I was just looking at DPR and there's images of Fuji releases, which look just like what Olympus is going to do. Silver camera? Check. 50-150mm f2.8 lens? Check. New firmware updates to XT-1? Check. Sounds like they are in cahoots.
Seems the Fuji will be getting a full electronic shutter as part of the upgrade, delivering shutter speeds of 1s to 1/32000s (that's not a typo - two full stops faster than the E-M1's 1/8000). It's also completely silent and of course suffers no shutter shock. Would be great if Oly could put that into the E -M1 firmware upgrade - but I'm not holding my breath.
Where would you need 1/32000 sec shutter speed, I don't think I've ever exceeded 1/4000 sec (if that)?
Full sun, f/1.8 or lower, ISO 200. I don't own any ND filters and I've had to go up to f/5.6 on really bright days to get the shutter under 1/4000 (I have a E-PL5 that doesn't go to 1/8000).
So what would you be photographing in full sun at f1.8 or lower? I'm genuinely interested to understand, as I've never encountered such a situation where I've needed such fast shutter speeds.
I have shots of people at the beach using my J1 at 1/12500 and 1/16000 using F1.8. It means no need for silly ND filters.
With the 150f2 @ f2 on a bright sunny day shooting sports I have often had the low ISO auto invoke and I've also had to stop down (@ 1/8000).
If subject isolation is desired on a bright day, then a faster shutter speed could be useful (maybe). Again, stopping down for sports on a bright day will end up giving you that greater DoF view of the players, unless you are specially trying to get that isolated look, which can be desirable too.
I've shot lots of sports on sunny days and I can't ever remember going to such shutter speeds, but then I've usually been shooting at either f2.8 or f4 with the 90-250mm and/or EC-14. I actually prefer to stop down slightly anyway, as in fast moving sport, you need that DoF to ensure the subjects are in focus. You could never submit OOF shots. On another note, I guess I'm one who avoids shooting as much as I can in the middle of the day in blazing sunlight. It usually doesn't provide the best lighting. And if I were to photograph people in such situations, it'd be more for happy snaps and I'd usually stop down, otherwise I'd use ND filters, some form of light filtering or the like, that's why they make them.
If you're doing that in a serious way, then you bring along scrim etc to ensure that you can control the light. Simply using a fast shutter speed isn't going to control shadows etc. It's no different than bringing along flash or other lights/reflectors for indoor/night work.
If full electronic shutter, I would hope for very high xsync.... that would be cool for strobes. ND and other methods would suffice otherwise.
The lowest iso that you can shoot 'RAW' on the XT-1 is iso200. So from that perspective 1/32,000 is only really 1 stop faster than the EM1. I live in Thailand, where the sun is pretty bright, and I cant find a single shot in my Lightroom library where I would have used 1/32,000. But I guess it is theoretically possible with the Fuji 56 f1.2 lens. As an aside I would rather see a much lower iso than a faster shutter speed. I use iso 100 most frequently to get 'slow shutter speeds' (instead of using an ND filter). An iso 25 would be very nice to have if you ask me.
The only application I can see is portraits, only if native x-sync is also 1/32,000. Otherwise is useless and you're back to stupid ND filters
I can shoot my Nikon full frame gear and fast 1.4 lenses near wide open in bright Los Angeles light and not have a problem going passed 1/4000th on the shutter. My M43 gear on the other hand tends to clip max shutter speed more easily, forcing me to decrease my aperture. I think lower ISOs would actually make more a difference than faster shutter speeds. In a lot of ways I find the base 100 ISO of the older 12mp M43 sensor to be quite pleasant than the base 200 ISO of the newer 16mp sensor.
My philosophy in photography is quite natural or minimalistic. I don't use lightning devices, perhaps sometimes "natural" reflectors, palm or piece of paper, but no flashes or other lights. I also don't want to use filters, other than U/V or protector filters for obvious reasons, protecting the lens. Even tripod is used only when really needed for shooting in really low light (or for long time with huge zoom glasses). So I don't like using ND filters that are necessary now with X-T1. I miss my PEN E-P5 when shooting in bright light, and yes I checked Lightroom, I have plenty of shots over 1/4000s shutter speed. For me electronic shutter for X-T1 is really a good news. It fixes the other annoying feature it has (max 1/4000s shutter speed). Firmware upgrade also fixes the other one, when using back button focus you can not change the focus area. After upgrade you can as in autofocus mode.
http://www.imaging-resource.com/new...-kit-bundle-feature-enhancing-firmware-update When I studied photography 35 years ago, we trained to use lighting, reflectors etc. When I was a photography instructor, we taught students to use flash, reflectors etc. When I did news photography, flash was essential. I guess old habits die hard. I think there's a time and place for everything, but I hope that today's photographers don't eschew the art of lighting for the sake of ease.
