Fuji X-T1 / 56mm first look
Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2014 8:10 pmAs has been already posted, I am now the possessor of a shiny new X-T1, together with the brand spanking new Fuji 56mm F1.2 lens. I have only had a maybe a half hour stick time with the beast, so I can't report much at this time, except to say that it is a joy to use. It's not quite in the user realm of the Olympus E-M1, which is phenomenal, but it's pretty close.
The Fuji achilles' heel, the focussing, has been all but fixed. It's not perfect but it's pretty good and light years ahead of the XP1. (Mind you, the XP1 is pretty darn good now with firmware updates and when it locks on, it's great.)
Handling is great. The multiplicity of dials makes changing settings a doddle. The EVF is the best I've ever seen. Fullstop. It is amazing. I was one of the crowd who thought I'd never get used to an EVF (hence the original purchase of the XP1 with it's OVF), but this thing is wonderful. 8fps shooting is blazing fast. The buffer is large. Face recognition works well, although I'm still trying to figure that out. (Basically, using face recognition involves a largish green rectangle, with a smaller yellow or green rectangle within the first one. When the rectangles are green/yellow, the shutter fires instantaneously, but when the rectangles are green/green, there's a fairly long shutter lag. There's obviously something I'm missing. I may be forced to read the manual, which I never do.)
Anyway, here's a few photos taken this afternoon. I'm only shooting jpg at present, with low noise reduction. I'm sure when the time is right the raw files will yield well, but in any case, Fuji's jpg's are as good as they get.
Fuji 56mm, F1.2 in very low early evening light, indoors, ISO 2000. It is fairly heavily cropped. (The lens is very sharp at 1.2, but renders quite differently from my old favourite, the Canon 50L. I will most probably shoot the thing around 1.6, which is what I did with the Canon 50L. Again, the bokeh IMHO isn't other-world like the Canon. Glass is glass and there's more of it in the heavy Canon, but the Fuji is still pretty good.)
Late afternoon light, 56mm F4, ISO 640
Fuji 18-55mm at 55mm
The Fuji achilles' heel, the focussing, has been all but fixed. It's not perfect but it's pretty good and light years ahead of the XP1. (Mind you, the XP1 is pretty darn good now with firmware updates and when it locks on, it's great.)
Handling is great. The multiplicity of dials makes changing settings a doddle. The EVF is the best I've ever seen. Fullstop. It is amazing. I was one of the crowd who thought I'd never get used to an EVF (hence the original purchase of the XP1 with it's OVF), but this thing is wonderful. 8fps shooting is blazing fast. The buffer is large. Face recognition works well, although I'm still trying to figure that out. (Basically, using face recognition involves a largish green rectangle, with a smaller yellow or green rectangle within the first one. When the rectangles are green/yellow, the shutter fires instantaneously, but when the rectangles are green/green, there's a fairly long shutter lag. There's obviously something I'm missing. I may be forced to read the manual, which I never do.)
Anyway, here's a few photos taken this afternoon. I'm only shooting jpg at present, with low noise reduction. I'm sure when the time is right the raw files will yield well, but in any case, Fuji's jpg's are as good as they get.
Fuji 56mm, F1.2 in very low early evening light, indoors, ISO 2000. It is fairly heavily cropped. (The lens is very sharp at 1.2, but renders quite differently from my old favourite, the Canon 50L. I will most probably shoot the thing around 1.6, which is what I did with the Canon 50L. Again, the bokeh IMHO isn't other-world like the Canon. Glass is glass and there's more of it in the heavy Canon, but the Fuji is still pretty good.)
Late afternoon light, 56mm F4, ISO 640
Fuji 18-55mm at 55mm