About Thomas Fitzgerald

Thomas is a professional fine art photographer and writer specialising in photography related instructional books as well as travel writing and street photography. 

My Fuji X-Pro 2 is Dead

My Fuji X-Pro 2 is Dead

My X-Pro 2 is not well. I went out to shoot some autumn scenes with it a few weeks ago, and after taking about 20 photos, the camera started acting weird. The screen started breaking up and then the camera completely froze. I couldn’t even turn it off, and I had to take the battery out. I left it out for a little while and put it back in and it worked again for another 10 shots or so, then it started again.

I thought it was possibly a memory card issue, so I tried a different memory card. Same behaviour. I tried a different battery but the same intermittent lock ups and screen corruption. Incidentally, the corruption I was seeing on the screen is also being captured on images.

Breakup of screen also recorded on an image

Now, its stopped turning on altogether. The camera will switch on and the rear screen will light up, but its still black, and it won’t turn back off. You have to take the battery out.

Clearly there is something seriously wrong. It looks like what you would expect to see on a laptop suffering from a motherboard failure or a chip failure. Unfortunately the camera is no longer under warrantee.

I have a lot of different cameras from over the years, and the X-Pro2 is one of my newest. My Nikon D700 is perfect. My Canon 5D which is pretty old had a problem with the mirror falling off, but to Canon’s credit, this was a known problem and had a repair programme, but I just missed it. I’ve never seen a camera have this kind of chip failure before though, and based what I’ve seen in various forums, it’s not unique.

If you search for this online, it seems like its not uncommon. Other people seem to have reported having similar issues - maybe not as many with the total failure, but the locking up and screen breakup seem to be there. Some people reported contacting Fuji about too, but I couldn't find a difinitive answer as to the cause.

It’s not the first issue I’ve had with a Fuji camera either. I got rid of my X-Pro1 because it was constantly locking up. My X100 battery charger failed and I had to get a replacement. On top of that the camera has become extremely slow over time, but when I tried to get help from the community I was told that it must be my own fault. My X-E1 also had its battery charger fail, but this was after I bought the X-Pro2 and was able to use the same charger. One of the Fuji lens I bought was missing its lens hood.

I contacted my local camera store, where I bought the camera and they told me that it would probably be around €300 to get fixed, and I would have to pay a €50 deposit to get it evaluated. It also has to be sent overseas for service. Currently, I can’t afford that expense, and so I’ll have to do without it for a while.

Have you had any major reliability issues with your camera? Fuji or other manufacturer? Let me know in the comments.


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