Some XT-2 observations that could be helpful

[BobJ]

Having had my XT-2 for a couple of weeks now, here are few observations which might be helpful, especially if you are thinking of buying one.

 

I surely cannot be the only one that was nearly driven mad by the XT-1s easily jogged controls. They put an additional lock in with one of the firmware updates which I had to use to lock the shutter mode lever, otherwise it would constantly get changed. I bought a thumb grip too which helped with the controls on that side. in my hands at least, the XT-2 does not seem to need any of these bodges. There is no custom lock function but mercifully I have not found any tendency for the controls to give me a surprise.

 

There is a 'hidden' feature that is very useful when taking night shots. In the display custom setting you can enable a very thin green line around the image area so that you can see where the edges are against the black surround in the EVF. It is hardly visible in good light so it can be left on all the time. To get it go to screen setup > display custom setting and tick the box which says 'focus frame'.

 

The menu is much improved and is more intuitive.

 

The battery meter now tells something like the truth. This means that you no longer have to panic halfway through shooting the Red Arrows display when you realise that the battery indicator has gone down to 2 bars! I haven't timed it but the red indication seems to last much longer before the camera dies.

 

Not only is the EVF brighter but there is an auto brightness setting that works reasonably well. It's not perfect but does save a lot of the fiddling about when going from sunshine to indoors etc. I wear eyeglasses and I tried the bigger eyecup with the XT-1. It was no use at all and was obviously designed for those who are not '4 eyes'. The new cup on the XT-2 is larger than the standard XT-1 cup but works well with my glasses.

 

The new vertical power grip has an improvement over the XT-1 version that I have not seen mentioned elsewhere. The XT-1 grip was hopeless on a tripod with the 55-200, especially if there was any wind, as it flexed. Try it yourself. Fit the camera to the tripod and lightly tap the end of the lens. Now try it with the grip attached. I am glad to report that the XT-2 grip is solid.

 

It is possible to see a difference in resolution with the new sensor, but the main thing is that it gives more scope for cropping. I love the square option but why didn't Fuji take the opportunity to add a 4:3? The noise seems a bit better and the dynamic range is probably about the same, although I have not ran tests and so take this with a pinch of salt - just my impressions after a short amount of use.

 

The Grain Effect thing was obviously engineered by someone that has never seen film grain - sorry Fuji. However the Acros setting is nice.

 

The ability to have raw written to one card and jpeg to the other is a good feature for me. I normally use raw but now I have a choice without having to download the jpegs if I don't want them .

 

A tip for raw shooting that also applies to the XT-1. Assign one of the buttons to 'preview pic effect'. The view with it off is unhelpfully flat but the histogram is much more accurate for raw and shows the highlight cut-off fairly well. So when shooting those landscapes in raw you can switch off pic effect to check the histogram.

 

They have moved the tripod bush to the centre. This means that if you don't want a grip, but you do want to change the battery without taking off your arca Swiss tripod plate, you don't have to buy Fuji's ludicrously overpriced MHG-XT2. Just buy an ordinary plate from one of the Chinese suppliers on Ebay for less than £5. Don't buy one that is longer than 65mm though.

 

Finally the Nissin i40. I might post this separately as well as I know there are some i40 users out there. It's the good news and the bad news. The bad news is that it won't work at all on the XT-2. The good news is that if you send Kenro (in the case of the UK) a request to have the i40 firmware updated for the XT-2 they will fix it for £20 + vat. You have to send it to them. Now for more bad news. I had a Canon style off-camera cable which worked perfectly on the XT-1. Not on the XT-2. I assume that they are using the sixth contact which the cable does not cater for. I also have some old Yongnuo remotes which would work the i40 in manual - but they won't work either. So now I have an i40 which works, but not off camera.

 

I hope all this helps someone.