The 4K Fuji X-T2 is here

[mercer]

12 minutes ago, jasonmillard81 said:

Jonpais! Love the SOOC look with the 50-140 :)! 

I just got my x-t2 and am starting to shoot a little with it.  I have to say it is excellent!  I need to look at other lenses for lowlight options.

Could you take some video shots and night and indoors with limited light?

I recently invested in a c100 II because I'd like to do some video/doc. work for my students and myself but I am having major buyer's remorse now that I see how great of an image x-t2 is achieving.  I'm actually strongly considering selling my c100 II and 24-105 with less than 2 hours of recording time.

Unless you're having financial issues, then why sell the C100ii? You have one of the best, for its cost, cinema cameras out there with insanely good AF. That camera will pay for itself in less than a year by doing an odd job once or twice every couple of months. 

[Django]

1 hour ago, mercer said:

Unless you're having financial issues, then why sell the C100ii? You have one of the best, for its cost, cinema cameras out there with insanely good AF. That camera will pay for itself in less than a year by doing an odd job once or twice every couple of months. 

couldn't agree more. my C100 is most often found sitting on it's shelf, until i get a call like a couple weeks ago to shoot a corporate docu, and in 2 days of use it already paid for itself.  no way would i have been able to do the things i did with the XT2. Canon Log, Zebras, ND filters, the insane battery life (a full day of shoot with ONE charge) and yes the killer feature: dual pixel AF. Not to mention the ergonomics and confidence you get by having such pro equipment.

that being said if you're an amateur/enthusiast, maybe C100ii is overkill. certainly not the camera i'd bring on the street, on vacation or kids soccer game..

[jonpais]

8 hours ago, jasonmillard81 said:

Jonpais! Love the SOOC look with the 50-140 :)! 

I just got my x-t2 and am starting to shoot a little with it.  I have to say it is excellent!  I need to look at other lenses for lowlight options.

Could you take some video shots and night and indoors with limited light?

I recently invested in a c100 II because I'd like to do some video/doc. work for my students and myself but I am having major buyer's remorse now that I see how great of an image x-t2 is achieving.  I'm actually strongly considering selling my c100 II and 24-105 with less than 2 hours of recording time.

Thanks, Jason. I'll be in Malaysia for two weeks, maybe when I get back I can try some low light stuff... But with which lens? Also, did you get the kit lens with the XT2? I don't currently own any fast Fuji glass, just 3 lenses, the fastest being the 35mm f/2.

[jasonmillard81]

Jonpais I was actually looking at both the 35 f2 and 50-140 2.8.  I have the 18-55 (2.8-4) currently.  I'd be curious about the 35 f2 lowlight performance for both photography and video.

[jonpais]

49 minutes ago, jasonmillard81 said:

Jonpais I was actually looking at both the 35 f2 and 50-140 2.8.  I have the 18-55 (2.8-4) currently.  I'd be curious about the 35 f2 lowlight performance for both photography and video.

This video was posted here a while back, has some impressive night shots. Funny though, no 35mm or 50-140mm ☹️. I believe I read somewhere that Fuji will be releasing a 50mm f/2, which works out to 85mm in 4K, so should be a handy little portrait lens.

 

[jonpais]

@jasonmillard81 I just shot a few seconds of handheld video with the 35mm f/2 at ISO 6400 with aperture between f/2 and f/2.8 and the image is clean and sharp. I will try to share this evening if the wifi here cooperates. 

[jasonmillard81]

look forward to the results!

[jonpais]

17 hours ago, jasonmillard81 said:

look forward to the results!

Sorry about the wait. The wifi here's very unreliable. At ISO 6400, the Fuji holds up quite well, and I probably wouldn’t bother de-noising the footage even if it were going to end up being used in a project. In all but the first two shots, I used Fuji’s Classic Chrome film simulation, which, together with highlight and shadow tone adjustments, helps to soften up the the contrast under harsh lighting conditions; though Astia may be Fuji’s flattest profile. Because the Fuji 35mm f/2 lens is so small, it’s the perfect choice when you want to be discrete. I was resting my elbows on a table for support, but someone kept kicking it, so sorry about all the camera shake. The cool guy wearing the beret is Kim Gooi, a correspondent and photographer during the Vietnam war.

Free background music from JewelBeat.com

 

[jasonmillard81]

Looks great jonpais!!!!

a few questions/points:

 

1. His skin has a bit of added green. Is that more of a white balance adjustment or post CC?

2. Highlights are blown out, wonder if pro neg would help recover those. 

3.  Would be curious to hear what a shotgun mic in the hot shoe directly into camera sounds like for interviews. 

 

Well done and no visible noise for 6400! If you get a chance to do 6400+ at night that would be interesting to see. 

 

Cheers!

[jonpais]

25 minutes ago, jasonmillard81 said:

Looks great jonpais!!!!

a few questions/points:

 

1. His skin has a bit of added green. Is that more of a white balance adjustment or post CC?

2. Highlights are blown out, wonder if pro neg would help recover those. 

3.  Would be curious to hear what a shotgun mic in the hot shoe directly into camera sounds like for interviews. 

 

Well done and no visible noise for 6400! If you get a chance to do 6400+ at night that would be interesting to see. 

 

Cheers!

I used AWB: if you balanced color manually, I'm sure it would look even better. Maybe the red cola machine behind him... The dynamic range is limited, so I had to choose between good shadow detail or highlight detail. In some of the shots, I couldn't even see into the shadows with my own eyes. It doesn't have as good a dynamic range as the Sony for example. I didn't check the scopes when it was on the timeline, so not sure if they are recoverable. I can check that for you tomorrow. You can see noise in the wall in the shot of the fellow with the beard, but it's not objectionable, and I know for certain that it could be lessened with neat video. It is far less annoying than some stuff I've shot with the GH4. I would love to do an interview  with Kim Gooi, he is articulate and extremely bright, but I didn't plan on it, so I didn't bring any mics with me. Actually, I am very interested in getting a Lav mic, since I've never been satisfied with the sound from my Rode shotguns. Pro neg may be even flatter than Classic Chrome, I can try to shoot some of that this week as well...

[Django]

Classic Chrome is by far my favorite film simulation but yes Pro Neg Std is the flattest. Here is a good run-down of the color science behind each mode:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/photography/tips-and-solutions/introduction-fujifilm’s-film-simulation-modes

[jasonmillard81]

Thanks for the link Django and Jonpais great stuff...yes I am not sure about shotgun mics but since they are the least invasive and easiest run-and-gun mic I'd love to hear some examples.

I would be open to investing in a decent lav setup for controlled environments.  Any good suggestions for both shotgun mics and lav mics?

I have the Rode NTG2 but not sure if that will be good for this camera.  I'll check this holiday season with that.

[Cinegain]

Indiegogo price on the Instamic is still alive. ~ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/instamic-the-smartest-microphone-ready-to-record-video-music/x/9727099#/ , should be shipping out any day now.

[jonpais]

14 hours ago, jasonmillard81 said:

2. Highlights are blown out, wonder if pro neg would help recover those. 

Hi Jason, it's morning here in Malaysia. I just put the low light clips I shot the other day on the timeline, when it dawned on me that you were referring to the blown highlights from the light outdoors, not the subjects' faces.   There would be no way to recover those, and even Pro Neg does not increase the dynamic range of the camera. In order to save a little more of the background detail, you'd need to shoot F-Log. Even then, that's an enormous difference between shadow and highlight detail. Best to shoot from a different angle to avoid those problems. The reason I shot against bright light is because in low light situations, there are often light sources facing directly at the lens, and I wanted to see how the lens handled that. With my GH4, some lenses would produce awful veiling flare, for example, the 12-35mm f/2.8, as a result of insufficient lens coatings, which is one reason I've been waiting for Sigma to release a fast, wide u4/3 prime. Wide angles are particularly prone to this problem, because of their angle of view. BTW, I know I've said this before, and it's mentioned in Max Yuryev's review: ISO 6400 is not ISO 6400. Sony's low light monsters will be brighter at ISO 6400 than either the Panasonic or Fuji cameras. I went digging around for information on how ISO figures are reached, and learned that there are no fewer than three methods Japanese manufacturers use, as well as a fourth one, if you include marketing shenanigans.  From the late 1800s up until the digital era, there were as many as ten different ways to measure light sensitivity. Some film manufacturers could put BLAHBLAH 1600 on their box of film, when in reality it was 400, and it wouldn't be fibbing, because they didn't say ASA or ISO. 

[Inazuma]

For those thinking there is a dynamic range problem with this camera I would like to again point out my earlier post. Just make sure you expose for the highlights and you're good. 

On the issue of ISO. I did some tests a few days ago and found that the XT2 is clearly a stop darker than my Nikon D5500 and Sony a5100 at the same ISO. But luckily the noise performance is still fairly similar when you bump up the ISO on the XT2. 

@jonpais You should give -1 highlights/shadows a go. I find -2 makes skin look too flat and is not recoverable. Also Astia veers skin more towards orange than Provia does

[jonpais]

1 hour ago, Inazuma said:

For those thinking there is a dynamic range problem with this camera I would like to again point out my earlier post. Just make sure you expose for the highlights and you're good. 

On the issue of ISO. I did some tests a few days ago and found that the XT2 is clearly a stop darker than my Nikon D5500 and Sony a5100 at the same ISO. But luckily the noise performance is still fairly similar when you bump up the ISO on the XT2. 

@jonpais You should give -1 highlights/shadows a go. I find -2 makes skin look too flat and is not recoverable. Also Astia veers skin more towards orange than Provia does

Nice to know. I'll change the settings right away and give it a try tomorrow afternoon. BTW, I have no issue at all with the dynamic range: use a fill light, change the composition, whatever it takes: t's not a Yi M1: it doesn't give the user helpful tips on composition.  The Fuji X-T2 is without question the most exciting camera I've ever used in my life: the best build quality, the best lenses, the most accurate WB, and the most beautiful colors I've ever seen. I really could care less about IBIS and touch screen when I'm handling such a marvel. And Fuji is going to wipe the floor with Sony. Everyone's so caught up in reading specs over at DxO mark, et. al.; quibbling over the incremental changes over at Panasonic; and Olympus, with their overpriced, injection molded bodies produced in SouthEast Asia; and not sharing anything of value: instead of boasting about 1,500 pages of discussion of dynamic range, blah, blah, let's see some footage instead. Incidentally, footage from the GX85/G85 can be intercut with that from the GH4 and nobody could tell which is which. I've been struggling for years to get a decent image out of my Panasonics, and I get the X-T2, and voila! I'm finally getting color and clarity I could only dream of - and I've processed my own Ektachrome, made color separation gravure prints, gum bichromate prints, and Cibachromes and none of them begin to compare to the Fuji. 

[Taranis]

Just made a quick comparison with my D5200 (using Flaat11). Wanted to see how the X-T2's DR compares with the flattest settings possible without F-log. Everything is in the description. Unfortunately it was an overcast day, but I tried to find high contrast scenes. This test is not about color.

 

[jonpais]

Just a simple question: why is it that every Fuji owner recommends the fastest primes, like the 56mm f/1.2 and the rest, saying they are brilliant from wide open, when MTF charts show this is clearly not so? The 56mm barely meets decency levels wide open. And the autofocus of some of the earlier faster lenses is much slower as well. Because whether you purchase a 16mm f/1.4 or a 23mm f/1.4, you'd have to use it often at wide open to justify the cost, as the slower f/2 or zoom options probably perform just as well by say f/4. Just wondering...

[fuzzynormal]

9 minutes ago, jonpais said:

they are brilliant from wide open, when MTF charts show this is clearly not so

I like the extra shallow dof with wide open lenses for interview shots, but yeah, if you're not a shooter that wants that particular thing, using the f2 lenses is a good bet.  

[jonpais]

@fuzzynormal so I understand the Fuji love, but if you don't use these fast lenses at their widest aperture all the time, I consider them a waste of money. Some fast primes reach miraculous levels of resolution when stopped down a touch, but the Fujis need to be stopped down a lot to reach their full potential.