addicted2light

This might be a matter of taste, but IMO once you switch to an EVF you will not go back to a DSLR optical viewfinder (the OVF of the X100 series or the Leica M is a different matter, and still has its uses). Last year on a whim (it was cheap as dirt at a nearby mall) I bough a Nikon D3200 as a "who cares if they steal it or if it breaks" travel camera for the times I'm not going around specifically to take pictures. I used it quite a bit alongside my other cameras to test it in advance, but after a single trip I hated its guts and I sold it shortly thereafter. Mind you, the results where as good as anything else, but it was frustrating as hell to use. And I am one of those folks who shot for 20plus years with a film camera on unforgiving slide film, just to say that I don't need chimping or an EVF to nail my exposure nor I need to compulsively check my latest shot, but I think an EVF is photographically speaking life changing. Nowadays I use a Sony A7r for landscapes, a Fuji XT-10 for landscapes and everything else, and an Olympus E-M10 for when I'm bicycle touring, the Olympus mostly because the lenses are incredibly small and so fit in my saddle bag; as they say "horses for courses".

I bought a bag of long screws from an hardware store. It's way cheaper than buying them from a photographic supplies store: for the price of 1 screw (photo store) I bought a bag of 10 (hardware store). Talk about overpriced stuff... Ask for 1/4" 20 UNC steel screws.

A sheet of rubber, or the kind sold to repair the soles of the shoes should you not be able to locate a "normal" one, might do the trick if you manage to find the right (for your particular situation) thickness. As a side bonus, it will keep the camera from turning thanks to the friction.

Even the cheap, Chinese, ebay-special, l-brackets will move the tripod mount to the center (at least mine does, and so all the others I've seen). Alternatively, if you're handy with a drill you could buy a drill bit like the one I used in the link below (second picture in the post, first drill bit from the right, around 5€ for a set of three) and use it to drill a hole of the appropriate size on your Stroboframe bracket. This bits chew through metal like it was butter. Even with a battery operated drill it shouldn't take more than a minute. Just be careful to not let the bit overheat; to avoid ruining it, pour a few drops of water on the hole-in-progress every time the water evaporates. And wear a cheap 0.2€ paper mask: it's not safe to breathe aluminum! Review: Velbon Ultra Rexi L tripod and a quick and dirty mod

This is also lens-dependant (and btw, thanks, you just made another point against Sony lenses for me: a slate grey tone is not exactly something I aspire to get...). Like I said I don't shoot with (vastly overpriced IMHO, with the partial exception of the 28 and the two 35) Sony glass, but with Contax, Leica/Minolta M-Rokkor and Minolta MD legacy lenses (horses for courses, because each line has a different color and contrast signature). Contax/Zeiss glass has on its own a pretty pronounced magenta / warm tint, and loads of contrast; that combined with the characteristic tonalities of the Sony sensor, gives me that kind of greenish-warm tone. With some Leica R glass or Minolta M-Rokkor Leica M mount lenses the green is vastly reduced, while the warmth skyrockets. If you were to shoot side to side with Contax glass the same image, the Leica one will look yellow, like you set the wrong white balance. It's, as usual, a matter of knowing what kind of results you want to get, and to choose appropriately the right tool. It's true that with digital we have a fair amount of slack, so we can change a lot, but starting closer to the desired final result it is not only easier and faster but it requires less post-processing "stress" on the files.

Lol

You're welcome. BTW, in my opinion (and in the way I use them) Sony cameras excel for landscape & studio, basically "tripod use", while Fuji (and to a lesser extent Olympus) are better tools for handheld shots. In a practical sense, Sony replaced my medium (6x7) and large format (5x7") setups, while Fuji and a small (especially in terms of lenses' size) Olympus have replaced my 4.5x6 medium format and 35mm film setups. As they say horses for courses.

I don't shoot weddings, but I have both a Sony A7r and an X-T10. Never had a problem with the Q button, but the handling of the camera improved greatly by adding an L-bracket thanks to its additional grip/handle (10$ on ebay). Like I said I don't shoot weddings, but contrarily to what the Internet seems to think I was never favorably impressed with Sony high ISOs performance. Above 800/1600iso (and in long exposures) all the Sony I ever had, included the A7r, put out hundreds of hot pixels that are a pain to get rid off (with or without the noise reduction on). This if you actually use the high ISOs in low light situations, instead of in fairly brightly illuminated scenes like in many of the online tests. The Fuji images instead, while a tiny tad more grainy if compared to Sony's files downscaled to 16Mp, are remarkably clean and seem to respond much better to luminance noise reduction, and to almost not need at all color noise reduction. Last thing, Fuji focus peaking is bang on precise, while Sony's is always way off to be really useful.

Thanks, the only thing vaguely similar I managed to find are the adapters that include a variable nd filter. I agree, a solution with a screw in fiter would be optimal!

...on the other hand, they can be useful with legacy lenses BEHIND the lens. I DIY'd this contraption you can read about in the following link mostly to avoid seawater droplets on the sensor when changing lenses at the beach, especially on windy days: http://www.addicted2light.com/2015/11/21/how-to-get-rid-of-dust-on-the-sensor-the-diy-way/

IMO, the only two reasons to use an UV filter are: a you're in a sandstorm b it's raining And b mostly because I'm a slob, so if I have a filter on my lens when it's raining (and obviously the deepest hood I can fit without vignetting) I can clean up water drops from the front of the lens without worrying of scratching the lens itself, even using a corner of my shirt if needed.

I've tried several times to warm up to Capture 1, especially given that they give you a slightly limited version for free if you shoot Sony. But I can't stand the fact that it litters the file system with its own files and other several small annoying quirks (well, annoying from the perspective of a LR and PS user). But thanks for the suggestion! That said, and even if I'm a self-confessed sharpness nut (in terms of lens performance) I'm not too obsessed with the sharpest possible print. Quite the opposite actually, I think sometime a print too sharp might look unnatural or, even worse, take away the attention from your subject to the technical quality of the print itself. So I get what you say when you write that you have to move the sharpness slider the other way with some lenses, otherwise the results will look "unflatteringly sharp". A proper print, IMO, (and based on what you say I guess you agree) should be transparent, for lack of a better term, and every enhancement (and I post process my files quite a bit) should be in function of the subject.

I use both a Sony A7r and a Fuji X-T10. Just answered a similar question on another post: http://www.fuji-x-forum.com/topic/2513-sony-power-vs-the-siren-song-of-kaizen/?do=findComment&comment=23293 so I'll just copy&paste here for your convenience. Hope this helps. I'll just add though that in terms of "bang for the bucks" Fuji trashes Sony big time, especially with the crazy prices that the latter is asking for the latest models. And as for the lenses you can read what I think about below. _____________________________________________________________ I own both a Sony A7r and a Fuji X-T10, so maybe I can shed some light. HIGH ISOs AND LONG EXPOSURES In low light the Sony, once resized to 16Mp, it has a tad less noise, but Sony sensors (or at least every Sony camera I've ever had) put out A TON ( = hundreds) of hot pixels both at high iso and doing long exposures, even with the "long exposure noise reduction" engaged. So for anything over 800 iso and for long exposures Fuji it is. HIGH CONTRAST BORDERS The original A7 series (A7 and A7r) has compressed raw. This is not a major thing most of the time, EXCEPT when you have sharp transitions from dark to light. Think a window in near silhouette and an outside scene, or a tree trunk against a sunlit background. Then as soon as you start pushing the contrast (and you will have to, because the vast dynamic range of Sony sensors means that the images will be pretty flat straight out of camera) you're left with horrible halos like you normally get on over-sharpened images. You can cure this with careful brushing in Photoshop (or up to a certain point negative clarity in Lightroom), but it is a gigantic pain in the you-know-what. Fuji does not have this problem. LENSES I don't personally have any Sony lens, because most of them are simply too expensive for what they give you, even terrific piece of glass like the 55/1.8. Besides, from what I've read it looks like Sony has a bit of a problem with sample variation (again, no personal experience in this field). But I use Contax Zeiss and Minolta MD adapted lenses (Contax for general use, Minolta for pastel like colors and low contrast), and with the camera strapped to a stable tripod the results are terrific. That said, from 180mm and above, tripod or no tripod, you better use fast shutter speeds otherwise the horrific shutter shock of the A7r will blurry the image (should not be a problem with the A7 though).* Fuji has the advantage of having a way better lens line-up, IMO, both in terms of focal lengths covered and in terms of sheer quality. Even the cheap 16-50 that came with the X-T10 is a surprisingly good performer! And with the OIS I've been able to shoot up to 1s (yes, one full second!!!) @ 50mm with sharp results (keep in mind, I've been shooting since I was maybe 5 years old, YMMV). *I use a pretty heavy tripod with an Arca Swiss B-1 ball that was more than strong enough to support my 5x7" large format camera, and I still get shutter shock, so yeah, it's a thing FF Vs APS-C My approach to this is pretty simple. If you shoot portraits FF has the advantage of shallow depth of field (but you can get similar or better results with a faster lens on Fuji like the 55/1.2). If you shoot landscapes or street FF has the disadvantage of the shallow depth of field. Especially with the high resolution sensor of the A7r I have quite often to focus stack images even with short lenses, because there is no way that I can get all in focus even stopping down the aperture (and besides, very few lenses will let you stop down to f/16 without robbing you of the sharpness you're searching because of diffraction; there is not a fast rule, it will depend by the optical scheme). MENUS I don't see where the big deal is anymore. The original X100 menu was horrible, as have been the menus of a couple of Nikon's cameras, but nowadays I find that whatever you're shooting you will get the hang of it pretty quickly, assuming you're actually using the camera instead of letting it sit on a shelf. X-TRANS vs SONY: SHARPNESS Fuji files will take A TON more sharpening to realize their potential, especially if you're using an Adobe raw converter. Not a problem, but it is something you should be aware of. And IMO at 100% Fuji files, for this reason, might look often a tad "unnatural". It is a moot point, though, because once printed they look fantastic, as the Sony's. The only real difference here is the one in megapixels, and with the new 24Mp sensor coming even that is becoming academic at best. Besides, even 16Mp files print beautifully, as long as you know how to properly sharpen in multiple passes (import, creative, printing), up to 1m generally, and up to 1.5 meters with some subjects, even on glossy paper (the most demanding one). And on matte or canvas probably the sky is the limit X-TRANS vs SONY: DYNAMIC RANGE Sony dynamic range, from my own test (shooting a grey step card and measuring the white point 0-255 value within Photoshop), it is around 11 2/3 stops. Fuji X-T10 dynamic range is, again from my own test, around 7 1/3 stops. This might look huge, and it is, but in real use unless you like the HDR look with no shadows you will have to compress the dynamic range quite a bit. Besides, a print on paper can withstand generally 5 1/2 stops of dynamic range anyway. And should you want to extend it anyway, I find way easier to shoot multiple images with the Fuji and combine them as an HDR 32 bit file to work on in Lightroom than to having to do the same to extend sharpness with the A7r (focus stacking is way more prone to errors that will not let you combine the images properly). X-TRANS vs SONY: COLORS This might be the last point, but in reality is where the real difference boils down. Please, keep in mind that some of the difference will be due to the characteristic of the lens used (for example Contax glass has a particularly contrasty and saturated signature), but most of it will depend by the sensor itself. This is a matter of taste. They are both capable of delivering great colors. But Sony colors are IMO more on the warm-greenish side of the spectrum (think like the 17th century Flemish school of painters, or Turner), while Fuji in my admittedly for now limited experience (compared to Sony) tends to favor cooler blues and redder, bolder reds (think Giotto) (obviously using the same white balance).

Not exactly the same, but my X-T10 quite often decides to switch to the EVF even when it's on a tripod, and I'm nowhere near the EVF, turning off the LCD. It is quite annoying... My (wild) guess is that light hitting on the eye-sensor triggers this. BTW, Olympus got this right: they use a sensor under the LCD, so when it's lifted, even a tiny bit, the camera turns off the eye sensor

I own both a Sony A7r and a Fuji X-T10, so maybe I can shed some light. HIGH ISOs AND LONG EXPOSURES In low light the Sony, once resized to 16Mp, it has a tad less noise, but Sony sensors (or at least every Sony camera I've ever had) put out A TON ( = hundreds) of hot pixels both at high iso and doing long exposures, even with the "long exposure noise reduction" engaged. So for anything over 800 iso and for long exposures Fuji it is. HIGH CONTRAST BORDERS The original A7 series (A7 and A7r) has compressed raw. This is not a major thing most of the time, EXCEPT when you have sharp transitions from dark to light. Think a window in near silhouette and an outside scene, or a tree trunk against a sunlit background. Then as soon as you start pushing the contrast (and you will have to, because the vast dynamic range of Sony sensors means that the images will be pretty flat straight out of camera) you're left with horrible halos like you normally get on over-sharpened images. You can cure this with careful brushing in Photoshop (or up to a certain point negative clarity in Lightroom), but it is a gigantic pain in the you-know-what. Fuji does not have this problem. LENSES I don't personally have any Sony lens, because most of them are simply too expensive for what they give you, even terrific piece of glass like the 55/1.8. Besides, from what I've read it looks like Sony has a bit of a problem with sample variation (again, no personal experience in this field). But I use Contax Zeiss and Minolta MD adapted lenses (Contax for general use, Minolta for pastel like colors and low contrast), and with the camera strapped to a stable tripod the results are terrific. That said, from 180mm and above, tripod or no tripod, you better use fast shutter speeds otherwise the horrific shutter shock of the A7r will blurry the image (should not be a problem with the A7 though).* Fuji has the advantage of having a way better lens line-up, IMO, both in terms of focal lengths covered and in terms of sheer quality. Even the cheap 16-50 that came with the X-T10 is a surprisingly good performer! And with the OIS I've been able to shoot up to 1s (yes, one full second!!!) @ 50mm with sharp results (keep in mind, I've been shooting since I was maybe 5 years old, YMMV). *I use a pretty heavy tripod with an Arca Swiss B-1 ball that was more than strong enough to support my 5x7" large format camera, and I still get shutter shock, so yeah, it's a thing FF Vs APS-C My approach to this is pretty simple. If you shoot portraits FF has the advantage of shallow depth of field (but you can get similar or better results with a faster lens on Fuji like the 55/1.2). If you shoot landscapes or street FF has the disadvantage of the shallow depth of field. Especially with the high resolution sensor of the A7r I have quite often to focus stack images even with short lenses, because there is no way that I can get all in focus even stopping down the aperture (and besides, very few lenses will let you stop down to f/16 without robbing you of the sharpness you're searching because of diffraction; there is not a fast rule, it will depend by the optical scheme). MENUS I don't see where the big deal is anymore. The original X100 menu was horrible, as have been the menus of a couple of Nikon's cameras, but nowadays I find that whatever you're shooting you will get the hang of it pretty quickly, assuming you're actually using the camera instead of letting it sit on a shelf. X-TRANS vs SONY: SHARPNESS Fuji files will take A TON more sharpening to realize their potential, especially if you're using an Adobe raw converter. Not a problem, but it is something you should be aware of. And IMO at 100% Fuji files, for this reason, might look often a tad "unnatural". It is a moot point, though, because once printed they look fantastic, as the Sony's. The only real difference here is the one in megapixels, and with the new 24Mp sensor coming even that is becoming academic at best. Besides, even 16Mp files print beautifully, as long as you know how to properly sharpen in multiple passes (import, creative, printing), up to 1m generally, and up to 1.5 meters with some subjects, even on glossy paper (the most demanding one). And on matte or canvas probably the sky is the limit X-TRANS vs SONY: DYNAMIC RANGE Sony dynamic range, from my own test (shooting a grey step card and measuring the white point 0-255 value within Photoshop), it is around 11 2/3 stops. Fuji X-T10 dynamic range is, again from my own test, around 7 1/3 stops. This might look huge, and it is, but in real use unless you like the HDR look with no shadows you will have to compress the dynamic range quite a bit. Besides, a print on paper can withstand generally 5 1/2 stops of dynamic range anyway. And should you want to extend it anyway, I find way easier to shoot multiple images with the Fuji and combine them as an HDR 32 bit file to work on in Lightroom than to having to do the same to extend sharpness with the A7r (focus stacking is way more prone to errors that will not let you combine the images properly). X-TRANS vs SONY: COLORS This might be the last point, but in reality is where the real difference boils down. Please, keep in mind that some of the difference will be due to the characteristic of the lens used (for example Contax glass has a particularly contrasty and saturated signature), but most of it will depend by the sensor itself. This is a matter of taste. They are both capable of delivering great colors. But Sony colors are IMO more on the warm-greenish side of the spectrum (think like the 17th century Flemish school of painters, or Turner), while Fuji in my admittedly for now limited experience (compared to Sony) tends to favor cooler blues and redder, bolder reds (think Giotto) (obviously using the same white balance).

Yeah, it was good not having to worry about a new camera every other year...but I think we're getting there, if we're not already, even with digital. Besides, my wallet still hurts every time I had/have to buy film (I shoot still a bit af film as well). Going back to your problem, meanwhile you could try using the free Adobe DNG converter.

At this point I guess you're right. I've always experienced that kind of error only with unsupported cameras, so I cannot be of much help if you're already running the latest version, sorry. EDIT: my only doubt is, are you using the latest firmware with the X-E2? Because if you are, maybe it has altered the files so they are not anymore recognized by dcraw, like if indeed it was a new camera. If that's the case, you will have to wait for an update (but contact all the same the guy behind dcraw, he might ask for samples to speed up the process).

dcraw will give you this rather unhelpful message when it doesn't support a particular camera yet. In your case it means only that you have an outdated version of dcraw, download and compile the latest one and it should be fine.

I don't have an X-E2, but the files of my X-T10 are exactly 33,4MB each, so I guess you're all right.

You should probably have dcraw already installed on your Ubuntu system, if not or if your copy is outdated and cannot read the X-E2 files download it from here: https://www.cybercom.net/~dcoffin/dcraw/ and compile following the instructions (should be pretty straightforward, basically just run "gcc -o dcraw -O4 dcraw.c -lm -DNODEPS"). At that point you will be able, via terminal, to run either one of the following commands (remember that these are case sensitive). To develop a single file from RAF to TIFF (change FILENAME to the name of the file you want to process): dcraw -H 0 -w -o 4 -q 3 -6 -T -m 10 FILENAME To batch develop multiple files from RAF to TIFF (if your camera names the files not ".raf" but ".RAF" change this accordingly; DO NOT change "filename" to the name of your file with this command, because in this case is a variable so it should stay as it is!) for filename in *.raf ; do dcraw -H 0 -w -o 4 -q 3 -6 -T "$filename" ; done You will have to basically change two options, according the kind of results you're getting. -H This will control how dcraw treats the highlights. H0 is the default and it will work most of the times, without attempting highlight recovery. From H3 to H9 it will attempt to recover the highlights more and more. Sometime if you use H9 the image can be too dark, and you will have to add another option: "-b 5" to lighten it (actually, "-b" plus a number from 1 to 9, depending on how much you want to lighten that particular image; "-b 5" is a good starting point, though). If you're curios about what the other options do, here is the rundown: -H = like we saw, this controls the amount of highlight recovery -w = this tells dcraw to use the white balance as measured by the camera -o = with this one you can choose the color space of the output image; "4" is ProPhoto RGB (and you should really use this one), "2" is Adobe RGB and "1" is sRGB -q = the kind of interpolation used; "1" is VNG, "2" PPG, "3" AHD; should you see strange, labyrinth-like patterns in the images you have the option to add "-f" to this voice to get rid of them -6 = tells dcraw to output the image in 16 bits -T = to have the software output the images in the TIFF format -m = it will lower the color noise applying a median filter for an X number of steps (10 in my example, I found it to work pretty well) to the R-G and B-G channels Hope this help.

I only tried one at a Fuji event a few months ago. Full disclosure: I'm a sharpness nut (I tend to print fairly large), but I also value the general rendering of a lens. The 18 might be not the sharpest Fuji out there (still pretty competent though, at least the sample I briefly tried), but at f/2 is extremely 3D for near subjects. I loved the results, and at some point I'm definitely going to buy one (a 35/1.4 is on the wish list first). You can see some of the shots I took with it (the one opening the post and the one with the backlit cat) on: 45 minutes with the Fuji X-T10

It will take only 1 shot, and then it'll process it with the 3 different film simulations you choose in the menu. Using a Sandisk Extreme 90Mb/s card I can take another picture after more or less 1 second.

Sorry, I'm clueless at this point... Maybe you could try to download the demo of version 6 and see if it gives you the same strange behavior. Or at least try creating a new, empty catalog and try if you can still replicate the problem. Or you may try changing the destination in the "Import" screen (the lowest right section in the right column).

Pretty strange behavior. The only thing I can think of if you have selected "Ignore folder names generated from the camera during import" (or something like that) selected in Preferences > General

As long as they give us a couple of MUCH smaller (and if possible less ugly and please not silver colored...) converters I'm in, even with a 28mm lens. Actually, should Fuji decide to shake things a little and create an 85mm eq. converter I'd be even happier, given a 24/28mm + a 85/90mm is my usual two lenses kit. So an X200 plus an X-T10/X-Pro2 with a 55-200 could cover nicely 99% of what I shoot, with the huge (at least for me) added benefit of not having to deal with dust on the sensor for most of the pictures. I sure hope, though, that at Fuji they come to their senses and put a tilt screen on the camera!