M4/3 to Fuji and back?

[val]

When I bought my GX7 I knew I was going to get a Fuji as a second body because of the ISO, hardware and simplicity.

I've decided on the x100s because I love the 35mm f2 lens and have used it extensively. My GX7 does 90% of my photographs and I've gotten the lenses I require but the x100s is there for when I don't need my GX7 or when I simply just want to use the 35mm f2, the fact I can throw it into my bag and not worry about breaking the lens is a bonus. essentially a tank compact that I can take to social events or night strolling and not think about how much detail I'll lose at ISO 3200 and whatnot.

Fuji's AF is a bummer but most of my DSLR life was on Canon rebels so I'm use to spot focus and recompose.
The reason why I stay with M43 as my main is it just feels more complete. I think Fuji will be a serious contender with the 4th iteration. Their firmwares help a lot but there's still too much they gotta do for me to consider switching.

 

[J-B]

I've owned quite a few cameras in 2013 and one of them was a Fuji X-E1 with 14, 35 and 18-55mm lenses. (The 14 and 35 are great, but the 18-55 gave me all kinds of strange behaviour.)
The user interface of the cameras is great, but the responsiveness was lacking. I was also getting much more consistent results from m4/3. Better AF and a normal bayer sensor. As a Lightroom user I often got quite frustrated about the funky results I got from the Fuji x-trans sensor. That's why I decided to sell the Fuji, without any regrets. For me m4/3 is more reliable.

 

[krugorg]

... this thread is getting dangerously close to the "I am rapidly changing to Fujifilm X" thread on Latest Discussions!

[video=youtube;jyaLZHiJJnE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyaLZHiJJnE[/video]

 

[Ranger Rick]

Taking this opportunity to announce to all my followers that I am switching from those tired old miniature formats to FULL FRAME! Yes, the Kodak Single Use camera, with full frame and 70-120mb files available. None of that sissy stuff for me any more.

I read about the miniature formats focus issues- I now have none of those. Bodies getting too big- uh uh. Difficulty with metering- nope. Startup delays- none. Dirty sensor- not an issue- as a matter of fact, I get a new state-of-the-art one every time! Dynamic range limited- I now have 14-16 stops. And, au courant like Fuji, DxO can't evaluate my system either. I could go on and on, but want to let y'all have the time to run out and make a switch to the new thing. Out with the old...

 

[ajamils]

I ended up getting the E-M1 along with the 12-40 "Pro" lens and have been comparing with the X-E2 with kit lens and so far I have a very hard time justifying the asking price for Olympus "PRO" kit. Sure it has a lot more bells and whistles (touch screen, lightening fast AF, weather sealing, better grip and tons of options) but when it comes to pure IQ, to my eyes X-E2 produces better results specially in low light situations. Surprisingly, one category where I thought E-M1 will kill X-E2 in, is not that big of a difference. Sure E-M1 is faster but X-E2 is more than capable but with that said, E-M1 definitely kills it in facial recognition. E-M1 is not only better in recognizing faces but also in keeping them in focus during motion.

In conclusion, neither Fuji or Olympus is a perfect camera and each has pros and cons but for me it makes more sense to stick with Fuji for now but when I think about a Fuji equivalent for 14-140, f2.8 lenses or 75 f1.8, the decision gets more difficult. If only there was a camera that had Fuji IQ and m4/3 lenses.

 

[Neftun]

I ended up getting the E-M1 along with the 12-40 "Pro" lens and have been comparing with the X-E2 with kit lens and so far I have a very hard time justifying the asking price for Olympus "PRO" kit. Sure it has a lot more bells and whistles (touch screen, lightening fast AF, weather sealing, better grip and tons of options) but when it comes to pure IQ, to my eyes X-E2 produces better results specially in low light situations. Surprisingly, one category where I thought E-M1 will kill X-E2 in, is not that big of a difference. Sure E-M1 is faster but X-E2 is more than capable but with that said, E-M1 definitely kills it in facial recognition. E-M1 is not only better in recognizing faces but also in keeping them in focus during motion.

In conclusion, neither Fuji or Olympus is a perfect camera and each has pros and cons but for me it makes more sense to stick with Fuji for now but when I think about a Fuji equivalent for 14-140, f2.8 lenses or 75 f1.8, the decision gets more difficult. If only there was a camera that had Fuji IQ and m4/3 lenses.

With all due respect to your opinion about the comparative iq of the two systems, there is one thing I would like to emphasize with the em1 the secondarily raises the iq.

I used the em1this weekend to shoot a dinner/dressup party, with only difficult ambient light, and usually not much of it. Wall-lamps, chandelier, candles, etc. Only kinda decent light was two disco-lights:/ i shot maybe 300 pics, with quite a few multiples to make sure I got it right. Used the pl25 and oly 45. Do you know how many missed focus shots there were? Five. And 150 keepers; would be fewer non-keepers if I didn't intentionlly shoot the same thing a few times. To me, that is astounding. And it was easy, too. I'm no pro, and had drunk beer and spirits, but the keepers kept coming. Ultra reliable, and facial/eye detection played a big role in this.

Put your new camera to a test different from a lab test, and I do not think you will find it wanting


Patrick K

 

[tomO2013]

I ended up getting the E-M1 along with the 12-40 "Pro" lens and have been comparing with the X-E2 with kit lens and so far I have a very hard time justifying the asking price for Olympus "PRO" kit. Sure it has a lot more bells and whistles (touch screen, lightening fast AF, weather sealing, better grip and tons of options) but when it comes to pure IQ, to my eyes X-E2 produces better results specially in low light situations. Surprisingly, one category where I thought E-M1 will kill X-E2 in, is not that big of a difference. Sure E-M1 is faster but X-E2 is more than capable but with that said, E-M1 definitely kills it in facial recognition. E-M1 is not only better in recognizing faces but also in keeping them in focus during motion.

In conclusion, neither Fuji or Olympus is a perfect camera and each has pros and cons but for me it makes more sense to stick with Fuji for now but when I think about a Fuji equivalent for 14-140, f2.8 lenses or 75 f1.8, the decision gets more difficult. If only there was a camera that had Fuji IQ and m4/3 lenses.

Personally I believe the 'pro' moniker is well deserved because it is fully weather sealed - water, dust and freeze resistant. Something the 18-55 is not. In my opinion it's one of the jewels of the m43 platform and possibly is the one of the best and most versatile pieces of glass on any system available. You only need to take a look at the sample image gallery on this site to see some of the spectacular results people are getting from this lens. Some users, even dumping their 12mm and 17mm primes for this lens. I'm genuinely saying this, but you are possibly the first person that I have ever heard around here say that they found the 12-40 wanting, particularly relative to the image quality of other professional grade lenses on other more expensive systems.

Are you in a position to share your Raw files from both ? - I assume you took both to the same low light event to take shots - I'm particularly interested in seeing how skin tones taken in low light appear on the XE2 as I shoot my girlfriends band from time to time I'm genuinely interested in seeing your comparison.

My findings comparing the 18-55 on the XE1 against the EM1 were quite different to your own. Perhaps the XF18-55 just works far better with the new XE2 That would be great if it does. I've only ever shot the XF35mm on the XE2 and there was no IQ difference to the XE1. But that doesn't mean that the XE2 doesn't perform better with the 18-55mm in outright IQ terms - it might just suit the XF18-55 lens better - especially since the XE2 does a limited barrel distortion correction now in-body I believe. The XE1 did not do distortion corrections in body for Jpegs.

Personally I found that the first time I shot in low light with the E-M1 I was very disappointed as the standard noise reduction was applied to the Jpegs - I'd forgotten to enable Raw + Jpeg. Olympus Viewer 3 was applying very aggressive noise reduction at 'standard' that simply wasn't needed - at most 'low' or preferably 'off' should be used. Another low light improvement that made a huge change to the image quality out of the OMD was disabling the 'keep warm colours' setting which in low lighting situations can over saturate the yellow. Sometimes the 'keep warm colours' setting is very helpful, but in certain metal hallide street lighting situations I found it messed up the white balance badly and affected skin tones. The default NR was also overly aggressive and simply obfuscated detail. The grain that was there was quite nice, very controlled and very film like - it didn't need much if any correction in post .
If you haven't handed back your E-M1 yet, it might be worth trying my two suggestions again above and see if you have better results. If you had only just gotten the camera and were using it on default these would have been enabled by default and can heavily impact IQ If it's already handed back no worries. Just thought that you might find it interesting.

Irrespective, I'm delighted that you finally got your hands on the camera that you love.

Happy shooting,

Tom.

P.S. pick up the XF24mm 1.4. It's spectacular and I'd take one any day of the week over he 17.5 1.8 on m43. That said the new 15mm Leica is shaping up to be tasty... you might be getting an EM1 yet

 

[ajamils]

tomO2013,

I did not mean that 12-40 lens is not good enough to be called a "PRO" lens. I only meant to say that i wasn't seeing a big quality difference between the "kit" lens + X-E2 combo VS the "Pro" combo. You are correct, I will have to do some more testing before I make the final decision. My thoughts posted above were after my initial testing. I still have the whole mirrorless family so I will definitely give you suggestions a try tomorrow and see how it goes.

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[JYPfoto]

When I bought my GX7 I knew I was going to get a Fuji as a second body because of the ISO, hardware and simplicity.

I've decided on the x100s because I love the 35mm f2 lens and have used it extensively. My GX7 does 90% of my photographs and I've gotten the lenses I require but the x100s is there for when I don't need my GX7 or when I simply just want to use the 35mm f2, the fact I can throw it into my bag and not worry about breaking the lens is a bonus. essentially a tank compact that I can take to social events or night strolling and not think about how much detail I'll lose at ISO 3200 and whatnot.

Fuji's AF is a bummer but most of my DSLR life was on Canon rebels so I'm use to spot focus and recompose.
The reason why I stay with M43 as my main is it just feels more complete. I think Fuji will be a serious contender with the 4th iteration. Their firmwares help a lot but there's still too much they gotta do for me to consider switching.

I did the same thing. I picked up an x100s as a 2nd, carry everywhere body to my E-M1 with the 12-40. Really liked the output and love the manual controls. But as a 2nd body that I don't use all the time, it was more a camera for my wife to use. And she loves using Auto for simplicity. I asked her to take a picture of me with the x100s near the christmas tree at the mall, and yeah, that didn't go so well.

So I picked up a GX7, slapped the 20 pancake on there, and size wise it's about the same as the x100s. But it shares the same mount so I can use it as my carry around option, it has all the auto functions that my wife loves, and has all the extras that I like about the camera (tilt screen, touch screen, wifi, fast auto focus, small footprint, etc).