Comment by jherskovic | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jherskovic | Hacker News Reader

I love Fujifilm cameras. I moved from Canon full frame to Fuji, because of the physical controls on the X-T line. The ergonomics are superb.

The X-H handles nice, but as a still (amateur) photographer, the X-Ts are where it's at. Having separate, physical controls for exposure compensation, speed, ISO, and aperture is a delight. The tilting screen on the X-T line is also a better fit for still photography than the articulated one on the X-H lines. Here's hoping they keep it.

I have an X-T3 now, I'm waiting for the X-T5. It should come out in a few months, and cost a bit less than the X-H. The main advantages should be the 40 MP sensor (vs 26) and sensor-based image stabilization (introduced in the X-T4). They also offer a pixel-combining mode now that shifts the sensor very small, precise amounts and then combines images to increase resolution up to 4x in the final result. You need a tripod and some time, but I'm looking forward to playing with it.

It's hard to explain exactly how, but the color rendition straight out of the camera on Fuji kit is also second to none. Other posters commenting on RAW files are right, though - they're a pain because of the non-standard sensor. Only Fuji's terrible software and commercial offerings like Lightroom do a decent job. Darktable, for example, doesn't. I stopped shooting RAW partly for this reason, but also because the JPG engine on Fuji kit is outstanding. It makes the best JPGs straight out of the camera I've ever seen.

The APS-C sensor size across the entire line also means that high-quality glass is a bit more affordable, smaller, and lighter than some of the competition.

I guess I became a huge Fuji fanboy along the way.

I like the images the Fuji cameras produce and was interested in the xt4 when it came out. But boy is that thing huge, especially with the faux-pentaprism bump.

I currently own a pen-f, which is tiny. But I figure if I'm going to haul around a brick, might as well go for full-frame. Especially since Sony came out with the a7c. However, Sony doesn't seem to have small lenses and their tone rendition doesn't have the same effect on me.

Guess I'll just have to wait and hope for a pen-f mark 2...

> They also offer a pixel-combining mode now that shifts the sensor very small, precise amounts and then combines images to increase resolution up to 4x in the final result. You need a tripod and some time, but I'm looking forward to playing with it.

This is great. My pen-f has this, and the images it produces are wonderful. But there are some failure modes, like leaves moving, and the water has a high likelihood of looking weird.

The xt series might be as big as some full frame cameras, but there’s no cheating physics. Full frame glass is always going to scale in volume/weight faster than the increase in sensor size. Might want to consider a smaller apsc body instead?

I haven't been convinced by other aps-c bodies, especially the smaller ones.

The thing is that I want enough of an upgrade from my m43 (with which I'm happy enough) for it to make sense, and the xt4 and its lenses are too close to full frame to make it worth it.

The current smaller Fuji bodies are still fairly bigger than a pen-f, and, for my use, a net downgrade (no in-body stabilization). The only line-up that compares is Sony's, with the rangefinder format. But as I've said above, their tonal rendering isn't exactly what I like.

> Having separate, physical controls for exposure compensation, speed, ISO, and aperture is a delight.

On an old Sony a65 I never use the exposure compensation or ISO or aperture preview physical-controls. There's a control wheel for shutter speed and aperture depending on PASM mode, which I use all the time.

But then I never use out-of-camera JPG, just raw at lowest ISO — to me, that seems to provide more possibilities.

(For example, converting a single raw file multiple times into an exposure series and then using the old Enfuse software to combine the "best" exposed pixels.)

However, I stopped shooting JPEG's because of how fast machine learning is improving. The vast extra data in a 14-bit RAW will surely allow extra amazing processing in the future.

Thanks for sharing your journey and opinions! I’ve also switched from a Canon EOS 7D to the X-T3 and was pleasantly surprised about all the neat extra features (e.g. the good color filters, GPS metadata via Bluetooth, customizable controls) and how nicely it can be handled despite the tiny body.

The other thing I like is that Fuji will deliver new features via software updates if the hardware can handle them. With Canon, at least, the feature set is set (sorry) in stone the moment you buy the camera.

> Only Fuji's terrible software and commercial offerings like Lightroom do a decent job. Darktable, for example, doesn't.

What trouble have you had with Fuji RAW + Darktable? I've been using it without trouble, but I wonder if I'm doing something wrong?

The out-of-the-box settings yield dark, flat images, and no amount of twiddling on my part even approximates something pleasant, much less Fuji's defaults. If I could find a set of defaults for raw processing I liked, I might have stuck with it.

But seriously, the out-of-the-camera JPGs are _ridiculously_ good. Sure, you're throwing away information, but I found I very rarely used that information.

If I'm doing something particularly intricate, complex, or delicate I might shoot raw. For walking around the city taking snapshots? JPG is more than fine.

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