I’ve just received a confirmation from a source, who was right in the past, that the mechanical shutter of the X-PRO2 will go up to 1/8000 s. Moreover, the X-PRO2 will have a faster sync speed than the current 1/180 of the X-T1 & CO.
The source also says we won’t see it coming before September. So once more the release in late 2015 seems to be confirmed. I keep up hoping for an X-PRO2 under my X-mas tree.
Since this source contacts me anonymously via rumor box using a nick-name, I can not contact it to ask for more details about the sync speed or the X-PRO2 in general.
34 Responses
Actually, “faster than 1/180” sounds kinda scary. If I haven’t lost my magical superpower of reading between the lines, it most likely means “still slower than the industry standard”.
PS: Introduction in September and start of shipments before the holiday season in the US makes total sense.
1/4000″ is faster than 1/180″, but so does 1/181″ …
1/180th is already faster than what I can get out of my Canon 5DMKII.
Well, we shouldn’t let Canon define what’s acceptable for flash sync. It’s already hard to come back to my D700’s 1/250s X-sync after using the X100s’ 1/1000s.
Slow flash-sync was the main reason I didn’t consider the X system yet.
I couldn’t agree more. Canon’s sync speed is one of it’s biggest weaknesses. You know, besides building new cameras that are relevant to the current market.
Most canon 1 series that I have used all had 1/320. I shoot mainly strobes outdoors and 1/250 vs 1/320 or 1/180 doesn’t make much difference IMHO. Now if we could get electronic shutter like those old CCD sensor cameras Nikon D40 or Canon 1d original, then it would be real nice.
The ridiculous sync speed isn’t even the worst part about the 5D Mk II, the absolutely horrible AF in low light would probably deserve that title…
To Canon’s credit, being used to terrible autofocus means that I wasn’t so frustrated by it when I switched to Fuji. LOL!
At least it’s a start and would they decrease the sensor base sensitivity to something like Iso 50 or 100, the situation would already look better. Fuji should have done a leaf shutter version of the 56mm 1.2 instead of the APD version.
Asking any modern camera manufacturer to decrease the base ISO (especially with ISOless sensor!) is like asking them to stop the megapixel race in favor of larger pixels.
Ain’t gonna happen.
Nikon did it with the d810 (lowering the base Iso from 100 to 64) and it won them a half stop more dynamic range at Iso 64 while sacrificing nothing. Of course the d810 isn’t ISOless but who knows what technology the x-pro 2 sensor will be packing. Let me polarize and say that I hope it will be a boring bayer color array, which will be boringly compatible straight away with all raw converters, but who am I fooling, this is not going to happen. 🙂
A lower base ISO is among my top three wishes for the new flagship as well.
“Faster than 1/180th” in marketing speak probably means 1/185th, just like those hard drives with “between 5200 and up to 7200 RPM” have something like 5215 RPM, all of this not mentioning the fact that the RPM only marginally influences the actual speed of that particular model.
So let’s all hope that that source sits somewhere in Engineering and not in MarCom and isn’t the person in charge of how ISO is measured at Fujifilm 🙂
In most cases the current shutters already work at 1/250, but at your own risk. 😉
So if the new shutter is capable of 1/8000, we should get more than that. And a faster shutter will also decrease the rolling shutter effect for fast action (totally unrelated to the electronic shutter). But I guess that is only a minor thing.
Looks like they are trying hard to make it the flagship body they want it to be.
Faster shutter, faster sync, more MP, new HVF…
Looks goo so far (if rumors are true…)
It’s not much the difference between 1/180 and 1/250, and why do you really need 1/250?
Well, with small portable flashs, every 1/3 stop count, especially for recycle times. Who knows, it might even get faster than 1/250? An optional electronic shutter or special lenses with leaf shutter would be great.
Electronic shutters don’t work with flash or fast action yet because of the slow readout speeds of current generation sensors. It’s the same problem that causes rolling shutter in video recording.
Leaf shutter would be amazing. The silent shutter of the X100 lets me work in situations where I can’t use a regular camera, but the lack of a telephoto lens severely limits the usefulness for me.
I don’t think it is the 1/180 synch speed that’s the problem so much as the necessity of a maximum 1/8000 shutter speed to avoid using ND filters with the f 1.4 lenses in bright conditions. Going to 1/8000 means that 1/250 synch speed is easily obtainable.
It makes it just a tad easier to stop motion and it is a small step in killing the ambient light. And what about fill flash during a bright day?
Sometimes people use flashes under sun to fill light. The faster, the better.
1/8000s and 1/250 flash sync are welcome features but they are not most important improvements X-Pro2 really needs. AF – with all PDAF points – that focuses well in low light which goes down to -2EV at least, is what X-Pro2 desperately needs. Better DR + low light IQ, better placed and bigger AE-L and AF-L buttons + shutter relesase buttun (a litte moved on forward) and all fully programable buttons + better grip + hybrid VF + RGB Histogram, are next improvements I wait for. I hope X-Pro2 will offer better features then its biggest competitor Sony which is going to release ‘high end” A7000 (also with 1/8000s). I keep fingers crossed that Fuji will put all great features which will make X-Pro2 a true Pro mirrorless cam.
I want to believe that a new camera with a new sensor and AF system is coming out…soon. Not going to drop 2k on something that ‘forces me to slow down’. I shoot film for slowing down.
Agreed!
Not bad. I sometimes still remembered the old minolta maxxum 9 which could do 1/12000s shutter and 1/300s sync. But that was just better than most digital cams on the market today.
I believe (but that’s totally unsubstantiated, just a gut feeling) that the top shutter speed has more to do with sensor readout speed than with mechanical action of camera shutter. That’s why the current crop of APS-C digicams based on Sony ISOless sensor all have a top shutter speed of 1/4000.
I believe your gut is wrong here.
I want to believe that whatever the announced availability date will be, it would be meet. I remember my X-E1 was supposed to be available in Sept 2012, finally got it in December that year.
Sort of a given at this juncture. I would have expected no less. Also expect further advancements on most of what the X-T1 has, along with an updated version of the hybrid viewfinder.
The real questions are: How many megapixels, and what kind of sensor?
Hmm, I was hoping that my next Fuji camera would have NO mirror (duh!) AND NO mechanical shutter.
No mechanical shutter at all would render it useless to a vast, vast majority of customers. Electronic shutter has its uses, but it’s far more finicky and when it does screw up it screws up your image far worse than any problem you can get with a mechanical shutter. Gotta love that jelly look, rolling colour casts and moving subjects smearing across the frame!
About time. Will we be able to actually select it this time around?
if 1/8000 and 1/250 confirmed, preorder confirmed… else… still deciding. my X-E1 is getting old.
I do mostly night shooting and recently switched from the X-Pro to the Nikon D600. The Fuji is wonderful machine – the Nikon is an appliance. I’d love to be able to switch back, but the Nikon image quality (for now) is so much better for the work I do.