earthquake

So many people here who have never actually used a good IBIS system are completely convinced that it wouldn't be beneficial. I'm sure there were a lot of people who were perfectly happy with their horse and buggy and didn't see the need for this new fangled Model-T thing until they actually drove one. It's true that IBIS is not magical, it won't freeze motion at 1/10th a second so you can't use it to shoot sports, but other than that, it allows you to take more (or better) photos in more situations. You can leave the tripod at home unless you're doing very long exposures (over 1 second), you can forgo flash with slow moving/static subjects. You don't need to hope, pray and lean on something to get a usable shot at a slow shutter speed, you just bring the camera to your eye and take the photo. Additionally, there are many situations where use of a tripod or flash is simply impossible or impractical. Churches, theaters, restaurants, pretty much any crowded pedestrian area, etc. The only negatives to IBIS seem to be rooted in straight up paranoia, "it's going to make the camera fall apart!" "it's going to make my images blurry!" "it's going to kill battery life!", none of these are real concerns with a well implemented IBIS system, look no further than the current generation Olympus IBIS, which is extremely reliable (at least as reliable if not more so than any OIS I've ever used), even works when you mount it on a tripod w/o turning it off, and is featured in cameras that have comparable battery life to others w/o IBIS in the same class, while OIS drains battery life as well. Amusingly, the same concerns were raised by Sony NEX users, until they had cameras with IBIS, now IBIS is very much a desirable feature in the Sony camp. Even if you don't want IBIS and would turn it off, having IBIS would be good for Fuji users as a whole. Fuji could sell more cameras and lenses to more people, which would make them a more stable company, which in turn makes it more likely that they will continue to offer products that you love. As it is currently, there are people like me who are very seriously interested in the Fuji system, but won't switch until they offer IBIS.

I think It's a misnomer to say IS gets in the way of letting you capture what you see. It's another tool in the toolbox, and allows you to capture what you see under more situations. You can always turn it off if you don't like it, but you can't turn it on when it's not there.

I have a lot of experience with IBIS. For years I shot Sony Alpha DSLRs (which all have IBIS), then a few years ago I switched to M43rds, initially with the EM5. Now I have an EM1 and EM5II, both of which offer superb IBIS (better than any IBIS or even IOS I've used before). A couple years back I picked up an XE1 to try the Fuji system out. I really like the ergonomics of the camera, and some of the lenses (like the 23/1.4 and 56/1.2) are very appealing to me. I wasn't happy with XE1 at the time, mostly due to poor EVF, AF and general system responsiveness/performance, and lack of IBIS. It seems like Fuji has improved most of the areas that were weak with the XT1 and various firmware upgrades, however, lack of IBIS is still a deal breaker for me. If Fuji release a XT2 with IBIS I would probably buy it, and would seriously consider swapping my M43rds system for the Fuji system. Now, IBIS doesn't work miracles, but it is very, very handy for low light when you have a static or slow moving subject, or when you don't care about subject movement (say you purposely want to blur a crowd of people on a busy street, its difficult to do this without either IS or a tripod). A lot of work I do is my Panasonic 7-14mm, and I can get the shutter speed down to a full second while still getting sharp images, and thus keeping ISO very low, which in large part offsets the smaller sensor size of my M43rds cameras. I know Fuji has a 10-24mm lens with IS, but I'm not sure how effective the IS is, and that is only one lens. The other two lenses I use most frequently in low light are my 25/1.4 (which I can shoot at 1/2 with IBIS) and 42.5/1.2. Neither the 35/1.4 or 56/1.2 Fuji have IS, so I would have to generally use a higher ISO than I would with M43rds (unless I'm shooting fast moving subjects and need to bump ISO to prevent blur from movement, then IS doesn't help). IBIS in video is also a huge help. I'm not a professional videographer, so when I shoot video its a quick clip and I don't have a steadycam rig with me. The IBIS in video mode on the EM1 and EM5II especially is astounding, you have to try it to really understand. No more nauseating shaky-cam video. The only time I cary a tripod is when I'm shooting 360 degree HDR panoramas. Lugging a tripod around goes completely against my reasons for switching from DSLRs to mirrorless, to significantly reduce the size/weight of the kit and make it more fun to shoot. IBIS on my Olympus cameras makes a tripod redundant for all but extreme work, like exposures slower than 1 second or HDR bracketing.