Switching to the Fuji X: FR-readers stories

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I receive a lot of messages from photographers who made the big jump from the DSLR to the X-series and rediscovered the passion and joy for photography! For example Mel, who told me about his experience when he switched from Nikon to the X-PRO1:

“The X-PRO1 has brought pure creativity back into my photography, not only that but it inspires me to keep being creative. In short, the X-PRO1 has brought photography back to me just when I hadn’t even realised I’d lost it. I take photos in situations where I never believed I could take a photo due to the low light limitations of every other camera I’ve ever owned. I experiment more, I enjoy more, I do more.”

Thanks a lot for sharing all this with Fujirumors, dear readers. News, rumors, stories… keep it up!

P.S.: And if you plan to switch the to the Fuji X, you should check this rumor here.

all the best
Patrick

1) Sabino:

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[…] I switched to Fuji just because I needed a comfortable camera and small enough to use in travel reportages without renounce to a professional quality. I am an italian creative designer and photographer based in Luxembourg, I started doing photography 6 years ago, but that was just the beginning of an incredible love for this art. Since the beginning I used the Canon system, first the 450D and then, once I started travelling, the professional full frame [shoplink 11332 ebay]5D MkII[/shoplink], with a couple of lenses. Great camera, but too heavy to carry around and especially bulky and showy. I don’t want to be slave of the equipment and feel it on every movement, I need something that could become like an extension of my hand and I can store in a small and light pocket..

After evaluating other brands and models I chose the [shoplink 10259]Fuji X-E1[/shoplink] because I had already tried the [shoplink 11336 ebay]Fuji X100[/shoplink] and I immediately felt in love with the fuji “touch”, but still i was not that sure to success using that camera for street or travel reportages. Is not an easy camera, is like a beautiful woman, you need to spend some time with her and be patient, to conquer more and more intimacy, but then, when you know all about, all the little secrets, you would never leave her!
So I went to Thailand, a road trip from Bankgok up to Chiang Mai and Laos, and for the first time I left the Canon 5D, the 17-40 and the 85mm lenses at home and travel within only the brand new X-E1 and the [shoplink 10279]18-55[/shoplink] kit lens. That was a big jump into the darkness!

But my insecurity has disappeared as quick as I started to use that small beautiful camera. Finally I had the possibility to completely concentrate in doing photography without almost feeling the camera in my hand, i could finally do a better relaxed photography and maximum discretion, I could do portraits and street photography without scaring or inhibit people. Even the performance at high ISO, during night time, and the battery life was positively surprising! I did a lot of photos at night street market and you won’t see bad noises even at 1600 ISO!
At the end of the trip, once I have downloaded all the pictures and viewed on a big screen i could admire the quality, the sharpness and clearly say that have the same quality of the full frame, maybe even better.
To proof the hi quality level of this camera I have also published three books out of that travel, Thailand, People and Lifestyle , Thailand, Art&Culture and Thailand, Street Market, this last one choosen by Blurb as example for their marketing campaign and to show to customers and fairs. So now i have now doubts about how good is the Fuji X system and the Canon 5D mk II could stay at home and work just for studio pictures, on tripod, as an old good lady.

Finally, if you want to see the quality of the X-E1 pictures, printed on 50x70cm frames, I will have my first public exhibition, PORTRAITS, a collection of 11 portraits out of my travels. The exhib will take place in Amsterdam, at De Peper from Friday 3 May to Friday 31st of May. More infos at www.sabinoparente.com/portraits). Now I am expanding my X equipment and I bought the [shoplink 11322]Fujinon 35mm[/shoplink], and some old M42 lenses that I can use with an adaptor. I just tested the Super Takumar 55 f1.8 and it works really good, and I am looking forward to try the Zeiss lenses that are coming.

So, not only an hi-quality and professional camera but also a high versatile system.

Sabino

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2) Jonas:

” […] I have not that long experience with photography – I only started a couple of years ago. However, I am fast learner and absolutely love the creativity photography brings. I am 100 % self-taught and that is something I’m quite proud of actually. I started of with DSLR:s from Canon as well as Nikon, and was pleased with the results. However I started to leave the camera more often at home due to inconvenience of the weight and size of the system, leaving me to wonder if there was a way I could have the same (or better) photographic results with a smaller and lighter system. I tried the M43 system with great lenses from Olympus, but soon Fuji caught my interest with their new X-series of cameras. When the [shoplink 10259 ebay]X-E1[/shoplink] hit the market I knew I had to get my hands on it.

Long story (very) short, I’ve now been using the X-E1 with the [shoplink 10279]18-55 zoom[/shoplink] I would like to share a couple of my shots with the Fuji community and everyone interested in trying it out. I shoot pretty much everything, but I prefer urban/street/landscape/architecture angles. I live in Gothenburg (Sweden) and most of the shots are therefore winter-influenced this time of the year. Overall I am extremely pleased with the performance of both the camera and the lens – top quality compared to anything else I’ve tried. As I Design Engineer-to-be obviously I am also quite fond of the design and look of this camera. But I am sure you already know that.

Please enjoy the photos and feel free to follow me at my website (www.tamaramaphoto.com) or via 500px (http://500px.com/tamaramaphoto). I will be happy to answer any questions or comments.

Thanks for a great site, Patrick.

Best Regards, Jonas Jacobsson”

Jonas

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3) Phil:

“Hello Patrick, I’m an architectural, installation documentation and art reproduction photographer in the San Francisco bay area. I really enjoy visiting your site so thought that I would like to contribute something. I just returned from a brief trip to Japan for cherry blossom season. I spent a little time between Osaka, Kyoto and Nara and I’m pretty sure I hit the season at it’s peak. This was my first travel outing with the X-E1 (my last trip was with an [shoplink 11210]OM-D E-M5[/shoplink], which the Fuji replaced.) I’ve included a link to a handful of the images here at philbondphotography. Best regards, Phil”

Phil

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4) Robin:

“Hi there , just wanted to let you know my story of switching to the fuji X system for about a year now : I’ve been active as a concert and documentary photographer for the past 7 years and got tired of walking around with my heavy gear bag ( [shoplink 11318]nikon d3[/shoplink] + [shoplink 11330]D300[/shoplink] with 24-70 70-200 12-24, sigma, fisheye and some flashes). Since I stopped my activity of live concert shooting the idea of having this great but heavy gear made me think about switching to something more compact.

First I made the switch to a “lighter” [shoplink 11332 ebay]canon 5d m2[/shoplink] body with some prime lenses, but at the end it was still nog what I was looking for …

And there was fuji suddenly with the X100 , which I bought and this camera blow me away instantly. In the beginning I really had to get used to it cause coming from a speedmonster like a [shoplink 11318]D3[/shoplink] the [shoplink 11336 ebay]X100[/shoplink] me made nervous more then often, but after more then a half year of use I have no problems anymore with the speed of the camera, or the “slow autofocus” .

I often have people asking me to help them choose a camera or compact camera, and most of the times they want the one which auto focus is the fasted, while in my honest opinion a lot of people would take better picture if there camera was a little bit slower, and they have to think a little bit more before they take the picture.

In the meantime I completed the kit with a fuji Xe1 with the 35 and 18 lenses , and past weekend I had my first full wedding covered only with the X system. The fuji sensor’s IQ is great for black and white stuff , which is most of my work these days …

Here you can see the samples of the wedding day …

Now the [shoplink 10075]X100S[/shoplink] is there I was tempted to change it , but the X100 is still more then I would ever need in a compact camera ,
I even dropped it and it bounced from the stairs at past weekend’s shoot , and that small thing is still doing fine !

Keep it up with the site

Robin

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Fuji’s double kit offer to come? (X-E1 + 18-55 + 55-200)

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Do you remember the crazy X-superkit deals here? You missed them? Don’t worry. I’ve the feeling that we could enjoy them again in future ;). This time the 2 lenses in offer should be the [shoplink 10279]XF 18-55mm[/shoplink] and XF 55-200mm. So, if you plan to switch to the Fuji X-series, this could be an interesting deal: buy both XF-zoom lenses and you’ll grab the X-E1 for a significantly reduced price.

I don’t know the price and when the zoom lenses kit deal will exactly be launched, but I’m looking forward to it. Lemme see if I can tell you more about it soon.

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Apple Camera RAW, X-Trans and EXR

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by Rico Pfirstinger

Talk to Rico (questions & feedback) – Rico’s Flickr photosteam

Considering the lively discussion that is going on about Apple Camera Raw and Aperture finally supporting Fujifilm cameras with X-Trans sensors, earlier reports about Aperture’s death appear to be a bit premature. As was to be expected, most of the discussion focuses on heavy pixel peeping, so this is what I am not going to talk about in this edition of my X-Pert Corner column. That’s because with all the pixel peeping, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture. There’s more to processing a RAW file than looking at perceived artifacts in 100%-400% magnification modes. Let’s instead focus on the following:

  • How usable is Apple Camera Raw for highlight recovery?
  • How is Apple Camera Raw dealing with digital lens correction and RAW metadata?
  • How is it handling RAW files that were taken in extended dynamic range modes, like DR200% and DR400%?

If you open a “standard” (that is DR100%) X-Trans RAW file in Apple Aperture using the latest Apple Camera Raw, chances are it won’t look that much different from a standard Provia SOOC JPEG file. Why bother, then? We could just use the JPEGs from the camera (maybe with additional tweaking in its internal RAW converter) and carry on with our lives, right? Yes, we could, at least in many instances. However, there are situations that the camera’s built-in JPEG engine cannot handle. This is where external RAW processing options shine—at least some of them, because not all external RAW processors are equally well-suited for specific tasks, such as highlight recovery.

Let’s have a look at a practical example. This is a (cropped to taste) SOOC JPEG image I recently recorded with a XF55-200mmF3.5-4.8 R LM OIS prototype lens:

You can immediately see that the dynamic range of this subject grossly exceeds the range of the JPEG: shadows are blocked, highlights (clouds and sky) are blown-out. No matter how you deal with this RAW file in the camera’s internal converter, you won’t get a balanced result showing the full tonal range of the scene. For example, redeveloping the JPEG in-camera with soft (-2) shadow and highlight tone settings won’t rescue the clouds:

Neither will “pulling” the image -1/3 or -2/3 EV using the built-in converter’s push/pull function:


-1/3 EV


-2/3 EV

It is important to note that both -1/3 EV and -2/3 EV versions shown here don’t induce any any clipped highlight warnings, neither in the camera’s “info display” view nor in Apple Aperture. This means that no matter how much further I might pull the RAW in-camera, the texture in the clouds won’t magically re-appear. The internal RAW converter simply cannot rescue this shot. However, a state-of-the-art external converter can.

I shot this sample using the basic “ETTR exposure technique for RAW shooters” that I am recommending in my book. This means setting the camera to DR100% and using the live histogram to set the “right” exposure, clipping the relevant highlights in the histogram just so much that they can still be recovered in Lightroom/ACR or, in this case, Apple Camera Raw and Aperture.

Here’s what the standard import of the RAW file looks like in Apple Aperture:

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Official European Zeiss lens price info!

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Thanks to the Munich store Sauter we got the info about the new “Touit” Zeiss lens primes:
Touit 32mm f/1.8 for 799 Euro (Click here).
Touit 12mm f/2.8 for 1099 Euro (Click here).

There is still no info about the price in US/Canada. To get notified when these lenses will be sold on eBay login our Slidoo-eBay website and save this searches: Touit 32mm and Touit 12mm. You will can change the country in your settings. And here is the HowTo to learn how all this works (P.S.: Slidoo Amazon is in the works and will be announced in a few weeks).

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