I didn't go CSC until there
was a system that could shoot at ISO3200 (my benchmark for useful shooting
inside/action on gloomy days/nightscapes) and produce images that would easily
clean up, even if that meant going for a slightly larger sensor (APS-C) and
body over MFT. One straight-from-RAW example and one DeNoised example
showing you can get respectable images shooting action at reasonable shutter
speeds with a slower zoom on a cloudy/wet day in a forest.
I would not tolerate an EVF with any sort of lag (drives an action shooter nuts!) - or that made manual focussing hard. That ruled out a LOT of stuff.
I also wanted quality lenses matched to a moderate resolution sensor. Hope remaining image shows that is the case with the X-T1. It isn't a 60MP studio monster, but well framed images should easily print to A3+ which is all I want.
Downsides with Fuji (you know these)
(1) Flash system is not fully developed, no wireless eTTL (although I've never needed this - manual wireless flash has been fine for me)
(2) Lightroom processing of RAF (but see LR 6.1 - it has some improvements)
(3) Tethered support only just available (Windows only)
(4) AF is decent but not outstanding
Upsides
(1) Substantial free firmware updates (may improve AF accuracy and low light performance)
(2) Quality primes and zooms
(3) That X-T1 EVF has blimping night vision. You can fit a 10 stop ND and STILL frame and focus. You can manually focus in the dark when you can barely see anything with your naked eye.
X-T1 V4.00 firmware update
ReplyDelete====================
Under the 'Power Management' menu (blue spanner 2) there is a 'High Performance' option which is off by default. Turn this on to shorten camera turn on time and improve AF times. It is highly recommended to have this on when using the new V4.00 firmware AF zone/tracking modes (also disable face detection, which allows the camera to use the faster phase detection AF and make sure you are using mechanical shutter only mode otherwise the camera will not refocus after each shot when using the motordrive).
V4.00 firmware radically improves AF tracking with the 55-200mm zoom. In a test involving Terns in flight, the X-T1 is now able to lock and track the more predictable flight paths. With previous firmware, the AF did not lock at all.
AF is generally improved for all lenses, in particular the 60mm macro and 35mm prime. The need to engage 'macro mode' for macro work has also disappeared; the camera will enter macro mode automatically when close focusing is required.
Motordrive notes
============
The X-T1 is capable of 8 fps across the board - i.e. you can get that with JPEG, RAW or JPEG+RAW shooting. Burst buffer is about 2 seconds of shooting before it slows whilst draining the buffer to the card (tested with SDHC I [95MB/s] and SDHC II [280MB/s] cards, both behave similarly). Testing (and real-life) shooting done with manual exposure and focus.