bhu

Pixel = picture element = group of sensor elements that, together, comprise the necessary information to reproduce any color the elements are capable of recording or displaying for the smallest solid angle. Individual color elements do not have to be the same size, either. OLED panels often use much larger blue elements than red or green to keep the drive voltage down and reduce burn-in while delivering the same amount of light as a smaller blue element driven "harder", but I digress. OLEDs are not used for sensors in any meaningful way. Mosaic = repeating arrangement of picture elements (pixels). A mosaic may be as simple as a pixel like RGB-stripe, may be slightly more complex such as GR,BG (Bayer) where there are two green elements, or a bit more complex GBG,RGR,GBG in tiles that alternate between 0 and 90 degree rotation (portrait and landscape, if you will) so that it takes 4 sets of these 3x3 tiles to define the basic mosaic. X-trans is a 6x6 arrangement (mosaic) of 3x3 pixels alternating in orientation as if you are laying a patterned tile and turn every other one 90 degrees. X-trans is, arguably, a modified version of Bayer. The pattern is more complex but there are still twice as many green elements as red and blue and those green elements have some bias toward horizontal and diagonal lines but the pattern was "softened" by making quads of green elements. Moire is still possible on X-trans but will be less apparent due to the disruption in the green elements' pattern. Moire comes from capturing and image with a pattern that largely aligns with the sensor's pattern, or a pattern on the media it is reproduced on like a computer monitor or electronic printer. For more information, look up moire in Wikipedia and then modulation transfer function.

I do not really trust everything Amazon says.

I gave my 18-55 away a month ago betting on a new version being in the works.

The X-A10 seems reasonable to me. Some areas in the world have lower price points for the same target group. Being able to buy into the Fujifilm X line could be seen as a status symbol and sales of low-cost X-mount bodies to people unable or unwilling to purchase a high-end body also should help lens sales, which were probably also being affected by price-point. I do wonder, though, if this new X-A10 could also be a combination of X-E#, X-A#, and X#0 as an attempt to aggregate entry-level products. Fujifilm will be thinking of lens sales, after all. The X100# and X#0 lines did not have interchangeable lenses so perhaps they did not do enough to encourage upgrading to MILCs.

OLEDs are often blue-ish because the color blue degrades faster over life of the device than red and green so the manufacturer starts them more blue. In other words, the blue elements fade over time turning the picture brown-ish. This can be compensated for by such things as trying to run the blue elements at lower, more-efficient power levels and by tracking accumulated time the OLED has been running so the drive power for blue elements increases over the life of the device to give the appearance of stable colors but the methods are not perfect. OLED displays have burn-in like CRTs, except that the colors also degrade at different rates. LCDs remain stable for color a very long time so their calibration should hold for the life of the device. Unfortunately, LCDs often trade color purity for brightness to keep power consumption low. The LCD's ability to re-create the full spectrum and bit-depth the imager records sort of depends upon cost and power consumption. There is a lot going on in translating the APS-C sensor's output to two devices of much lower quality of reproduction and very different methods of re-creating the image. I think Fujifilm did a good job with the X-T2.

I voted with my wallet for the X-T2. I now suspect the GFX development was partly responsible for deferring development of an X-E3 and, probably, slowing effort in an admittedly-full XF lens portfolio. However, now that the new medium format body and lens line-up is nearing the finish line, planning for new or refreshed products should be underway at Fujifilm. The new square Instax deserves a new printer, in my opinion, and some of the first APS-C lenses could use a refresh.

Keep your fingers crossed for a new line of lenses and accessories designed for video. Fujifilm has the experience to produce them and the market will grow as Fujifilm continues to improve its video performance on X-Series bodies. I think it can happen but it may be a year before even a rumor appears, if Fujifilm decides to wait and see how X-T2 video is received.

There are so many lenses to choose from. I imagine you already have the 18-55, though, and maybe another zoom, if this is going to be your first prime. The kit zoom is very capable and compact so consider what you find most attractive in the prime lens offerings. Stronger boke and lower light shooting Compact size (pancakes, then 35 f2) Wide angle Macro Because you are considering the 23 f2 and 35 f2, that suggests you are interested in something smaller than the kit zoom. I apologize for tossing in another option but, if you are interested in the smallest, least obtrusive lens, think about the 27, too. If you have a store with lenses nearby, pop in with your camera and see if you can try a few options to see how well they fit your need. Barring that, search the internet for pictures of your X-T10 with those lenses attached. Without a clear "need", it is difficult to decide on what to buy so try to distill what it is about the 23 f2 and 35 f2 that you like and that the kit zoom does not provide. You will be losing image stabilization when you take off the zoom lens so define what you hope to gain in return.

Yes, as Larry has said, do not worry. MF cameras are for an entirely different customer base. If full-frame cameras are losing customers to APS-C, then MF, with its much larger lenses and implied weight gain are not going to cannibalize the smaller sensor market. If you still wish to worry about something, worry about cell-phone cameras gaining multiple lens elements and growing in size to finish eating up the P&S market. The XF series lenses have a pretty full range right now. A super-fast, short-focal prime will have limited application because of its very shallow depth of field. Long focal length fast primes will be heavy, which APS-C users like me kind of hoped to get away from. Rather than niche, or situational, lenses, I suspect Fujifilm will revisit some of their earlier designs to do things like add weatherproofing, update the image stabilization, make them focus quieter and faster, improve manual focus and the aperture controls, take some cost out where they can, address any obsolete components inside, etc. Fujifilm will not make a lot of money developing eclectic specialty lenses and, even if they make a special lens, the people who buy them will keep them for a very long time. Fujifilm makes money on standard primes and zooms that sell in larger volume so their first priority before development is to determine which lens offers the chance at the most revenue. With a maturing lens line, that will mean considering updates and revisions capable of enticing a lot of customers into selling their old lenses. The tapered lenses designed for the X-Pro2 is one opportunity. The X-T2, with its nascent video capability may be another. However, there is the original kit lens and a few others that I suspect Fujifilm is considering how to update in attractive ways.

Shipped from B&H today.

I am very glad OIS is included, though. It will help mitigate the need for additional lighting.

I am not an expert but thought that a dedicated video camera typically uses a charge-coupled device (CCD) sensor instead of a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) sensor. The CCD may also require a themo-electric cooler and large heat sink to keep the naturally-higher noise-floor down. Rolling shutter is one of the main problems that can only be addressed with a very fast sensor (and sensor read-out) but increased noise is usually the result so camera design becomes... different. Perhaps Fujifilm is working on such a thing but a semi-professional video camera may cost quite a bit more than X-photographers are interested in spending. In any case, I may be mistaken or way behind the technology curve so please take these comments with a grain of salt.

If true, the 23 being longer than the 35 makes sense to me, from an optics point of view. The main point of the new 23, 35, and 50 is to not obstruct an OVF while not losing IQ. The lenses are not designed to minimize size, per se. The old 23 is longer than the old 35, the 14 is nearly the length of the 23 despite being significantly slower, and the 16 is significantly longer than the old 23.

Wow, this topic has certainly heated up. From my point of view, it all boils down to trades between portability and usability; i.e., what is too small to handle and what is inconveniently large. That is what will drive market segments for cameras. Sensor size determines lens size/weight while people's hands drive body size and the size of controls. Achieving the "Goldilocks" design for each group of photographers is the manufacturers' goal. APS-C lenses are good enough for me without being too large and the mirrorless body is about the right size. Imagine an X-TSomething body size with a 1" sensor and a high quality 10-100 zoom and please keep in mind that body size and sensor size are really independent variables. I will not buy the grip until I get serious about video on the camera and, even when I do purchase it, I will only equip it for taking video but that is just my personal preference.

I used the 18-135 almost exclusively in SF because the hills provided such great views and the extra zoom was also good for photographing nature. The lens is somewhat large to leave on the camera all the time but it kept things simple, too. For photographs indoors, a wide angle is recommended and, for photo's in the evening or at night, a fast prime.

All lenses have some form of distortion. If the distortion can be corrected using a mathematical transform, whether in-camera or using software, then it is distortion-free. There are other types of aberration that are not correctable. For example, a lens element may not be polished to perfectly match the ideal design/shape and so distortion correction software (based upon an ideal lens) does not fully correct for that particular lens' distortion (and other aberrations). That group photo can be warped mathematically to "fix" the barrel distortion, both spatial and luminance, but the SW needs to have a filter for the ideal Fujinon XF14 and the actual lens should be very close to that ideal.

For me, the 18-55 gathers the most dust. I use the 18-135 slightly-super-zoom when the light is decent and swap to primes for low light. I do not have the 55-200, though I had been avoiding getting it because of the 100-400 that was on the roadmap for so long. As soon as the 100-400 goes on sale without the teleconverter, I am buying it. I do not think I will wait a year for the X-T2 to go on sale. I am still using an X-E1 but had decided long ago to only switch bodies for major sensor updates.

With Fujifilm cancelling the XF120 macro and a rumor of a macro in a shorter focal length, I wonder what the photography experts think of the change. The shorter focal length should help the lens gather more light, making macro photography easier without an external light source, but would also lower the magnification of the subject. There is also more competition from Fujifilm's 60 mm 0.5x lens and the 100 mm Rokinon / Samyang lens. Please lend me your thoughts on macro lens choices, especially trades concerning focal length.

Here are a few thoughts regarding the EVF: A larger exit-pupil would be great. This will make designing the EVF much more challenging but if Fujifilm can do it and make a viewfinder work without getting as close to the lens, more cameras could be sold. (An extreme example of a viewfinder with a very large exit pupil is the rear display on the camera.) When shooting in middle to low light, the EVF becomes too bright and my left eye becomes blind because the right eye image dominates completely. That is why it would be nice to have controls for quick luminance adjustment like a control wheel to prevent the viewfinder from overwhelming the image in the other eye. The camera's sensor could also be used to measure object luminance and automatically set EVF luminance as appropriate for the lighting environment. Also, viewfinder luminance can increase as magnification diverges from 1x to make that image more dominant but it should not destroy night vision unless the user is willing to trade it for the better EVF image. In fact, all displays and LEDs on the camera should adapt to ambient lighting conditions being bright on a sunny day or dim at night. (Keep in mind the dominant image is the brightest one. This is different than a dominant eye, which is the eye your brain is not trained to ignore, or blank out. It is easier than most people think to swap dominant eyes - much easier than swapping handedness.) Add a toggle that either scales the EVF image to the sensor size or scales it appropriately to 1x magnification using just a subset of teh EVF's pixels. When using lenses with very short or long focal lengths, the image size in the right eye does not match the left eye closely enough and I am forced to close the left. Viewfinders lost some intuitiveness in the transition from optical to electronic. If you could make the viewfinder do anything you want, what changes would you have?

You sound interested in a zoom. The 16-55 is a "Pro" lens like the 50-140 with its constant aperture zoom made for photographers who use a lot of manual settings. Get it, if you need that feature. Keep in mind it is the constant aperture zoom and probably faster auto-focus components that make the lens so hefty. Do you have the 18-55 kit zoom? It is optically slower than the 16-55 at anything but 18 mm but also weighs under half and is smaller, especially zoomed to 55 mm. If you have the kit lens, think over what you would like it to do that it does not right now. If you do not have it, or another zoom, consider trades between the 10-24, 16-50, 16-55, 18-55, and 18-135. I do not recall any truly "bad" lens reviews for Fujifilm lenses. Whatever you decide should not become a horror story. Regarding primes, I only really use fast primes wide open in poor light, though professional photographers do so to intentionally de-focus some of the image. (The wider the aperture setting, the shallower the depth of field, meaning foreground and background become more out of focus as aperture increases. Etendue can be frustratingly intractable but at least photographers seem to have fun with it.) If you have not seen it, yet, look this over: http://www.fujivsfuji.com/16-55mm-f2pt8-vs-18-55mm-f2pt8-4-vs-18-135mm-f3pt5-5pt6/

For astro-photography, look for reviews with measurements of chromatic aberration. Photographing point light sources with numerical apertures that are close to zero using a lens with significant chromatic aberration will turn stars into rainbows with the worst of it in the corners. Any part of the photograph with enough chromatic aberration change a star's shape is garbage you will want to trim off, anyway, so a very wide lens can actually result in a smaller field of view after chopping off the bad areas. Look for the widest angle on a lens that does not show chromatic aberration. If you can adjust for distortion and vignetting, you might try stitching images together. Image warping and adjusting luminance is workable but fixing chromatic aberrations is more challenging.

I do think Fujifilm should think about an interchangeable lens system between 1" and 1/2" for the next generation size-down. Certainly the P&S market is difficult as 1/1.6 and 1/1.7 camera modules proliferate in cell phones and tablets but there is a market for super-zooms and sensors will continue improving. A quality interchangeable lens system where owners can change bodies periodically with sensor and feature updates is a good way of capturing repeat customers who cannot get the same photo quality from cell-phones, P&S, and premium compact systems. There may be synergy in that sensor size range to capture some of the C-mount market. Just thinking 5-10 years out, here.

The 18-135 is the least bulky way of getting a longer focal length. With decent lighting, it seems fine, to me. The 14 is my wide angle lens and is also the least bulky lens wider than the 18 mm pancake. For low-light, the 23, either 35, or 56 primes are useful but if you do not shoot with the largest apertures, the 18-55 or a pancake could make more sense. The 18 or 27 pancakes also make an unobtrusive spare lens.

Hmm, a superzoom needs a small-ish sensor and the optics would be unique to the body, unless Fujifilm designed a sensor to be the same size as their old super-zoom lens. I could envision a case where the sensor and superzoom lens were standardized and given periodic updates but design re-use should be a mandate. What might be really interesting is if a superzoom lens and body were separate. That is, a half-inch sensor body and short line of small xf lenses, including a superzoom. This way, bodies and lenses could be updated independently. It will not be too many years before APS-C sensors are way larger than necessary for professional photographers. Fujifilm might as well get a jump on a way to keep pro's from cell phones and P&S.

I found the article... different. You cannot cheat physics. Making a lens is an exercise in design trades. Connecting lens design and photographic art skill the way the author did confused me. Physical optics is just going to remain separate in my head.