New Fuji X-S20 (with DCI & UHD 60p plus 6.2K/30P 4:2:2 10-bit internal)

[ac6000cw]

On 5/27/2023 at 1:25 PM, dgvro said:

It was worse, indeed. From what I saw. And unless they've since fixed somehow with firmware (not that I heard).

Someone maybe said something about the worse 1080 (particularly slowmo) performance being inherent with the new sensor, I can't remember.

In what way was the 1080p worse on the X-H2S versus say the X-T4?

I'm interested to know since 1080 at 25p & 50p is important to me. I don't care about the high-fps modes used for slow-mo mo.

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

On 5/30/2023 at 4:42 PM, ac6000cw said:

In what way was the 1080p worse on the X-H2S versus say the X-T4?

I'm interested to know since 1080 at 25p & 50p is important to me. I don't care about the high-fps modes used for slow-mo mo.

Good question, will take a look of the 1080p in my X-S10, I think that I never used it (except for some 240fps test, which are - and, AFAIK, stays - an utterly crap).
 

A lot of the midrange Panasonics (GX9 for sure, the GX85 too I think) had bad 1080p too.

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

On 5/29/2023 at 2:05 PM, MrSMW said:

It’s a great little lens.

I have just ‘retired’ mine from use on my S5ii due to a body and lens re-jig.

I’m still going to be using it, but shifting it over to my Leica TL2 which is my personal and back up (pro use) camera.

The only thing it lacks for Fuji use, is built in OIS compared with the 18-55, but counters with being constant f2.8 rather than f2.8-4 which I’m not a fan of, ie, variable apertures.

Yep, the main reason for me to keep the Sigma is the constant aperture - most for the hassle to readjust exposure / ND filter after changing the focal lenght.

About OIS, yes, is a necessity for non-IBIS bodies (and the OIS of the 18-55 Fuji is kinda good for video, for OIS standarts), but with OIS, it performed better than the Fuji - because Fuji tune their IBIS for photos, not for video. With the Fuji, small movements becomes "jumpy", because you start the move the camera, and suddenly IBIS realizes it and tries to catch up; with the 18-55 OIS, this behaviour is amplified. With the Sigma, it is less apparent.

To Fuji becomes perfect, they need to hire an AF guy from Sony and a IBIS guy from OM Digital or Panasonic...

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

On 5/29/2023 at 2:05 PM, MrSMW said:

It’s a great little lens.

I have just ‘retired’ mine from use on my S5ii due to a body and lens re-jig.

I’m still going to be using it, but shifting it over to my Leica TL2 which is my personal and back up (pro use) camera.

The only thing it lacks for Fuji use, is built in OIS compared with the 18-55, but counters with being constant f2.8 rather than f2.8-4 which I’m not a fan of, ie, variable apertures.

Yep, the main reason for me to keep the Sigma is the constant aperture - most for the hassle to readjust exposure / ND filter after changing the focal lenght.

About OIS, yes, is a necessity for non-IBIS bodies (and the OIS of the 18-55 Fuji is kinda good for video, for OIS standarts), but with OIS, it performed better than the Fuji - because Fuji tune their IBIS for photos, not for video. With the Fuji, small movements becomes "jumpy", because you start the move the camera, and suddenly IBIS realizes it and tries to catch up; with the 18-55 OIS, this behaviour is amplified. With the Sigma, it is less apparent.

To Fuji becomes perfect, they need to hire an AF guy from Sony and a IBIS guy from OM Digital or Panasonic...

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

On 5/29/2023 at 2:05 PM, MrSMW said:

It’s a great little lens.

I have just ‘retired’ mine from use on my S5ii due to a body and lens re-jig.

I’m still going to be using it, but shifting it over to my Leica TL2 which is my personal and back up (pro use) camera.

The only thing it lacks for Fuji use, is built in OIS compared with the 18-55, but counters with being constant f2.8 rather than f2.8-4 which I’m not a fan of, ie, variable apertures.

Yep, the main reason for me to keep the Sigma is the constant aperture - most for the hassle to readjust exposure / ND filter after changing the focal lenght.

About OIS, yes, is a necessity for non-IBIS bodies (and the OIS of the 18-55 Fuji is kinda good for video, for OIS standarts), but with OIS, it performed better than the Fuji - because Fuji tune their IBIS for photos, not for video. With the Fuji, small movements becomes "jumpy", because you start the move the camera, and suddenly IBIS realizes it and tries to catch up; with the 18-55 OIS, this behaviour is amplified. With the Sigma, it is less apparent.

To Fuji becomes perfect, they need to hire an AF guy from Sony and a IBIS guy from OM Digital or Panasonic...

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

(sorry for the 3 reply, the browser went nuts here)

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

Very interested in the camera, probably will upgrade, but...it was a VERY strange launch.

First, all the usual suspects that do reviews for video (the now Petapixel couple, Gerald Undone, Toneh, Kai, etc) did not got units, as they usually do. From the more traditional reviewers, only Gordon Laing and Cine-D got one. 

And...almost no one showed the new AF system in full action, or described it in detail. Most of them said (and could be true) that they got units with no final firmware. 

Other, like Chris from Pal2Tech (the great surprise in the review batch - he is a very good Fuji reviewer, but never got an unit) showed a little, said that was way better than all the Fuji that he used, even better than X-T5 post firmware update. He had a excuse - only got the unit for 2 days, and was sent by a Fuji representative, no Fuji itself. Another reviewers also mentioned very short time with the camera.

Also in this regard - most of the reviewers are european, specially british ones. But most of them, never heard before.

My two cents:
- There were not a lot of ready units available, hence people have to test it breifly and return the camera to be sent to another reviewer;
- About AF tests: or (the "I hope" answer) the firmware as not totally final and will got more tweaks before release, hence it was not allowed deep tests, or (the "damn..." answer) the AF still not good enough and Fuji hope to move some units in preorder before the not so good news becomes spread.

[MrSMW]

Fuji as a brand and their marketing is a bit of a weird one for me right now.

They used to be something of an underdog, industry whipping boy to many, but now they seem to have a similar user set to that of Sony.

I’m not criticising Sony (or Fuji) as such, but they do seem to have a more vocal and younger user demographic of brand hoppers…

The X100V phenomenon for one thing, whether Fuji have had a direct hand in that or not I don’t know, but it puts me off as although I think the camera is great, it’s become this over-priced cult worship piece of jewellery.

And they both had a cull and recently lost so many of their brand ambassadors who had done so much for the brand. But in the latter case, in some cases, because they refused to be shills. I know one of them personally…

But same as with Sony, just because their current ‘brand’ isn’t really to my liking, would not stop me using their product, but it’s not really my cuppa…

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

Chris and Jordan said in a PetaPixel podcast that they did not reviewed the X-S20 because...no unit was sent to them, as I suspected.

Looks like Fuji really prioritized Europe - in the last days lots of reviews popped on Youtube from European people, and looks like there was a paid Malta trip to try the camera. Don't know if there was really few units available and Fujifilm in USA and Canada had no units available, but there it is.

Unfortunately, most of the reviews are 80% talking about the features and very few movie tests. In fact, the most useful review was from a Australian fashion photographer, Julia Trotti, which plugged a HDMI recorder on camera and went to a photo shoot, and made some test videos. She had zero intention to be technical, but was the only one that showed the new AF system in action.
 

I've brought my X-S10 to a playground and made still and video from my daughter, using the Sigma 18-50 and boy, did not remembered that the AF was SO bad. Specially shots when eye / face detection af target is green, but looking in the computer after the shot was out of focus. And was with only her in the frame - if my wife was in the frame too, the af target goes nuts and jumps constantly between them (albeit looks like that it is not a Fuji exclusive behaviour - saw reports that it happens with other brands too).

Video was a tad better, but using single area af and movinf the box with the joystick. If Fuji had object tracking in vídeo, probably would be "perfect" (not pin sharp, but it is not critical as it is in stills).

Comparing to the footage of the camera interface in the Julia's videos with my experience in the weekend, looks like (comapred to the X-S10):

- The eye / face detection works better and with the subject farther, in stills. 
- Better in movies too, but saw some points losing the af.
- But it looks like that Fuji AF still is behind the competition - worse for sure than Sony and Canon, probably than Nikon, and a little behind from Panasonic in the S5II.

I will probably upgrade, because of the battery (the playground shot was around 70 stills and 5 minutes of 4k video, and the battery already dropped more than half the charge), 10-bit video (never used any log mode beacuse of the 8-bit in the X-S10) and the better-ish AF - and since Kaizen is dead, any more improvements on Fujifilm will the in the cameras with the newer processor. But I think will no be a very big improvement.

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

And...there is one caveat in the X-S20 that nobody is talking much. 

If you record 6.2k open gate, 10-bit 4:2:2, both ALL-I or Long Gop (H265), there is no crop on the image.

But if you record DCI ou 4k with 10-bit 4:2:2, both ALL-I or H.265, there is a 1.1x crop with digital stabilization enabled, and (this is REALLY unlogical) a 1.18x crop WITHOUT digital stabilization. This crop is applied  in all framerates and all bitrates (in the X-S20 case, 360, 200, 100 and 50 mbps).

If you go 8-bit, same 1.1 or 1.18x crop in 60p (as expected), but no crop in 30 or 24p (only 1.1x with digital stabilization).

It is kind of worse than X-T4, where you can record 30p / 24p DCI or 4k h.265 ou ALL-I 400mbps without a crop, albeit in 10-bit 4:2:0 (don´t know if it is much worse than 4:2:2).

Since open gate in the X-S20 is recorded without a crop, the problem is the oversampling in 4k and DCI; but the sensor is the same, and the X-S20 processor is supposed to be faster. But 4:2:2 is so much processor intensive than 4:2:0, even in a lower bitrate (360mbps in the X-S20, 400Mbps in the X-T4), to justify a 1.18x crop?

Since one of my interests is 10-bit video, this concerns me a lot. Will have to shoot always open gate to have 10-bit uncropped? But how is the open gate quality, since it is not oversampled?

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

Quick update - the guy from Hybrid Shooter is testing the X-S20, and just replied to me that the 4k30 had no crop, and probably is a mistake from Fujifilm.

Let's see.

[ac6000cw]

Optyczne.pl have their 'film mode' review out - https://www.optyczne.pl/77.1-Inne_testy-Fujifilm_X-S20_-_test_trybu_filmowego_Wstęp.html (as well as words, there are resolution, noise reduction and sharpening tests plus downloadable general sample videos).

They generally really like it, but comment that the non-subject detect/non-tracking video AF is prone to 'pumping' on static scenes:

Quote from the 'summary' section (using Google translate):

Quote

Of course, there were also a few slip-ups, the biggest of which we must consider the autofocus "pumping" on still frames (which is all the more strange because it is great with tracking objects). The electronic viewfinder and stabilization could also be slightly improved, as well as add a second slot for memory cards. Some of these elements, however, are more features resulting from the positioning of the camera on a specific price shelf.

 

[ac6000cw]

The X-S20 User Manual is available now - https://fujifilm-dsc.com/en/manual/x-s20/x-s20_manual_en_s_f.pdf

One thing I have noticed is that none of the current Fuji cameras (including the X-S20) support plug-in power on the mic sockets, which is very annoying for me as I have several mics that need it... aargh!

[TomTheDP]

On 6/12/2023 at 11:00 AM, Marcio Kabke Pinheiro said:

And...there is one caveat in the X-S20 that nobody is talking much. 

If you record 6.2k open gate, 10-bit 4:2:2, both ALL-I or Long Gop (H265), there is no crop on the image.

But if you record DCI ou 4k with 10-bit 4:2:2, both ALL-I or H.265, there is a 1.1x crop with digital stabilization enabled, and (this is REALLY unlogical) a 1.18x crop WITHOUT digital stabilization. This crop is applied  in all framerates and all bitrates (in the X-S20 case, 360, 200, 100 and 50 mbps).

If you go 8-bit, same 1.1 or 1.18x crop in 60p (as expected), but no crop in 30 or 24p (only 1.1x with digital stabilization).

It is kind of worse than X-T4, where you can record 30p / 24p DCI or 4k h.265 ou ALL-I 400mbps without a crop, albeit in 10-bit 4:2:0 (don´t know if it is much worse than 4:2:2).

Since open gate in the X-S20 is recorded without a crop, the problem is the oversampling in 4k and DCI; but the sensor is the same, and the X-S20 processor is supposed to be faster. But 4:2:2 is so much processor intensive than 4:2:0, even in a lower bitrate (360mbps in the X-S20, 400Mbps in the X-T4), to justify a 1.18x crop?

Since one of my interests is 10-bit video, this concerns me a lot. Will have to shoot always open gate to have 10-bit uncropped? But how is the open gate quality, since it is not oversampled?

Open gate and oversampled 4k will look virtually identical aside from the slightly larger field of view. 

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

On 6/22/2023 at 5:09 AM, ac6000cw said:

The X-S20 User Manual is available now - https://fujifilm-dsc.com/en/manual/x-s20/x-s20_manual_en_s_f.pdf

One thing I have noticed is that none of the current Fuji cameras (including the X-S20) support plug-in power on the mic sockets, which is very annoying for me as I have several mics that need it... aargh!

Good point.

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

On 6/24/2023 at 12:52 PM, TomTheDP said:

Open gate and oversampled 4k will look virtually identical aside from the slightly larger field of view. 

Really? I guess that when you downsample a 6.2k area to 4k you have some (maybe minor) benefits on the image.

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

Update: pre-ordered it, probably will be in my hands around July 15th.

Recording a school party of my daughter was the decisive point: can't stand the battery life of the X-S10 anymore. Taken 15 stills, made two 4k24p videos (both around 6 minutes), and the first battery was already with one bar.

Just hoping that I don't get tempted for the upcoming A7600 from Sony.

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

And after a loooong wait (courtesy of the customs, which delayed the delivery to the store for almost 3 weeks,) the camera arrived today.

As expected, very similar to the X-S10, charging the battery now. This was the first surprise - included in the box was a very good USB-C to USB-C cable, and a very good 3A 15w charger, with 4 interchangable wall plugs. Dunno if this will be the norm around the world, but was welcome.

As reviews already said, most of the buttons have a higher profile and the clicks are more pronounced. The ISO/ Q buttons are much better, always hated them in the X-S10, now they are very good. All the dials have greater resistance between clicks, whick I liked too - had a lot of involuntary turning on the back dial of the X-S10. The on-off switch is stiffer too, will have to see if this will be a good or bad point, but the switch is higher and easier to access too.

The grip is a bit beefier too, albeit in a very small margin considering how bigger the newer battery is - good job, Fuji. In hand, the 1st impression is that the feel is better too, but is very subtle.

Joystick still too small (for my tastes, all the new units should have the X-H2 newer joystick), but the clicks are a bit stiffier too.

Good first impressions. Still too few buttons and switches to my taste, but that was expected.

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

Finally got some time to navigate all the menu and do some quick tests. Call me impressed.

Surprise one: one little old desire (that nobody mentioned in the reviews) was that now the "3d" electronic level could be enabled pemanentely on the screen / EVF; in the X-S10 - and I guess in all the last generation's Fujis - only the horizontal level was permanent, the 3D version should be activated by a custom button, and disappeared after taking a shot.

Surprise two: a new focus assist tool, only in video mode - Focus Meter. Is a "needle gauge" that shows where to turn the focus ring to bring the image in focus, and that could be used in conjunction with peaking. Works very well and very accurately.

And finally, the AF. The face / eye AF interface and working mode was completely changed form the 4th gen Fuji's. In these (X-S10, X-T4, etc), when face / eye AF is on, the camera selects a face / eye and shows it on the screen in green, the other faces are marked with grey boxes, and you could change the face to focus with the joystick. In theory, a good system - until you hit record, and the camera goes haywire changing the face focused at will. For me, with more than one face on the frame, was unusable.

Now, you choose a area box (that you could resize), and the camera will focus on the closest face of the box. Period. And tends to stick quite a bit in that face before switching to other. Not a perfect system - did not tested the worst situation, with all other people standing in place and the focused person going to the edge of the frame, far from the box, which in theory will make the camera changing the face focused - but if you keep the subject in the same spot of the frame, or move the box with the joystick, works perfectly.

There are more subtleties to discover - one test was filming my wife's father, my wife and my daughter playing in our living room, tracking my daughter (an electric 4 year old), a case which the X-S10 failed completely; the focus point moved from person to person if they are close. With the X-S20, started tracking my daughter, and NEVER let her go. Focus spot on 100% of the time. And with an unexpected behaviour when my daughter got very close to my wife's father, instead of jumping faces, the old gray box appeared on his face, but the AF was kept on my daughter. One touch on the joystick, and then he was in focus - even with my daughter closer to the AF box. Another touch, returned to my daughter. Just as I wanted to be.

The detection is much improved too. In the X-S10, if the person turns and the face did not appear, the camera reverts to the original AF mode. The X-S20 recognizes the back of a head - when the person turns, it starts tracking the back of the head. The person turns back, it revert to the eyes again. And the face / eye detection works in much farther distances than before, and gathers eye / face instantly.

Is a completely new behaviour, much, much better than before.

[mkabi]

On 5/24/2023 at 9:18 AM, MrSMW said:

If on the basis I could not afford to switch to a Nikon Z9 + Z8 pairing…which I cannot really justify, my ‘budget’ option would be an XH2 paired with an XH2s.

However, want an even smaller similar capability pairing, ie, one stills orientated and the other more video, but both hybrid, then the pairing of an XT5 with this new XS20 would be a great little set up, especially as the XS20 can take the add on cooling vent.

Lenses?

I’d have to go zoom for my needs and really only 2 contenders and I’d stick the Fuji 16-55 f2.8 on the XT5 and the Tamron 17-70 f2.8 on the XS20.

The Tamron has a longer reach, is slightly lighter, but is not as sharp as the Fuji which is why I’d pair them in this manner.

Real world 24-83mm FF equivalent stills and 27-105mm FF focal length video, both with no aperture changes.

F2.8 light gathering with an equivalent f4.2 DOF.

Would work for me.

The other thing about Fuji is the SOOC results and I’d shoot Colour Neg for stills and Eterna for video.

Personally though, I’d go for the XH2 and XH2s pairing and with battery grips just for the handling as I like the idea of dinky cameras, but for work purposes, nah, not very stable platforms or ergonomically good over long days.

In my strong opinion, skip the Nikon pair and go straight to Fuji.... BUT choose either XH2 or XH2s and pair either one with the Fuji GFX 100S (Fuji's medium format camera).