2 (this is a much faster version of the old Pi zero) and also supports Wi-Fi.  I made one, designed a custom case for it that I 3D printed (I have files for anyone that wants to to this project), and can say it works extremely well.  
 
The device is extremely simple, plug in a target storage device (in the pictures I have an extremely tiny crucial 4 terabyte ssd drive - the square thing), plug in a card reader (in the picture it’s that very compact usb stick so no cables needed), and it will automatically back up what’s on the SD card.   It won’t overwrite files, only add new ones, and recognizes different SD cards so it makes separate folders for each unique SD card.   It has a screen that shows transfer status, and while idle shows you the ip address so you can log into it with a phone and web browser.  The thing is, with a portable battery, you can do this without even being near an outlet, and entirely in the field or on the go.   
 
pics   Lens cap for scale   

 
here’s some screen shots if you want to log in   You can also get thumbnails of images, but that takes way too long to generate, so I leave that function off  

 

 
the project can be found here - https://github.com/outdoorbits/little-backup-box
the hardware portion isn’t entirely concise, if if people make this for themselves I can share what I got and from where.   The main parts list are:
raspberry Pi zero 2
four port usb hat -
https://www.adafruit.com/product/3298?gclid=Cj0KCQjwlPWgBhDHARIsAH2xdNdICMYNwWVgb1i4BRLETI_8Mrep_RZf8hiQgtu4lT8W80hEM3GsQvEaAlU1EALw_wcB
and the OLED display (make sure if you get it from adafruit to get the pigtail connector) -
https://www.adafruit.com/product/938
the best thing is, you can use any low power ssd storage drive, and if you need more space, just get more drives.   
 
for the usb card reader, I got this, that’s in the image - 
SD Card Reader, uni USB SD Card...
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087QG75L7?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
for the large storage I am using this -
Crucial X6 4TB Portable SSD – Up...
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08W1KDM9K?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
 
I hope this helps someone looking for an on the road backup solution, and is a tinkerer like me.  

There's a lot of misconception re. the sensor generations Fuji uses. In essence there's no visible image quality difference between the 24Mp X-TransIII/Processor and the 26Mp X-TransIV/Processor. The 2Mp are negligible. There's virtually no visible difference in low-light performance as well. The BSI (back-side illuminated) technology of the 26Mp sensor has a theoretical advantage here because the metal wiring layer is not on top of the photocells, but beneath them. However, the photocells of the 24Mp are larger and therefor the yield of the 26Mp BSI-sensor is lower than the 24Mp FSI sensor (front-side illuminated). That glitches out almost all advantages here.
What does make a difference is the number of AF pixels on the 26Mp sensor (much higher) and the shorter circuits due to the BSI technology of the 26Mp sensor. That allows for greater throughput capacity and quicker AF. Top that with a more powerful processor in the 26Mp camera's and you have snappier AF and higher video bit rates (up to 400 Mbps).
The main differences between the x-pro2 (I'm a long-time owner) and the x-pro3 (tried it extensively) are the LCD screen and the viewfinder. The hidden LCD screen could be very beneficial to a street shooter (from the hip). However, imo it sucks to have to open it for menu access and menu access through the EVF is cumbersome when you wear glasses (and have thumbprints all over them). I prefer a screen like the X100V were the user has options to choose how to use it and which is nicely integrated in the body. The sub monitor is imo a useless gadget as there's not backlighting button like on the X-H1/GFX50S. 
The viewfinder for me is the real dealbreaker on the X-Pro3. Though it is larger and brighter, in OVF mode (which is why I bought the X-Pro) there's only one magnification left (x0.50) rather than the 2 magnification levels of the X-Pro2. That renders the X-Pro3 in OVF mode useless for lenses shorter than 23mm and longer than 35mm. I can't use my 16/18mm and my beloved 50mm anymore on the X-Pro3 in OVF unless I settle with a very tiny frame or frame lines outside my OVF. For now I'm sticking to the X-Pro2.

I tried Darktable around Christmas time and have now got quite far with it. It is more powerful than C1 and LR, the demosaicing is very good and it has all the tools I need. I haven’t opened anything else for a couple of weeks. The learning curve is quite steep though... and it is free. Save your money for lenses!

Hello,
I am glad @teaandcake went to Fujifilm. I did the move a while ago buying the X-T20, coming form Nikon and previously Canon and I was blown away. Now I added a X-T3 and I won't probably go anywhere else for the time being.
I've been doing some comparative tests with different software to see how can get the best from the X-Trans sensor, finding myself in a similar situation.
Long story short, I am now down to Camera Raw (which is also in LR) with "Enhance details" .dng photos and Capture One Express (which won't export .dng for business reasons, I think).
If you work a bit with the sharpening on both software you will get exactly the same level of definition. In Camera Raw is under "Edit - Detail", while in Capture One is in "Quick - Sharpening" AND "Details - Sharpening" (so in Capture One you have to work twice). I would start from 0 on both.
Also in Capture One you have to turn down to 0 the Noise Reduction. "Details - Noise Reduction".
Zeroing all these pre-loaded settings, will get you exact results.
In terms of treating the pixel, I find Capture One being slightly (just slightly) better but only if you zoom up to the pixel you will notice it, so in real life this difference won't never be seen.
My conclusion is, between the two tools, use the one you like and feel familiar most, so play with both and set yourself at ease. Helping to choose it's also dependant on your circle of photography friends. I am staying on Camera Raw because everyone I know use Adobe, but I will play a bit with Capture One to see what has to offer.

according to my experience , i might not have year's of experience . but according to my usage experience , capture one is still better than lightroom for fujifilm x-trans sensor camera files . if you need to use lightroom ,you can alternatively convert the raf file to tiff or dng using "silkypix raw x converter" or capture one itself , i assume that the free version of capture one express for fujifilm can do that . so if you only want to use a software which give the best possible results without so many tasks for fujifilm x-trans raf files capture one is the simple choice ,also topaz softwares and luminar works very nice with fujifilm x-trans sensor camera files . also "darktable" which is a lightweight and open source software ,also work very well with fujifilm raf files . i hope this helps . have a nice day !