A new source just told me, that the upcoming Fujifilm X-E2 firmware will give us X-E2 shooters WiFi remote control… but no Classic Chrome film simulation.
If I had the choice, I’d prefer to get the WiFi remote control over Classic Chrome via firmware update, but I have to say that I like the Classic Chrome look and it would be a nice addition to the existing film simulations. But, well, I bought the X-E2 when it still had no color focus peaking, no X-T1-alike EVF refresh rate, no possibility to edit image the file names… and now, only one year after, I have all this and will even get the remote WiFi control. That makes me a happy customer, classic chrome or not :-).
Obviously, since it is a new source, take this information with a grain of salt… for my part I still hope to get it with the next firmware.
67 Responses
Fuji needs to get its head on straight and provide their own raw converter, so we don’t have to fuss about external raw converters and everyone can have access to the film simulations when shooting in raw.
While Iridient is getting better, the colours are still not as good as those from Fuji’s film simulations and you need a mac to use it.
Personally, I don’t understand why they keep neglecting this, especially considering one of their main marketing claims is very good image quality. If they keep neglecting this, they will lose customers – as much as I love my X-Pro 1, I am not going to ignore the fact that it is crippled by suboptimal raw support.
My DP Merrills have exceptional image quality at lower ISO settings, only because Sigma was smart enough to provide their own raw converter. With the X-Trans sensors, it is a no-brainer to provide one.
Man you’re preaching to the choir here! Abosoutlety they need their own raw converter with the built in film simulations! !
I agree absolutely!
Please Fuji, get the mess with raw conversion fixed!
I agree…no raw convert made by fujfilm after three years..no sense.
I hear you but it will not happen, IMHO. Take a look at how Nikon handled their software, Capture NX2. The conversions were the best you could ask for but the UI and speed was awful. They partnered with Nik for a while, which made the software even better, although clunky.
Then, their interest dropped. They neglected to listen to their users, probably because of the immense cost of software development, and failed to update the software.
Now, it is truly bad with the newest version, Capture NX-D. They took away the functionality of NX2. They clearly do not want to be in the software business.
Where Fuji could benefit would be to find a company to partner with, formally, and assist the software company in figuring out the X-Trans sensor for RAW conversion. But, there are probably technical issues, (meaning costly measures), that these 3rd party developers do not want to mess with, due to cutting into their bottom line, (profit).
IMHO, until Fuji dumps their proprietary X-Trans sensor and goes full on Bayer, we will always have these issues. I’ve found software I can live with and I know the sensor’s limitations and the software’s limitations. It is not perfect but neither was my full on Nikon kit either. Overall, I’m very happy and looking forward to Fuji’s evolution.
You raise some good points. However fuji has developed an incredible raw converter in camera and has spent a lot of time and money developing beautiful film presets which no other manufacturer has done (crappy filters don’t count). Would it really cost that much to port the in camera raw converter to Mac/pc?
Agreed! While I would prefer to use an optimal external raw converter, the in-camera converter still produces better images, though with the compromise of saving only as a Jpeg.
They should just provide it as a bare-bones raw converter, as you mentioned.
No Classic Chrome would be a real bummer.
However – couldn’t you modify the Classic Chrome option in Lightroom to work for the X-E2? That would be good enough for me 😉
Fuji have nothing to do with light rooms Fuji Camera profiles. Adobe has tried to copy them. They are pretty decent but not quite the real thing
I’m glad, that way I can use the same iOS app for both cameras; the X-E2 and the X100T.
I guess I’ll make a LR chrome preset when I get the X100T.
Full manual video controls like x30 PLEASE ! 🙂
Bought the x100s because I knew there were going to be updates – nothing but bug fixes so far. Colour Choice for Focus Peaking, better refresh rate for EVF and Classic Chrome would be nice, don’t you think..
What about direct instax printing!? I can’t get my head around why this was skipped on the X-e2. I’d venture to say there are probably more X-E2 owners who would use this feature than there are for X-A1 or X-M1. Plus, it’s THE ONE FIRMWARE UPDATE with the most potential to boost revenue by generating sales of their instax printer and film!! No brainer!! Fuji pleeaaaaase.
Which is exactly why they will do it as fast as possible, if it is possible. I think I read something somewhere about the x-e2 wifi module being different from that of the x-t1…
Well that’s strange. It looks like it’s much easier to add classic chrome than wireless control. Why not to add both? I doubt this rumor to be true.
I don’t know. It’s strange. But it wouldn’t be the first strange thing. For example the direct smartphone printer support that came to the X-A1 and X-M1 via firmware, but not to the X-E2.
adding a filter is trivial, adding something that talks to chips that may or may not be present in the hardware is an order of magnitude more difficult/time consuming.
any x-pro2, xe3 rumors?
never heard of an X-E3, and nothing to add/change to the X-PRO2 specs shared until now, sorry.
As is, it is still a great camera. I agree with you, Patrick. And, now with recent price drops it is an exceptional value!
I really do not understand this whining by the lack of a “film simulation”.
There are several presets for Lightroom available on the internet, much simpler.
Spending a high value on a xe-2 to shoot in jpeg makes no sense to me.
More than shooting anything else in jpeg.
Not everyone uses Lightroom.
Jpeg baby. Everything else is cheating;)
it’s the instagram crowd, I bet most of these whiners wouldn’t be able to pick out a classic chrome filtered image anyway.
And I’m really surprised at all the whining about wifi. My A7 has Wifi but I never use it, also with a camera like the X100s/t I don’t get when anyone would want to use wifi, it’s not a studio camera, it’s a carry everywhere sophisticated compact. I could put my phone in one hand the x100 in the other but why? It’s also so much faster and easier to take out the sd card and plug it into the mac than screwing around with wifi.
You’re probably of an older vintage than people who want wifi. It’s brilliant while traveling to send to family/social media. Or the wifi remote control is amazing. You can sit in your warm car while taking long exposures while controlling your camera!
dats coz fuji has da best jpeg engine in the market
Lightroom offers fairly close approximations to these film simulations in the form of camera calibration profiles. But only those that are also available in-camera for a particular model can be chosen in Lightroom for a raw file taken with that camera. So no profile in camera, no profile in Lightroom.
Aside from the X100 with its Bayer CFA, the in-camera raw conversion is also unfortunately very often vastly superior to a raw conversion from Lightroom. This is partially due to Adobe Camera Raw’s general quality issues, and partially due to its sub-par X-Trans demosaicing algorithm.
Also note that the camera firmware allows you to make your own raw conversions with adjustable parameters in-camera from raw files after the shot has been taken. It is clumsy, but it is the only way to get the best quality out of X-Trans raw files, and it means that you can indeed use the camera’s original film simulation function in a raw workflow.
These internet profiles and presets you are referring to, like VSCO, Replichrome and whatever they are called, are very different from Fuji’s film simulations. The film simulations have more to do with color rendering and contrast curves, which are close to impossible to achieve manually in Camera Raw (among others, they help reduce the shadow posterization problem in ACR and are much less prone to produce saturation clipping than the Adobe Standard profile). While they cannot fully remedy the weaknesses of the Adobe converter, they can help reduce them. Those internet presets, however, have more to do with applying pseudo-retro looks and styles. When I have to work with Lightroom, I don’t use any such presets/profiles (even though I have tried them), but I actually find myself using the film simulation profiles quite a bit. They pack the know-how of the people at Fuji who have been designing film for years, and you can tell from the results. Moreover, most of the online presets only look decent on screen (if they are your taste at all), but it’s a completely different story when printed. And that’s also an area where the Fuji film simulations shine in my experience.
Do you use an “out-of-camera” RAW converter at all? If so, which one do you prefer?
I currently only use X-Trans cameras occasionally via rent/borrowing and the X camera I actually own (an X100) still has a Bayer CFA, so I haven’t had the chance to do comprehensive and extensive desktop raw-conversions tests with X-Trans files yet. Both Iridient Developer and Photo Ninja are said to be fairly good with X-Trans files though, but I don’t have enough experience with them to make a recommendation.
With Bayer sensors (various Nikon SLRs, Fuji X100), I found Phase One’s Capture One Pro to give excellent results. Infinitely more color detail in very saturated scenes (neon or stage lights etc.) than Adobe’s ACR/Lightroom, better highlight recovery, better sharpening and so on. I often still use Lightroom for workflow reasons, but I find it to be extremely slow and less than ideal in the image quality department (not only with Bayer sensors, but even more so with Foveon and X-Trans files in my limited experience with the latter two). Adobe’s chromatic aberration correction is excellent, though. Capture One used to be a bit crashy, but it has recently become quite stable. Lightroom has always been fairly stable, but very slow, buggy (and that’s head scratcher bugs that proper automated testing procedures should have caught) and plagued with memory leaks and Adobe always seems to be behind on long-needed new features and workflows because nobody is really challenging their market position. Tethering in Lightroom used to be completely unusable, but has stabilized with recent versions. I’m planning to gradually move towards using Capture One exclusively, though I would like to do further test with X-Trans files since the next generation of Fuji cameras will probably finally be mature enough to play a major part in my work.
It really depends on what you shoot and how and if image quality is your only concern. Ideally, Fuji would make their own software raw converter like Capture One. Support for raw files from all sorts of companies, with the software being included for free with a Fuji camera, but paid for others.
Thanks for your insights, I appreciate it.
I have been a long time Aperture user, but with Apple killing off its further development, I find myself somewhat in limbo.
I could work with Lightroom, but would sorely miss its integration with the Mac ecosystem (mailing photos is beyond clunky, no photo stream integration, etc.) and I don’t particularly care for its concept of working with modules. Plus, I prefer to hand off the mundane chores of managing a file system to a managed library Aperture-style.
I like the results from Iridient, Photo Ninja and Capture One, but can’t mesh with their workflow design (and there’s still the lack of integration with my OS).
So I’m basically torn between making some serious concessions and hoping that Apple will step up to the plate with their Photos app, to be introduced in 2015.
Hi,
I’ve been asking to the official fuji french twitter account about this and they answered my : “this new somulation film will be deployed on other X series body, via a firmware update”. Since i’m sticking to this hope !
Fuji, please give us X-E2 owners the electronic shutter too!
Yes, that’s the most important thing! At least for me.
Can’t be more agree on the point, alos PLS give us HSS…
The reason I’m still shoI ting with the xe-1 vs buying an xe-2 is due to not having full WiFi control. It’s a must on the next camera I purchase. I love my xe-1 and would enjoy all of the improvements (faster focusing, wifi and better EVF.). But they would have to implement it. I want a RF body for size considerations(with the 18 and 27mm).
Do it already fuji!!
Im happy but I have a T too so be nice to set the colors the same Yea in know shoot raw but its nice to have the files start the same! If you can FUJI give us CC colors at some point.
Also, for those stuck with an Adobe raw converter, Adobe only supports the camera profiles that actually ship with the camera model a particular photo was take with, so you cannot use an X100s profile with an X100 raw file (which means no access to the Pro Neg profiles X100 images).
It can make it close to impossible to then match colors between different cameras (unless you go for 100% neutral reproduction using color checker or something like that, which is exactly the opposite of what Fuji’s Film Simulations try to accomplish). In a properly color managed processing pipeline, I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to apply a Fuji profile to a nikon raw file for instance, but unfortunately this is how Adobe decided to implement things.
Meaning no Classic Chrome or Pro Neg for certain cameras from Fuji also means no Classic Chrome or Pro Neg if you shoot raw, thanks to Adobe’s policy.
Do we know if the X100S is getting Classic Chrome? I’m assuming at this point, the XT1 is a dead cert.
I was hoping it would get an update but as seeing that the only tangible difference between the x100s and x100t is the chrome and evf, an update would only bridge the gap between the two. Bad move for sales.
It’ll come. Remember they updated X100 even long after it was discontinued. They will do the same for the X100S, which is technically also discontinued after X100T launches in November.
The x100s has a different sensor than the x100 so they may have concluded that there would still be enough difference between them
We should. I believe Zack Arias and David Hobby were running around with ‘hacked’ X100S that could shoot Classic Chrome. So we know that the X trans sensor on the X100S can use it, now if Fuji were to hold back on what is essentially a software upgrade, I’d be pretty bitter.
any possibility of kai-zen reaching into the x-e1s and x-pro1s? the elctronic shutter will be a godsend. being able to shoot wide-open in broad daylight!
Not sure as it is not the same sensor: x-e1 and x-pro1 have the same and x100S/T; X-T1 and X-E2 have a newer generation of sensor.
Sensor does not matter here, it’s the processor – but yes it’s an older version too on the XE1/ XPro
I’d have thought that the sensor needed at least the circuitry to allow fast readout; but I could well be wrong
It might just be a matter of software dev cycles had this version with the remote control long time ago. If they add additional features it will just delay the launch of this particular version. I think most people wold want the remote wifi sooner and not wait for the Classic Chrome to be added.
I keep hoping for an intervalometer … but an intervalometer *plus* WiFi remote would be truly sweet! 🙂
No kaizen love for the x100S in ages though… A fast EVF refresh and a manual-focus refresh of the OVF rectangle for parallax would be so welcomed…
I just keep asking for one or two more customizeable buttons on the X100s.
Continuous improvement? I’d hardly recommend Fuji to my friends down here if I had to take this into consideration. Maybe in the past it worked great. Broken promises are worse than promises not made…
Did Fuji ever make you a promise? I doubt that sincerely.
Fuji is light years ahead of Canon, Nikon, and the others in this regard…usually they just sell you the camera and then you never get anything updated!
They don’t owe you a thing…nor did they promise anything.
If they do port new features to older cameras…then great….thanks to them for going above and beyond.
i can’t imagine CC being that hard to add. its greatest plus is so we could quickly share an image through our phones without having to get on a computer and taking the time to process.
That sounds….improbable? Unless the hardware was already in-place when the X-E2 was sold. You don’t simply convert a regular chip to a wireless-networking chip – it’s normally an issue of hardware rather than soft(/firm)ware.
The xe2 has always had wifi. It’s for remote control
I at first dismissed your comment because it didn’t make sense, but I’m now looking back and seeing the X-E2 can do file transfer via Wi-fi. Cool that they might implement this.
It seems strange. If x-e2 can support wifi, it definitely means that the hardware or wifi circuitry is already in place but Fuji just decides to enable it. There is no way that wifi can work without dedicated circuitry.
The xe2 has always had wifi and was marketed as having wifi. It’s for photo transfer etc. Literally a 2second Google would have explained this. What Fuji is rumored to update is remote control – where you can control the camera from a smart phone or tablet. Pretty cool stuff
The XE2 does have WiFi. Yes the WiFi module is built in. You can use it now for uploading. They are just adding REMOTE CONTROL ability to the WiFi program it already has. And the XE1/ XPro do not have a WiFi module, therefore can NEVER have any sort of WiFi (except for wifi SD cards)
Thank you very much for this “Wow” Fuirumors kaizen. Just sold X-E2. Fuji sholud first fix in X-E2 waxy-plastic issue, ugly magneta cast, weak AF, red clipping or at least allows to set NR to Off – all X-E2 owners asked for long. X-E2 owners will not receive also electronic shutter and classic chrome, so Fuji kaizen is just marketing because Fuji does not listen to the users any more. Of course a few fuji fanboys always will say “WOW!”.
I am not sure if they realise but FUJI are playing very big on their reputation of all the next x-e2 firmware brings is remote control.
None of the bugs/defects have been corrected (waxy skin tones for example) and there seems to be a deliberate decision to not flow through some easy upgrades – eg classic chrome.
This is far from Kaizen as far as x-e2 is concerned.
Btw that upgrade was announced months and months and months ago in a Fuji manager’s interview on dpr website.
I own x-e2 wgich I paid full price and am losing trust in Fuji. They will lose the goodwill which was built on the back of those x100/xe1/xpro1 firmware upgrades.
Hello,
do you know any date when new firmware with support of the remote control via wi-fi will be released?
Thanks
Petr
maybe December… it’s planned before the end of this year. But it’s still all “just” a rumor 😉
While I find the remote control welcomed, I cannot help feeling concerned with the reluctance to give the x-e2 classic chrome. That to me seems to be a simple transition as the x-t1 and x-e2 share the exact same sensor and processing chip. I cannot figure out if the reluctance is to try to get people to upgrade from the x-e2 to the x-t1, cause if that is the case, it would appear Fuji is treading down the Nikon path. Also, for the record I consider HSS and electronic shutter as applicable only to future Fuji models, its the film simulation that I consider should be an upgrade for every Fuji model
What about some manual control in video mode ? No one else is bothered by this ?
/Definitely I am totally bothered by it.