I finally got to spend a decent amount of time with the X-Pro1 yesterday thanks to a brief let up in the weather. And by "brief let up" I mean it stopped raining. We still haven't seen the sun in a while. So, while it was dry enough to go out without getting soaked, the light was still atrocious. Anyway, if I've learned anything living here, it's that you can't wait till there's perfect light because you could go months without taking any pictures. So I headed out into the city to do the best I could and give the X-Pro 1 a good work out.
I'm saving most of my observations about using the camera for the full review that I'm working on, but I'll share a few thoughts here in a second. Mostly though I just wanted to share some Images. I wasn't expecting to get anything good out of the day, but in the end I managed to get quite a few half decent shots. Most of these are processed quite a bit in Lightroom and Photoshop, but it gives you a good idea of what this camera can do, even in very poor conditions. For post processing I converted the RAW files to Tiffs using silipix and then brought the Tiffs into Lightroom. I'm surprised how well this works, although it is quite time consuming and it consumes quite a bit of drive space. Even more of a surprise is how well the resulting files hold up to manipulation. The camera is certainly producing strong data rich files when shot raw, and I can't wait to get proper raw support in Lightroom so I can save the first step.
This was the first time shooting with the X-Pro 1 that I began to experience some of the frustrations others have tacked about. I had been wondering what the fuss was about the shutter lag, but now I understand. It's not so much of a shutter lag but a whole camera lag. The camera occasionally seems to lock up for a second or so every now and then. It's like it gets a bit flustered and has to think for a second. I suspect that it's either programming that needs work or the processor is underpowered. The other thing that bugged me is that for some reason a lot of my shots were overexposed by a bout a stop. I didn't accidentally set the exposure comp dial as this would show up in the exif, and for some reason it seemed to be more pronounced on the raw file, so I suspect that it might have been some setting I had turned on and not realised such as the dynamic range expansion. Whatever the problem was (and I'm pretty sure it's my own fault), it's weird. Shots that were over-exposed looked fine on the LCD. the fact that there doesn't seem to be a way to view the histogram of a shot after it's taken is annoying too (it could well be there looking at me) and you only see it before you take the shot which also seems odd.
The other thing that was a pain me was the EVF. It isn't very good. The colour of it is very cool, and everything looks like it's set with the wrong white balance. I'm still having issues with it being too dark at times as well. Most of the time its fine but at other times it's as if something is dimming it. I tried adjusting the brightness (i figured out how todo that!) but that made everything look too bright. Then again, given that a lot of shots were over exposed, perhaps it was right.
Anyway, these are all just teething problems. If it sounds like I'm being negative I'm not. The pros far outweigh the negatives. I'm just pointing out the quirks. As with any new camera it takes time to get used to its quirks and I'm slowly getting the hang of the fuji. So far I haven't come across anything that can't be worked around or is just a matter of getting used to.
I'm still amazed by the files it produces. Images really are impressive in terms of sharpness and oomph (that's a technical term!). As I said earlier, I'm really impressed by how far I can push images without them turning to a noisy mess. Anyway, instead of rambling on, why don't I just show you some pictures….
He doesn't look like someone who would have an entourage!
Obligatory beer keg shot !
Why do all the statues like this look so bored?
Fresh shoots in the Iveagh gardens. At least nature is glad of the rain.
What are you looking at?
The side of a truck. Pretty much straight out of the camera. You can't make it out here but you can see all the creases and scratches in the metal. Very impressive.
It's for the museum, not the beauty treatment.
"Is that more rain?"
Raawwrrrrrr
Call it a hunch, but I'm guessing that this store is closed.
Impressively deep grafitti
X Marks the spot
Do I even need a caption ?
Mmm, Strawberries
Brightly coloured tourists.
That's what I mean by "dull weather"
Mmm, I wonder if there's some kind of important vote coming up or something?
That's it for now (or it will take ages to load this page!) More to come tomorrow!