The 4K Fuji X-T2 is here

[Inazuma]

I think the shooters who say they offer great sharpness wide open are talking more about central sharpness, which the ultra fast primes do have (according to the charts ive just been looking at)

I wouldnt say most fuji shooters recommend the ultra fast ptimes anyway. Ive seen plenty recommend the WR's.

Personally i like them for their rendering 

[fuzzynormal]

1 hour ago, jonpais said:

@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.

It's a safe argument to say that the wider FUJI primes are not necessarily the better value, but if you really want the faster glass it's worthwhile.  My wife has a 35mm f1.4.  I think it looks more than sharp enough for video interview work, which is primarily why we got it.  And I also tend to like the 35mm FOV for interview shots.

I doubt we'd get the FUJI fast primes if a certain type of still photography was our main goal, but stills are not our priority.

[Grégory LEROY]

On 29/11/2016 at 3:24 AM, Inazuma said:

Yeh turning them to -2 (the max) funks them. -1 is OK.

Nothing of interest yet. Just this short video testing out the bokeh and flaring characteristics. I am returning the WR and keeping the f1.4 btw. The clutch focus is really useful and it has a nicer skin colour rendition imo (less orange). 

You can underexpose and then bring up the shadows.  See my earlier post http://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/20213-the-4k-fuji-x-t2-is-here/?do=findComment&comment=161905

 

Yeh the XT2 is a big step up from a D5500 in terms of video ergonomics (EVF, focus peaking) and detail (inc. 1080). Colour and tonality is a little more subjective of course. I just did some quick comparisons for you. The image quality in each 1080p mode is the same (24, 25, 29,97, 50, 59.94 fps) and the rolling shutter seems the same too. For me the main thing that lets down the system is the lack of a stabilised f2.8 16-50mm. I have emailed Metabones last week asking if they plan to make an EF adapter, but have not received any reply so far. 

There are also a few minor glitches with the camera here and there. Like sometimes there will appear to be lag on the screen until you half press the shutter. And sometimes when taking a photo, it takes it using the electronic shutter and with a brighter exposure than dialled in. I'm hoping Fuji sees feedback like this and makes a firmware to address these issues. If you are listening Fuji, please get in touch!

 

Edit: Well what dya know... new firmware just came out http://www.fujifilm.com/support/digital_cameras/software/firmware/x/xt2/index.html

Sounds like it address the overexposure issue I just mentioned and also adds a LOCK function!

Tank you very much for your feedback Sebastian, I am following you on youtube.

[jonpais]

I've only been able to find a few examples of the Fuji XT2 with a Zhiyun Crane on YouTube, most of it not very good. When I get back home, I'll have to see how that works out, since one of the things holding many back from getting the Fuji is lack of stabilization.

[Prandi]

But is also clear when I use an objective without stabilization, right?

[jonpais]

6 minutes ago, Prandi said:

But is also clear when I use an objective without stabilization, right?

It will be shaky

[mechanicalEYE]

 

4 hours ago, jonpais said:

It will be shaky

What'd we do before ibis, and affordable gimbals?

[Kisaha]

There are tripods, monopods, feet (that can walk the distance and use a wider lens!). I am surprised that suddenly IBIS and gimbals became a necessity. Like the a7sii, all of a sudden people prefer shooting in absolute darkness! 

I am not against IBIS/GIMBALS/HIGH ISO SENSORS, but there are ways working around limitations. After 18 years of pro work, this year was the first to use A7sII and Ronin, great, but only for 3 occasions (2 the A7sii and 1 the Ronin).

[mechanicalEYE]

3 hours ago, Kisaha said:

There are tripods, monopods, feet (that can walk the distance and use a wider lens!). I am surprised that suddenly IBIS and gimbals became a necessity. Like the a7sii, all of a sudden people prefer shooting in absolute darkness! 

I am not against IBIS/GIMBALS/HIGH ISO SENSORS, but there are ways working around limitations. After 18 years of pro work, this year was the first to use A7sII and Ronin, great, but only for 3 occasions (2 the A7sii and 1 the Ronin).

I agree. I have owned a A7Sii ( my first camera with ibis), then later on, a GX85... I liked both cameras, but I probably enjoyed using my bmpcc more than the A7Sii. I dig ibis, and gimbals but it's not game over if your camera is without them.

[frontfocus]

On 12/27/2016 at 1:24 PM, jonpais said:

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 MTFs (http://www.fujifilm.com/products/digital_cameras/x/fujinon_lens_xf56mmf12_r/specifications/) show that it's a very good lens already wide open. The optical design is interesting too. 

On 12/27/2016 at 1:43 PM, jonpais said:

@fuzzynormal 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.

I would say that most Fuji lenses are very good wide open and get incredibly sharp stopped down. 

For me personally Fuji lenses have reached the point, where I don't use the aperture for sharpness control but only for depth of field. There is always enough sharpness. 

[jonpais]

On 12/29/2016 at 4:24 AM, frontfocus said:

The MTFs (http://www.fujifilm.com/products/digital_cameras/x/fujinon_lens_xf56mmf12_r/specifications/) show that it's a very good lens already wide open. The optical design is interesting too. 

I would say that most Fuji lenses are very good wide open and get incredibly sharp stopped down. 

For me personally Fuji lenses have reached the point, where I don't use the aperture for sharpness control but only for depth of field. There is always enough sharpness. 

Don't get me wrong - I love Fuji lenses, and I can well understand why so many reviewers own or would like to own at least half of the 23 or so lenses Fuji manufactures. But I would be skeptical of the MTF charts of the manufacturer. Here are the findings of Lens Tip, which support my statement that resolution climbs very slowly as the lens is stopped down, and that both center and corner sharpness are not superb wide open. ideally, a lens should reach peak performance when closed down two stops. I'm not saying resolution is the sole criterion for judging a lens, and what is satisfactory for one person may not be for another: in fact, I recently viewed some stills from their 50-140mm  f/2.8 wide open, and thought they looked absolutely sensational. I'm just saying, that of the many MTF charts I've seen, it appears the the fast Fuji lenses require a lot more stopping down to reach their 'sweet spot'. It takes closing down some three stops for the lens to achieve its highest resolution, the first time I've seen such a result. But the 56mm f/1.2 manages to have at least three stops where resolution is superb, which is without question an excellent result. All I'm saying is that unless you consistently use their fastest primes wide open, it is a useless expenditure, because if you regularly shoot at say, f/4 or f/5.6, there will be an insignificant difference between the primes and one of the slower zooms. And this goes for any lens lineup, including my favorite u43 lens, the Nociticron. But, as Sebastian says, there may well be a color shift (towards yellow) noticeable with some of the newer lenses; or if you often use manual focus, the clutch focus may be important. But you should be aware that you are trading the quicker, more silent operation of the newer lenses for the noisier, slower focusing of the faster, older primes.

One more thing is that I just got home and had a chance to finally try balancing the X-T2 on the Zhiyun Crane. Someone at another website claims to have balanced the X-T2 with the 18-55mm f/2.8-4 and listed some 6 or so lenses that weighed less and that should also be usable with the Crane. Which is totally erroneous, because even with the 35mm f/2, one of their smaller lenses, it is impossible to balance the tilt because the protruding bit for installing the piece for longer, heavier lenses prevents the camera from being moved far enough forward for perfect balance. And I think in forums, it is important to distinguish fact from opinion. That I dislike variable aperture universal zooms is an opinion, which I support with reasons; being unable to balance a camera/lens combination is a fact which I can demonstrate with a video should anyone be interested. Speaking of which, I would like to see the work of someone who has used adapted lenses with the Fuji, in order to ascertain whether there is any advantage whatsoever in using vintage lenses for their 'character', as opposed to using the sensational Fuji lenses. 

[Taranis]

4 hours ago, jonpais said:

Is this relevant to video? We have an 1.17 crop and the image is downsampled to 4K. And even then who wants that ultimate sharpness in video?

[jonpais]

The crop factor has nothing to do with anything. Where did this notion that filmmakers don't want optically superior lenses ever come from? Yes, it does matter.

[jonpais]

When lenses like the Veydra and Xeen were introduced, one of the very first things tested by camera operators was sharpness. The same when speed boosters became popular. Of course, there are dozens of other factors to take into account as well, such as light fall off at the corners, color rendition, etc. We all know resolution is not the only factor that makes a lens great. At the same time, at the risk of contradicting myself, according to one of the most prestigious manufacturers of optical instruments, Cooke, has published a document which says that any good lens produced in the last 30 years should be good enough for 4K.  Which does not mean that I can't tell the difference when shooting, for example, my Nocticron at f/1.2 and at f/2.8 - the images I've shot in 4K when using a tripod look softer at f/1.2 than at f/2.8. And even though my $300 Sigma 30mm f/1.4 has higher resolution than the Nocticron, I don't consider it a better lens, far from it. 

[Taranis]

Correct me if I'm wrong but when you crop in in 4K you don't use some of the light projected to the edges of the sensor. If that's true then you actually crop in to a sharper territory by leaving a part of blurry edges behind. While the cropped area has less information, it's still 5120x2880, 1.77 times the required resolution. And while I don't have a 35mm f/1.4 Fuji prime, nor a newer f/2.0 one, it's hard for me to imagine that the difference in sharpness would be THAT noticeable in 4K when using both lenses wide open. I'd love to see a test. In the end f/1.4 is all about DOF, and someone here already mentioned that it has more than enough sharpness for video when it's wide open. Maybe not for you though

On another topic: Some people mentioned that you can use the Pro Neg. STD to "emulate" F-LOG, but I did some test yesterday, and after massaging the footage in Resolve, I got about the same DR in all film emulation modes. It's only the shadow and highlight settings that do a real difference.

[jonpais]

3 hours ago, Taranis said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but when you crop in in 4K you don't use some of the light projected to the edges of the sensor. If that's true then you actually crop in to a sharper territory by leaving a part of blurry edges behind. While the cropped area has less information, it's still 5120x2880, 1.77 times the required resolution. And while I don't have a 35mm f/1.4 Fuji prime, nor a newer f/2.0 one, it's hard for me to imagine that the difference in sharpness would be THAT noticeable in 4K when using both lenses wide open. I'd love to see a test. In the end f/1.4 is all about DOF, and someone here already mentioned that it has more than enough sharpness for video when it's wide open. Maybe not for you though

On another topic: Some people mentioned that you can use the Pro Neg. STD to "emulate" F-LOG, but I did some test yesterday, and after massaging the footage in Resolve, I got about the same DR in all film emulation modes. It's only the shadow and highlight settings that do a real difference.

This will be short and painless. Here is a comparison between three popular lenses: the Rokinon Xeen, the Zeiss Milvus, and the Veydra mini primes, first at T4, and again at T1.5. The Rokinon holds its own at T4, but wide open it is extremely soft. 

[Taranis]

2 hours ago, jonpais said:

This will be short and painless. Here is a comparison between three popular lenses: the Rokinon Xeen, the Zeiss Milvus, and the Veydra mini primes, first at T4, and again at T1.5. The Rokinon holds its own at T4, but wide open it is extremely soft. 

Yes it is, but the Fujinon 35mm f/1.4 on the X-T2 could perform better in 4K. According to lenstip it has better center sharpness wide open.

[jonpais]

7 minutes ago, Taranis said:

Yes it is, but the Fujinon 35mm f/1.4 on the X-T2 could perform better in 4K. According to lenstip it has better center sharpness wide open.

Yes, I'm sure it's better. Just showing that it is still important to consider resolution when buying lenses for video. I should see if I can't find the 56mm here and shoot some clips with it. I'm sure it's a great portrait lens, and in some regards, like vignetting, I think it's supposed to be superior to the Nocticron.

[Trek of Joy]

On 12/29/2016 at 3:07 AM, Kisaha said:

There are tripods, monopods, feet (that can walk the distance and use a wider lens!). I am surprised that suddenly IBIS and gimbals became a necessity. Like the a7sii, all of a sudden people prefer shooting in absolute darkness! 

I am not against IBIS/GIMBALS/HIGH ISO SENSORS, but there are ways working around limitations. After 18 years of pro work, this year was the first to use A7sII and Ronin, great, but only for 3 occasions (2 the A7sii and 1 the Ronin).

Fuji's OIS is on par with the IBIS in the A7rII. I have the 50-140, 18-55, 55-200 and 10-24, stabilization is really good on all of them. The primes and the stellar 16-55 are of course not stabilized.

I shot for years with the 5d2/3, the 24-70 and a bunch of unstabilized primes, personally its not a big deal. As always YMMV.

[jonpais]

I recently noticed that when I begin shooting, if I look through the EVF and move away, the LCD is black; when I start shooting while viewing the LCD, if I look through the EVF, it's black. I set Viewmode on eye sensor, and before shooting, I can switch between LCD and EVF no problem. I didn't notice this before. What am I doing wrong?