Fuji X-H1. IBIS, Phase Detect 4K beast?

[Emanuel]

@Kisaha I agree with you. But please let's not compare color science between manufacturers! IMNSO people tend to understate this important aspect of making pictures. Just sayin' : )

FF look or similar is nothing but also a full combination of lots of aspects, optics included. Add an inexpensive f/0.95 Mitakon, only as an example, and you'll have it on APS-C format as you well know it :-)

[Inazuma]

44 minutes ago, jonpais said:

So... reasons why you would choose Sony over Fuji? I believe you’ve owned both, am I right? Sorry to put you on the spot...

No I've never owned or even used a Sony a7 series camera. Although I did own the 42mp Sony RX1R II for half a year (an astonishing camera btw). 

The only reason I would choose the XH1 over the a7 III really is for the SOOC image. Sony seems to have the advantage in every other regard.

[mkabi]

1 hour ago, mechanicalEYE said:

Mine arrived yesterday morning. You guys based in the US should really consider HotRod Cameras when pre-ordering. They have provided excellent service with my GH5 order, and now the XH1.

Please.... give us your honest opinion as to what you think of the camera... ergonomics... image quality... etc.

[Emanuel]

6 minutes ago, Inazuma said:

No I've never owned or even used a Sony a7 series camera. Although I did own the 42mp Sony RX1R II for half a year (an astonishing camera btw). 

The only reason I would choose the XH1 over the a7 III really is for the SOOC image. Sony seems to have the advantage in every other regard.

Yes, SOOC is not a minus... My fair doubt on overheating issues on Sony 4K side though.

[jonpais]

No mention at all of overheating in any of the hands-on we’ve seen so far, so I don’t think it will even be an issue.

[Emanuel]

26 minutes ago, Kisaha said:

@j-oc I would like to know more about the touch operations, touch focus functions (...)

Indeed interesting to figure out the camera AF response in a mix of both manual and autofocus handling for tap-to-focus technique in the field usage.

[Don Kotlos]

Right @jonpais and additionally the reason that xt2 has a 10min limit and xh1 15 is the overheating so I am not sure that this is a valid argument.

 

 

[kidzrevil]

On 2/26/2018 at 5:37 AM, BTM_Pix said:

Thought to myself, "I'll go to the X-H1 thread and talk about some of the assumptions about Fuji AF being substandard versus my contrary experience of of the AF using the X-T2 for some very demanding tasks and also my tests of the Face Detect AF on it last year and....."

Well, then I opened the thread....

 

 

Same reaction lmao

I just wanna talk about the color science ?

I was on the fence about giving up my sony a6500 for it then I seen the Fuji Eterna profile and nearly died. That footage is gorgeous ! Considering waiting a couple of months and picking it up as a 3rd camera I really have to justify that purchase though

[mechanicalEYE]

27 minutes ago, mkabi said:

Please.... give us your honest opinion as to what you think of the camera... ergonomics... image quality... etc.

I plan to get out with it over the weekend, but I honestly feel like I'm going to really like this camera.

My opinion at this point:

The grip is nice, the camera feels real comfortable in my hands. Button placement great. The IBIS, just from the few meaningless clips I shot, it's AMAZING!  I think I'm going to love this Eterna profile.

 

[KitaCam]

17 hours ago, Tim Sewell said:

I have no skin in this game, but on the Fuji camera forum I frequent a couple of people who have received their X-H1s are reporting that the AF is noticeably quicker. Obviously that's for stills - and they haven't detailed the lenses used - but I guess we shouldn't dismiss it too early. Those of us who use Fuji cams know that there is a difference similar to that between the weather in England right now and that enjoyed in the Florida Keys in AF performance between lenses.

Have to say I agree more with this train of thought than video autofocus being poor. I'm pretty (easily?) impressed. Well going on X-T2 performance that is. Particularly impressed by 90mm F2, 50-140mm F2.8 and 18-55mm. In fact even the 35mm F1.4 can be great for short clips (if noisy of course).

[BTM_Pix]

In the interests of balance, I went in another dealer in London and they had sold out of all of theirs.

 

[j-oc]

5 hours ago, Yurolov said:

Does the ibis do that weird jerky thing I seen in the videos?

How is the video af with face detect?

Thanks.

Not sure exactly what you mean by the jerky thing. It is really really good if you are trying to hold an image still, you can easily make a usable shot with the 56mm. If you are panning with it on you'll get the floaty floaty floaty move thing you get with all stabilisers - lens and body based.

It's good. It is generally better at side to side rather than back to front tracking and it likes simple scenes and lots of light - but it works.

5 hours ago, Inazuma said:

Awesome. Could you please check how smoothly it transitions between exposures in different priority modes? (P, A, S, M with auto ISO). And also if it the autofocus jitters much on static or near-static subjects

S Priority is pretty smooth. Auto ISO is ok but not spectacular. A priority is noticeably jerky.

No, once its acquired focus it tends to stay put. The autofocus performance is pretty dependent on the lens you use. On the older ones like the 23/1.4mm and 56mm it is not as snappy, precise or as smooth as the newer ones like the 16-55.

[Don Kotlos]

The greatest thing in the X-H1 is the dual audio recording. I don't see it mentioned often enough but I find it extremely useful for one man setups. 

You can obviously record the environment and with a shotgun have more selective input, but now it is in one package no need for an external recorder. 

I can even think a bunch of uses computationally that will allow you to further isolate a single sound source. 

I wish all cameras implement this. 

[j-oc]

5 hours ago, Django said:

@j-oc: Congrats & bon appetit!  i'm curious about the touch to focus, if it can do a smooth rack focus?  

does natural live view on F-Log apply a view-assist like function to preview footage? 

also can't find anywhere in the manual if the H1 has dual-level axis level indicator (like GFX50) or single-axis like XT2?

Natural Live View is a bit confusing. It seems to make the image viewed (but not recorded) lower contrast for ease of viewing. According to the manual it removes the Film Simulation preview, but B+W simulations remain B+W. It has no effect at all when you enable F-Log.

It's a dual level indicator.

EDIT: just realised I didn't see your first question. Yes it can, but it works best on clearly defined objects not at close focus or infinity. The smoothness is also largely determined by your lens choice. There is a setting which I've not played with which allows you to change the camera's sensitivity to the autofocus point changing and the focus speed in continuous mode. I suspect if you tune these down you'll have a pretty nice looking rack.

[j-oc]

3 hours ago, Kisaha said:

It is tempting, it fixes so many issues I (and a lot of people) had with the older series, and the price is right, and has an S35 mode as well, I love S35, I wouldn't change a APS-C camera for a full frame, no way, but when the full frame has the S35 option as well, and costs as much, then..bonus! I said that before I knew anything about any A7iii or any other camera, the Fuji doesn't bring a lot to the table for NON Fuji users, I do not see a lot of people changing system for Fuji (actually I must have said those exact words), and then I declared enemy of the state number 1 and the such! It is just an educated guess, I love Fuji, and hope them the best, but they have to worth my money, because they are very hard earned!

Edit: As I said before, for Nikon users, Fuji is the preferable mirrorless system (at least around my circle of friends and co-workers), when the Nikon mirrorless is reality, a lot of the Nikon crowd will go back.

@j-oc I would like to know more about the touch operations, touch focus functions and how good the camera feels ergonomically. Also, how the camera feels with the (mandatory) battery grip.

Congrats to your new camera, enjoy!

I'm not really a touch screen guy because I have fat fingers! The silent camera controls are ok, but as someone else mentioned, once you have selected an option it closes the whole menu rather than returning you one back which could be annoying.

Touch focus is really nice. Its very versatile and you can set it up in multiple different ways - you can disable AF on the shutter button so it acts as a true START RECORD button for instance. I haven't tried it on moving objects or with continuous autofocus yet.

The camera feels good in the hand but very unlike every other Fuji camera. Its a real lump, rather than a streamlined tool like the XPro-2 or XT-2. With the grip on it feels like using a slightly smaller Nikon D3 or another one of those larger pro bodied DSLRs. How you feel about that will really depend on how you feel about those bodies. For me, I'm pretty much exclusively going to use it with the 50-140, 16-55 or the 56 (minus the grip) so it suits me pretty well indeed.

 

[Kisaha]

@j-oc thank you very much, I do not have more Thank you, or up votes! The fact that one needs the battery grip for headphone out, and larger video files, is not ideal, I guess. Even GH5 feels large and heavy on my hands.

Cheers.

[j-oc]

2 minutes ago, Kisaha said:

@j-oc thank you very much, I do not have more Thank you, or up votes! The fact that one needs the battery grip for headphone out, and larger video files, is not ideal, I guess. Even GH5 feels large and heavy on my hands.

Cheers.

No worries.

A couple of other random points:

1. It is a complex and highly customisable camera. I was expecting just to dial in my Xpro2 settings and be away but there were several things I needed to look up in the manual and try out numerous times before I really understood how they worked. On the one hand that's great because you can probably set it up just how you like it - on the other hand you really need to spend some time with it before you head out.

2. Eterna is lovely, I'm looking forward to creating some presets with it as a base. It's Classic Chrome with the low-con look of Pro-Neg Std.

3. Sounds obvious, but this isn't and doesn't feel like a little camera.

4. The EVF and stabilisation are really great.

[Emanuel]

4 hours ago, Don Kotlos said:

Right @jonpais and additionally the reason that xt2 has a 10min limit and xh1 15 is the overheating so I am not sure that this is a valid argument.

 

 

Hope not, but this has been a real issue on small size form factor; no matter how much I appreciate that ; ) This time is not color science related :-D

As disclaimer, Sony was my 1st video love to follow Super 8 BTW, so maybe handheld is one of weaknesses I guess LOL :-)

[Castorp]

3 hours ago, j-oc said:

I'm not really a touch screen guy because I have fat fingers! The silent camera controls are ok, but as someone else mentioned, once you have selected an option it closes the whole menu rather than returning you one back which could be annoying.

Touch focus is really nice. Its very versatile and you can set it up in multiple different ways - you can disable AF on the shutter button so it acts as a true START RECORD button for instance. I haven't tried it on moving objects or with continuous autofocus yet.

The camera feels good in the hand but very unlike every other Fuji camera. Its a real lump, rather than a streamlined tool like the XPro-2 or XT-2. With the grip on it feels like using a slightly smaller Nikon D3 or another one of those larger pro bodied DSLRs. How you feel about that will really depend on how you feel about those bodies. For me, I'm pretty much exclusively going to use it with the 50-140, 16-55 or the 56 (minus the grip) so it suits me pretty well indeed.

 

Nice. The Nikon D3 is one of the best feeling cameras I ever held. Incredibly rugged. If the XH1 feels anything like that I’m very impressed.

What’s the shutter release like? It’s supposed to be much more like a pro Canikon with a very light press. 

The shutter being suspended in springs, together with that shutter release should make for a very stable exposure. Even discounting the stabilisation. 

[j-oc]

14 hours ago, Castorp said:

Nice. The Nikon D3 is one of the best feeling cameras I ever held. Incredibly rugged. If the XH1 feels anything like that I’m very impressed.

What’s the shutter release like? It’s supposed to be much more like a pro Canikon with a very light press. 

The shutter being suspended in springs, together with that shutter release should make for a very stable exposure. Even discounting the stabilisation. 

The shutter is the best thing about the camera - honestly. You need only the slightest half press to focus and little bit more to trip the shutter. Despite this, it is easy to apply the right pressure for the right task. And it is sooooooooooooo quiet.