Work on my comparison between Fuji’s 3 widest angle primes, the XF 14mm f/2.8, the XF 16mm f/1.4, and the XF 18mm f/2 is almost complete. If you’re interested to see how Fuji’s newest weather sealed wide angle compares to their other wide fixed focal length offerings in sharpness, bokeh, handling, and more, this page is for you.
I originally set out to write up a quick blog post about the relatively marginal differences in how the two latest versions of Lightroom handle sharpening. We’re still in limbo while Adobe “collaborates with Fujifilm in investigating methods to improve fine detail rendering and overall edge definition,“ after all.
It somehow morphed into what I hope was an interesting exercise in confirming what the optimal methods of sharpening in Lightroom are (Amount vs. Detail, which slider will emerge victorious???), the difference between Clarity and the new Dehaze feature, as well as whether or not Lightroom is best tool for the job of extracting detail from RAFs.
If you’re up for a fairly long post detailing subtle differences via loads of fancy new before and after slider images, check out my latest Extras piece. It focuses on detail for now, but I hope to add an examples of the “reduced colour blur” once I find a suitable image.
Fuji’s Camera Receiver app was pretty cool when it came out. Being able to email a street photography subject’s photo to them on the spot is awesome. Then the Camera Remote app arrived, and that took things to another level. I’ve used that app to capture images for this site1 and for work. It’s so much easier than going to and from the camera to adjust settings, set the timer, run back to the front of the camera, repeat. It’s a fantastic app when it works (most users have no trouble, a few have all kinds).2 With that written, I hope Fuji are putting serious development time into the app, and mobile connectivity in general.
Connectivity is going to be as important a feature as whatever next generation sensor is in Fuji’s cameras. They’ve nailed image quality, colour, and optics. They need to nail the ease of use customers expect from devices that capture photos. Being able to connect via WiFi is great, but it’s not as seamless as it could be. I leave photos on my camera with the intention of connecting later,4 and I often forget until I copy photos over via the SD card reader in my Mac, like an animal. Maybe I’m just the lazy exception, but I doubt it.
Since I started shooting Fuji, like many others, I’ve largely abandoned RAFs for my workflow. For a while, I was shooting RAW + JPEG, but more often than not — I’m talking 90% of the time — I would end up deleting the RAF. Part of this is being satisfied with how JPEGs are rendered in-camera, and the other part is a shift in mindset from “RAW tinkerer” to “shoot and (mostly) be done with it.” I still enjoy post-processing, but I really like being able to do it on my phone wherever and whenever I want.
Due to this shift, I’ve been in workflow limbo for the last 18 months. Vacation photos have been copied to Lightroom and forgotten about, while daily photos are sometimes left on my SD card for weeks on end. What changed recently is Apple’s Photos app. I’m attempting to move away from Lightroom for my daily hobby shooting,5 and my SD card stays in my camera as photo transfers are done using the Camera Remote app. This is why the 30 photo limit is getting painful. I’ll still capture RAW + JPEG when I’m out to “make a picture,” but for the most part these days, Film Simulation Bracketing + iPhone editing gets me most of what I want. It’s great, but I want more.
This is also why I want it to be as quick and easy as possible to connect my phone to my camera. There really ought to be two taps, the WiFi button, and launching the app. Even better, make the app intelligent enough to be “paired” with whatever Fuji cameras are owned, and connect auto-magically when the app is launched.6
The next level is for the app to see RAF files, and prompt me to choose my Film Simulation mode via taps on screen. Then, I should be able to make selections on all image aspects that are currently handled in-camera — Dynamic Range, White Balance, Noise Reduction, Highlights, Shadows, and Sharpness — followed by a “Done” button that pushes the resulting JPEG to my iPhone’s Camera Roll. Again, the actual processing could still be handled in-camera7 if Fuji can’t or don’t want to port their secret sauce to another platform for some reason, all the more reason to make connecting flawless.
Fuji has been on quite a tear with their X-Series system. The hardware release schedule continues to astonish and they’re well on their way to becoming the preeminent mirrorless camera company. For Fuji, or any camera manufacturer to continue to be reached for instead of the “good enough” smartphone, they need to put serious resources against mobile connectivity to make it as easy as possible for users to get their superior photos — selfies, eggs benadict → and all — off the camera, and into their social world.
Perhaps what I’m asking for has already been considered, maybe even attempted. Maybe it’s impossible. I have a feeling it just hasn’t been a high priority. If it was, the app would probably be optimized for iPhone 6 Plus by now. I hope app development hasn’t stalled completely.
For those having trouble, here’s how I’ve had success with iOS devices:
Connectivity could go even further. Photos could bypass internal storage of any kind entirely, and move straight from the buffer or a cache to a mobile device with adequate storage, then up to the cloud.
It’s not hard to imagine a day when our cameras become “dumb boxes” with exquisite lenses attached to them that capture and push sensor data to a mobile device where vendor (Fuji)-specific demosaicing and post processing algorithms can be applied to the images before being saved to the camera roll. Maybe one day.
Oh, and Apple could really help out by making their damn SD card reader compatible with their own phones. ↩
RAF process can currently be done in-camera already, but the process is, clunky.↩
If you’ve been considering an X100T, now is the time to buy. B&H Photo are selling the X100T for $1,099. This isn’t one of those questionable “Import Models” either. These are the real deal, complete with US warranty.
Click “More Details” to see the price.
Fuji’s new Autofocus System is sure to be a big hit with X-T10 owners, and sooner or later, X-T1 owners and even X-E2 users. The next obvious question in my mind is, what about the X100T? What I’ve heard so far is that nothing has been announced or even talked about yet, but it “probably will come.”
The reason comes down to how Fujifilm operates. Each camera moniker (X-E, X-T, X-Pro, X100, etc.) has its own team, so the feature set of the X-T10 and X-T1’s firmware are done by the same team, whereas the X-E2’s firmware update would be implemented by another.
Originally I thought the optical viewfinder might be the reason for the delay, but apparently that’s not the case. There does seem to be some technical limitations to the OVF,1 however multi-point AF, Zone, Tracking/Wide are not among them. If Zone and Tracking/Wide are going to be added to the X100T though, the number of selectable AF areas should also be increased.
Currently, only a 5 × 5 grid is selectable for autofocus in the optical viewfinder as compared to the EVF/LCD, both of which offer a 7 × 7 grid of AF points. In both cases, the central 3 × 3 grid of AF areas are Phase Detect enabled.
Now, the new autofocus system uses an 11 × 7 grid. Based on what I understand about where the Phase Detect points land relative to the Zones,2 and some guesswork, I’ll assume the new autofocus system would overlay something like this:
My guess as to how the new autofocus grid overlays the 7 × 7 grid of selectable AF points
This means that 5 × 5 Zone and Wide/Tracking would behave almost the same when the OVF is selected unless single area selection remains a 5 × 5 grid, and the new autofocus system uses an expanded 11 × 7 grid in the OVF. Either way, it would present a UX nightmare or be even more confusing than having different numbers of AF points available between the EVF and OVF.3 The obvious solution is to expand the number of AF areas in the OVF to the same 7 × 7 grid for consistency.
How the 5 × 5 Zone would overlay the X100T's OVF
Fuji has to be working out a solution to this though if an X-Pro2 is going to have an optical viewfinder, and arrive with at least as sophisticated an autofocus system as the X-T10 has. OVF users won’t want their preferred method of composition crippled, so hopefully one of those teams gets things figured out soon. I’m missing the new autofocus system on my X100T already.
The choice between a new X-T10 and the X-E2 has become a little more tricky. At least, it will be sometime soon-ish. Fujifilm has confirmed another firmware update for the X-E2. In my comparison, I posited that the X-E2 was probably end-of-life as far as firmware upgrades are concerned. Turns out I was wrong, and I couldn’t be happier about that.
My Versus piece saw a minor update to reflect the firmware news, and will be overhauled once the firmware’s feature set is at least officially announced. What’s of particular interest to me is how early days this is. All Fuji has said in any sort of on-the-record format is they’re planning an update, and will determine what is included in the update based on requests from users. I think it’s pretty safe to say the new AF features (multi-point, zone, wide/tracking, eye detection) will be included, but what about a UI update? Or a rotating EVF UI? Can Fuji please, for the love all that is good and pure, make the left and right function buttons customizable, and set playback to the LCD even when EVF-only has been chosen for composition?
While the early nature of this announcement pacifies X-E2 owners and gives them something to look forward to, it also leaves us with no sense of when this update will be available. Most of the internet seems to think Fuji will intentionally impose a long delay as they will not want to cannibalize sales of their new X-T10, but I think a bigger reason for the wait will come down to the engineering resources Fuji has to put on the project. Would Fuji really be disappointed if people buy one Fuji camera body over another? Hardly.
As of this writing, the X-T10→ is preorder only for $799 (USD), while the X-E2→ can be had for just $699 (USD). Either way, buyers today have a bit of a wait in front of them. The purchase decision will in part come down to format preference (rangefinder-style vs. DSLR-style), but also which immediate gratification is most enticing:
It’s nice to have these kinds of tough decisions.
Reviews of the forthcoming XF 90mm f/2 → are few and far between right now. Fuji clearly hasn’t made as many pre-production units of this pro-focused lens as they did the consumer-focused X-T10. Jonas Rask has the best write-up I’ve seen to date.
... and it has a 62mm filter size just like the XF56mm f/1.2 (and the XF23mm f/1.4). By placing the 56mm and 90mm side by side it’s quite apparent that they are the same width, and and what differs is only the length of the lens.
This is a really smart move by Fujifilm. Three extraordinary, fast lenses covering a wide range of focal lengths, one set of filters. If only they were able to keep the XF 16mm f/1.4 at the same filter thread.
Compare it to an equally spec’ed full frame or even APS-C lens, the XF 90mm will still be one of the smaller options to carry around.
Jonas is right, it is one of the smaller options, but as Jonas alluded, it will depend a great deal on how you arrive at 135mm, and which of the other big guys you compare against. Here’s how things stack up against full frame Canon and Nikon lenses.
Canon actually has a really small and lightweight option at this focal length. I can’t speak to its quality, however. When it comes to Nikon, the DC-Nikkor 135mm is conspicuously absent from the US site, but is still available on nikon.ca. At f/2 on full frame, it will deliver a stop’s worth of shallower depth of field, but it will cost you in weight. Those figures do not account for body weight.
Things change when APS-C is included for either Canon or Nikon, depending on how exact we’re being with our focal lengths. 90mm is really closer to a 137mm equivalent, whereas a full frame 85mm will get to pretty close at around 129mm on Nikon’s version of APS-C (1.52x multiplier) and real close with Canon’s (1.6x mulitplier). That means you can get a lens that’s close to 135mm with an f/1.8 lens from either company for less weight than Fuji’s 90mm f/2, but what it doesn’t account for is body weight.
So going mirrorless gets you a reduction in weight, albeit a smaller one.
Finally, in an effort to be a completionist, let’s compare a Fuji X-T1 kit, with the closest we can get from Olympus, the OM-D E-M1 and M.Zuiko 75mm f/1.8 lens.
Sadly there doesn’t seem to be a 135mm equivalent in the M/43 world, Still, if you want the lightest way to 135mm and beyond, Olympus is the way to go, if you ignore the whole f/1.8 on a Micro Four Thirds thing.
I had intended this to be a quick piece pointing you to a great review, so I’ll leave you with a final word from Jonas before you checkout the rest of his review:
OH MY DEAR LORD! THE IMAGE QUALITY OF THIS LENS!
I get the feeling he likes it.
In my review and comparison, perhaps my biggest criticism with the camera was its grip, or lack thereof. This potential issue is easily addressed by way of a half case, or MHG-XT10 grip that also provides Arca Swiss tripod compatibility. Both maintain battery and SD card access, which is nice.
Fuji’s X-T10 with MHG-XT10 hand grip – Image courtesy of Fujifilm Canada
Historically, I haven’t been thrilled with Fuji’s grips, and have preferred to attach a Really Right Stuff L-plate for my Arca Swiss needs, but this is a camera where a little added grip would do wonders. On the other hand, if the grip on the X-T10 is too small for you and you’re considering an MHG-XT10, the price of your X-T10 is now $930 (USD), just $270 less than the price of an X-T1. Less than $300 gets you a grip you’ll be more comfortable with out of the box, superior build, weather sealing, better continuous shooting, etc.
If an X-T10 arrives in my home as an X-T1 owner already, it would be the sort of camera that would stay off the tripod for the most part, and this may be the first Fuji half case I test. Anyone want to send me a Luigi half case to compare?
Fuji vs. Fuji is site dedicated to comparing and contrasting Fujifilm X Series mirrorless cameras, FUJINON and X Mount compatible lenses, and related accessories.
The Fuji Views blog contains thoughts and opinions on Fujifilm, the compact mirrorless camera market, and photography in general.
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