Bom dia!
Pedro Kok (click here to see his home page) published a long open letter addressed to Fuji (click here to read) . After using the X-PRO1 he made a list of all the bugs he noticed and also suggests some features he misses on the X-PRO1. I’ve just picked out some issues here. There is much more to read in his letter.
Software
The Q-Menu
There is no live-view image while you change the settings in the Quick Menu, and so he feels like making “blind decisions over White Balance, Film Simulation, Dynamic Range, Image Aspect Ratio and other parameters.” He suggests to lay all the icons horizontally in the bottom and choose the settings with the thumbwheel and/or the directional arrows.
Focus
“There should be an option for a manual override when in Single AF mode. Half-press shutter activates AF; then keeping it half-pressed, turn the focus ring to the desired distance (as a bonus, the focus distance scale could automagically appear!)…. And bring focus peaking to live view and image playback.”
Indecent exposure simulation:
“The Fujifilm X-Pro1 could certainly gain exposure simulation in all PASM modes. In PAS, metering should be activated with a shutter half-press, and stay on even if it’s released. All information displayed in the screen, including Auto ISO’s choice, varying the parameters as light changes. In M mode, display exposure as is; if the exposure values selected under or overexposes the image, let the screen blackout or whiteout. I’ll know what to do…. Also, please honor exposure compensation when in M mode and Auto ISO, by throttling up or down sensitivity. [DPR]”
Thumbwheel:
There are cases of inconsistent behavior: A) “Fn set to ISO [DPR]: in OVF mode, pressing Fn and scrolling the thumbwheel will change ISO. In EVF/Live view the thumbwheel is inoperable, up and down arrow changes settings”. B) “Focus modes: in AF modes, the thumbwheel button is inoperable. In Manual Focus, press the button to have the focus area magnified (to an absurd amount of magnification!).” [… personal note: by using the command dial, with the new firmware v 2.0 you can switch from 3x to 10x magnifications.]
The thumbwheel should be engaged also in the following functions: Drive, AE, Fn menus, General menu. “One might think that it’s a case of making menu orientation consistent (menus are sorted vertically, while the thumbwheel travels horizontally). But even when there are horizontally sorted settings (such as those in the AE and Drive menus) the wheel doesn’t work.“
He also would like that “in all AF modes, thumbwheel button presses would cycle between 1x, 5x and 10x magnifications, with the directional arrow buttons moving the enlarged area around.” [… see personal note above.]
Buttons
A nice feature is, that you can customize the buttons. “Hold button” on Fn and you can customize it. There are many other buttons that could benefit from it. He suggests: “HOLD DRIVE: could be customized to trigger the self-timer menu, selection by arrows and/or thumbwheel. Or instantly go to Movie Mode. HOLD AE: could be customized to trigger White Balance menu, selection by arrows and/or thumbwheel. This could be very helpful, as the current Q menu won’t let you preview how WB looks on the live image. HOLD AF: could trigger special focus behavior (…HOLD AF button could set focus to hyperfocal! If the DOF scale becomes meaningful, then this can be achieved when using the camera in Aperture Priority and Manual modes. Set the aperture, press and hold AF button and … voilá! I’d be in hyperfocal heaven….)”
While in image capture, there’s one button that does absolutely nothing: the down arrow. A perfect candidate to be a Fn2 (I’d choose it for DOF Preview)!”
Override
“The camera should honor my decision to change aperture whilst keeping the shutter half-pressed [DPR-AW]. If in Manual / Auto ISO, compensate exposure accordingly.”
The OVF
The OVF is great, but there are some problems that could be solved with firmware updates. So for example he asks Fuji to “calibrate the OVF framelines to the current XF lenses. They’re wildly conservative and inaccurate.”
Hardware
He says that the X-PRO1 is a beautiful camera, build with good materials. But there are some things that Fuji could maybe correct in future versions of this camera:
– The battery slides in the camera in every position possible. “You might ask who is stupid enough to insert the battery this way … well, I am. And probably you’ll too, some dark night, succumb to this, and likely think the camera has died.”
– The hood’s rubber cap [RR]: “it won’t stay put… a light nudge… will knock it off.”
– There is no diopter adjustment [personal note: there is one on the EVF of the X-E1]
– Aperture ring [RR][LL-MR]: Early reviewers noted the very light aperture ring: “It’s far too easy to knock the aperture from “A” to f/16, and equally to any other setting.” Now other reviewers noted that “the Fujinon XF 18mm f/2.0 R had a very STIFF aperture ring”.
This were just some extracts of his letter. Read the whole letter here. My summary can’t do justice to the very clear step-by-step argumentation of Pedro Kok. And according to his to-do list, there is much work waiting on Fuji. And something has already been done with the last firmware update. As always, leave a comment, and tell me if you agree with the problems that Pedro noticed on his X-PRO1 and what do you think about his suggestions.
Make a list of the bugs you would like to have resolved and suggestions in order of importance! My list would begin with… 1) focus peaking…
tchau!
13 Responses
Much of how the XPro1 operates is quite well thought out, if different, and its really not something worth messing with too much IMO. I would rather see new functions than changing existing ones. Like these for example:
– focus peaking, would make the manual focus by wire more tolerable
– minimum shutter speed, the inverse of max ISO.
– dynamic frame guidelines in OVF, so that they move as the focus length changes rather than at the point focus locks.
Otherwise would rather see some prime lenses with faster motor to help the auto focus along! 0.1sec, I would like that on the 35mm .. or the new pancake lens.
Tim, I totally agree about min shutter speed. I have had x-e1 for one day now and it is already driving me nuts. It has me shooting at 1/52 when there is plenty of room for higher ISO. So I flip the shutter to 1/125 and all of a sudden I cant use the exposure compensation dial.
Tom, when you set shutter speed and you have aperture set to any value other than A, you are basically in manual mode. In manual mode there is no need for exposure compensation since exposure is set by user. Exposure is set absolutely by aperture, shutter speed and ISO no matter what metering says. To enable exp. comp. set aperture to A or/and shutter speed to A, or/and Auto ISO.
Some interesting ideas, but I certainly would not want the 1/2 Press of the shutter to also activate exposure simulation without a way to disable that. I think many of his comments are really tied to his style of shooting and the use of live view.
I have been using focus peaking for a while on another camera and although it does result in faster/easier manual focusing I have found that I don’t actually like it. To me, and for what I am shooting I find that it takes the fun and creativity and patience out of taking a the perfect shot. Although I can see how it would have its uses.
I’m really happy with my X Pro1 except that I find it’s easy to move the lens aperture from ‘A’ to f16. It would be good if future lenses had some sort of lock to prevent this.
1. Minimum shutter speed especially in movie mode would be a start. Allowing fully manual operation when shooting video would be amazing.
2. Instant preview of when using in-camera RAW conversion. I open my RAW images in Lightroom to find ballpark settings, then use in-camera processing because Lightroom has ugly results with X-Trans. I’m forever doing Create-Wait-Back-Tweak-Create-Wait to get the best results.
3. DxO Optics Pro support.
Hmm thanks. But it seems to me that if the aperture is not in A, and the shutter speed is NOT in A, and yet I am using auto ISO, then you do get exposure comp since if you change the shutter speed, the ISO just changes as well. So I have to put the the shutter speed in A and assign the Fn button to ISO and constantly change the ISO to give a reasonable shutter speed (since 1/52 is proving just too slow for me). If I could set the min shutter speed I wouldn’t have that problem.
Have I got that right?
Sorry, reply to Michael Devitt
Tom, you can force your camera for faster shutter – set your preferred shutter speed and set aperture to A. Obviously, metering will open and close aperture for you according to a scene so DOF would not be controlled in shutter priority mode by user.
If you want to shoot in popular aperture priority mode without motion blur you have to force ISO sensitivity to higher values manually (not by Auto ISO). When you choose higher ISO than Auto ISO would pick by the camera for you and aperture is the same as you have set, the program have to use higher shutter speed. Simple trick but it works on any camera ;).
New firmware will have the option to set minimum shutter speed in account to Auto ISO change (e.g. X100’s update solved this).
I agree with Pedro that the scroll wheel is under utilized. If the camera is up to your eye, and the Fn button is set for ISO, it would be much more comfortable (and natural) to be able to bring up the ISO using the Fn then change it with the wheel.
My list would begin with :
1) focus peaking…
2) Better Bitrate for better sharpness in video
That’s all , thanks folks !
Absolutely need a diopter and accurate framelines.