Fujifilm X100V First Tests

Gallery (55 images): Fujifilm X100V First Tests

I finally had a chance to really shoot with the new Fujifilm X100V. During this COVID-19 crisis and the required social distancing, I was able to visit the UBC campus as well as Campbell Valley Park and keep well away from others. Beau Photo Supplies is now temporarily closed so I will endeavour to do some more gear postings, lens tests and such over the next few weeks.

My X100V review is on the Beau Photo blog here: https://www.beauphoto.com/new-fujifilm-x100v/

I should say that I am truly impressed with the X100V, which now features a weather-resistant design, a rear tilting LCD, the latest 26MP X-Trans CMOS 4 sensor, and a redesigned 23mm f/2 lens. Optically, the new lens is now more consistent across the frame as far as sharpness, and field-curvature seems minimal. Close focus macro shots at wide f-stops are also a lot sharper now.

As far as ergonomics, the camera is a joy to use with a wonderful tactile feel to all the controls and buttons, and it is also a beautiful camera to look at in my opinion. The fit and finish is flawless and the satin texture and precise machining of the camera's aluminum shell is gorgeous. It is a camera that begs to picked up and shot with, possibly the most appealing camera overall in that respect that I've ever owned.

UBC Botanical Gardens w/Fujinon XF50mm f/2R WR

Gallery (30 images): 2017/05 - UBC Botanical Gardens

A wonderful day in the sun, shooting out at the UBC Botanical Gardens. All photos were taken with my new Fujinon XF 50mm f/2R WR lens. It focuses fairly closely on its own, without extension tubes and all the shots in the gallery were taken with just the lens itself.

Originally, I was going to write a review on this lens in conjunction with this posting, but the review will follow in the next few days and I will link to it from here, as well as from my other 50mm f/2 gallery, 2017 Spring has Finally Sprung! There will be one more gallery with some more shots from the 50mm to follow then as well.

Infrared with a modified Fujifilm X-E2

Gallery (30 images): Infrared modified Fujifilm X-E2

Over the years I've had several digital cameras dedicated to IR photography, first starting back in 2000 (if memory serves) with a Nikon Coolpix 800, then followed by an Olympus C4040 and then a Nikon Coolpix 5400. With those cameras, I used deep IR filters on otherwise stock cameras and shutter speeds were long enough in full sunlight, that I often had to use a tripod. I never used those cameras for colour photography since I felt that their image quality wasn't good enough, however with the IR grain and glow added in post, they seemed to mostly suffice for my B&W IR ambitions. Back then, I was shooting medium format transparency film with a Pentax 67II, my main camera at the time.

Then, after buying a Canon EOS-30D in 2006, I decided to have my very first digital SLR that I had bought in 2004, an EOS-20D, converted to a dedicated IR camera, letting LifePixel do the modification with a standard 720nm bandpass IR filter. I had that camera for many years, finally selling it when I started to use Panasonic Micro-4/3 bodies. In 2012, when I was shooting with a GH2, I decided to buy a Panasonic GF2 body and immediately had it converted to shoot IR (720nm as well), and used LifePixel once again. With a standard DSLR, one has to worry that IR light doesn't focus in the same plane as visible light, leading to focus errors when the visible light is used either by the DSLR's AF sensor, or by you if manually focusing via the camera's focusing screen. This is why many older lenses had an IR offset dot on their focusing scale, so you could manually shift the focus to compensate. Well, with a mirrorless camera like the GF2, the main image sensor is being used to focus, and since the IR filter is, of course, in front of the image sensor, you get perfectly accurate AF, as well as being able to see the IR effect through the EVF or back LCD screen. Overall, this made shooting IR much more pleasant and accurate compared to a modified DLSR!

Fujifilm X-Pro2 Review

Gallery (110 images): Fujifilm X-Pro2 Review Gallery

May 8, 2016: This very long review is finally complete! Enjoy...

I have now had my own Fujifilm X-Pro2 for just over a month, and by and large, I absolutely love the camera. Above is a link to a random sampling of images I've shot since getting the X-Pro2. There is a lot that is new and improved in comparison to the older Fujifilm bodies like my X-E2 and I will attempt to cover the major improvements. While I have now shot quite a lot with the X-Pro2, what I still haven’t done is a full-blown comparison to my X-E2 with respect to image quality. Suffice to say for now that my impressions are that it is as good, or better, in essentially every way. The increased megapixels have had no negative impact, and only contribute to its overall image quality.

This is also very true of raw files processed through the latest versions of Adobe's Creative Cloud Lightroom and Photoshop. With Adobe's tweaks to X-Trans sensor raw file processing, and the X-Pro2's increased resolution, I am actually finding quite acceptable results and generally don't feel the need to process images through a third party raw converter any more, converters like PhotoNinja or Iridient Developer. For a working pro that is using Fujifilm gear, shoots raw, and uses Adobe software, this can pay big dividends in productivity! Rest assured that the camera's JPEGs are still as good as ever.

Scattered throughout this review are some shots of the X-Pro2, side by side with my X-E2, so you can see how the controls have changed, the size differences etc. Apologies, but I had a very poor quality screen protector on the X-Pro2's rear LCD for those shots, and I've since then replaced it with a much nicer one. The full-resolution images, taken with the X-Pro2 in this review, were all raw files that were just processed through Lightroom CC.

Fujifilm X-Pro2 - First Tests...

Gallery (45 images): Fujifilm X-Pro2 - First Tests...

These are the first photos I have shot with a production Fujifilm X-Pro2, one that was kindly loaned to me by a local Fujifilm rep for a few days. In the near future, time permitting, I will be publishing more images and will write a followup review to my previous posting about briefly testing a preproduction model, once I have a chance to work my very own X-Pro2 body in detail.

The above linked gallery contains numerous shots using the camera's new ACROS black&white film simulation mode. Those photos were raw files actually, rendered in Adobe Lightroom CC, and not camera JPEGs, but Lightroom's new ACROS calibration preset for the X-Pro2 seems to mimic the camera's ACROS JPEG files quite faithfully.

Note that some night shots may show three or four bright "hot pixels", but after I applied the X-Pro2's new "Pixel Mapping" function, those visible hot pixels were no longer seen in subsequent shots. My latest X-E2 body has also developed one bright hot pixel since I got it, but alas there is no pixel mapping option on it to get rid of it.

Basically, "Pixel Mapping" is when the camera takes a photo with the shutter closed, then analyzes the resulting image to see if there are any out-of-spec pixels that are not black. The camera then updates its internal sensor calibration map, so that those hot pixels register a black that's equal to the other surrounding ones, thereby ridding future shots of those annoying bright specks. Note that those bright specks are quite different from regular high ISO noise. This Pixel Mapping feature is fairly rare in digital cameras, mainly seen on some Micro-4/3 bodies from Panasonic and Olympus, but it is certainly a welcome addition to the X-Pro2's feature set.

Very briefly though, the camera is most impressive! When compared to my X-E2 body, the improvements in the AF system, shutter responsiveness and overall body ergonomics are very noticeable, quite dramatic really. The Fujifilm XF lenses that I've tried so far, namely the 16mm f/1.4, 23mm f/1.4, 35mm f/2 and 90mm f/2, have all continued to perform spectacularly well, even with a bump to 24MP from the older X-E2's 16MP sensor. Fujifilm's gorgeous colour rendition is still there with the new sensor as well. More to come...