XE-1vs. XE-2 Image IQ

cageyfella said:

how bout AWB? on the xe2?.. Had a truthful discussion with a camera store salesman today who had just tested out the xe2 last night and his opinion was that the AWB was not as good on the xe2 and that the auto focusing was not worth the upgrade. he told me this after i said i was interested in trading in my xe1 for the xe2 - WTF??

Was quite disheartned as he had nothing to gain whatsoever by giving his opinion - actually quite the oposite!!

AWB is quite a big deal for me as i've come to rely on it a lot with my xe1 because it's so good and now even moreso as i'm using it to do a few shoots at events for a local magazine?

And all the new functional changes do sound like they would help specially bigger lcd/ better EVF/WYSIWYG display, as my eye sight isn't that great.

more info on the above issues please?

and no, they didn't have one i could try out !! as it was the fuji reps camera(maybe his unit was a bad apple?)

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I see no hint the AWB is worse with the X-E2. Perhaps he was saving the X-E2 for another customer.

The autofocus improvement is HUGE. Much better...especially in bright light. Less hunting.

I may be wrong here but the X-E1 is sure to be sharper than the X-E2.

Physics tells us with each layer of material in front of the light capturing device results in a fractional degradation of light quality, in the case of a camera application this would also naturally translate to sharpness.

The X-E2 has I believe two extra elements in front of the sensor that the X-E1 doesn't, one being the split screen focusing system element.

Of course the difference will be very small but it will be there. Suffice to say I'm pleased I've got the X-E1.

BillyInya said:

I may be wrong here but the X-E1 is sure to be sharper than the X-E2.

Physics tells us with each layer of material in front of the light capturing device results in a fractional degradation of light quality, in the case of a camera application this would also naturally translate to sharpness.

The X-E2 has I believe two extra elements in front of the sensor that the X-E1 doesn't, one being the split screen focusing system element.

Of course the difference will be very small but it will be there. Suffice to say I'm pleased I've got the X-E1.

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You're reaching...but that's OK. Anything to hold back the GAS.

sharkyyy said:

sharkyyy said:

I think it's the opposite, because photo is more colorfull, when is shadow tone lower (-1), but of course then is worse dynamic range.

I had problem that jpeg in fuji x-e1 isnt colorfull enough for me. I thought, that in fuji x-e2 is better. But if is trueth, what wrote Albert, the jpeg is same (only default setting shadow tone 0 in x-e2 is 0 in xe-1? True?

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Sorry, Higher shadow tone(+1) means more colorfull jpg, with lower dynamic range, shadow are more dark....

You are right, x-e2-more colorful, default x-e2 shadowtone 0 is +1 shadow tone in x-e1.

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I finally did some more comparisons b/w X-E1 and X-E2 images. Shots were taken using aperture priority so the camera is free to use any shutter speed it wants. X-E1 captured the scene with 1/320s, but X-E2 capture the scene with 1/340s. I did not use full manual because I wanted the camera to do its exposure thingy as I could not be sure if brightness of the scene has changed while I changed camera and lens. The shots were taken from my bedroom window.

Using Photo Ninja, I calibrated the two images with same WB, same shadow enhancement and finally lined up the histogram. I found that in order to line up the histogram, I need to add 0.16EV to the shot taken with X-E2.

Once I did all that, the shadow tone, color richness, sharpness on both X-E1 and X-E2 were identical except for green. I have been seeing this on a number images processed with RAW converters and it appears that X-E2 has a slightly different green tone.

So I tried again using Iridient Developer. ID has Adobe DNG profile for X-E1 and X-E2 and if you load the wrong DNG profile, the red and green will be rendered slightly differently. Once I used the correct profile for each camera, the green and red were rendered nearly identically. And strangely, the shadow tone also appeared to look the same without any exposure changes.

But when looking at the OOC JPEG, the X-E1 image does look slightly brighter. I think people perceived richer color and darker shadow because of a different tone mapping on the X-E2. I don't think the little change in exposure has much to do with it.

The CFA and sensor characteristics are probably different b/w X-E1 and X-E2 and Fuji has to make some adjustments for them. Most likely, it is a different tone mapping table/profile, and now that the X-E2 favors a slightly darker tone. Overall, I prefer this darker tone as X-E1 always seem a little too bright in the tonality for me.

In addition, X-E2 is far less likely to use DR200 and DR400 compared to X-E1. I was never quite fond of DR400 partly because I think it slightly overexposed the mid-tone and I see a drop in mid-tone gradation/detail. I think X-E1 tried too hard to preserve highlight details by sacrificing mid-tone in the DR400 case.

thanks

--
Please excuse typo errors.
More photos:
http://vkphotoblog.blogspot.ca/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vk-photo/

BillyInya said:

I may be wrong here but the X-E1 is sure to be sharper than the X-E2.

Physics tells us with each layer of material in front of the light capturing device results in a fractional degradation of light quality, in the case of a camera application this would also naturally translate to sharpness.

The X-E2 has I believe two extra elements in front of the sensor that the X-E1 doesn't, one being the split screen focusing system element.

Of course the difference will be very small but it will be there. Suffice to say I'm pleased I've got the X-E1.

Click to expand...

X-E1 and X-E2 have the same sharpness. I have both cameras. There isn't "another" layer in front of the X-E2 sensor. The PDAF pixels are built-in to the sensor itself. Fuji never tell us what they did. But if you looked at the 70D review, the pixel can be used for phase detection or light capturing.

The digital split image was done by processing the signals from the phase detection pixels.

vkphoto said:

thanks

--
Please excuse typo errors.
More photos:
http://vkphotoblog.blogspot.ca/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vk-photo/

Click to expand...

X-E2 RAF:


X-E1 RAF:


Nothing spectacular, just the scene outside my bedroom window. And weather here hasn't been great lately.

Thanks a lot!

Nice view, BTW

--
Please excuse typo errors.
More photos:
http://vkphotoblog.blogspot.ca/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vk-photo/

Daniel Lauring said:

Much better...especially in bright light. Less hunting.

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Does it hunt in bright light? This is disheartening, just bought an X-E1.

How would you compare it to the X-A1?

AustinB said:

Daniel Lauring said:

Much better...especially in bright light. Less hunting.

Click to expand...

Does it hunt in bright light? This is disheartening, just bought an X-E1.

How would you compare it to the X-A1?

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The focus motor will cycle past the point and back with the X-E1...you notice it especially with the 60 macro. When the X-E2 is in phase detection mode it seems to snap right to the correct point. The X-A1 seems a little faster than the X-E1...maybe due to having a faster processor than the X-E1?

IMHO, the X-E1 isn't bad for a CDAF APSC camera. It used to be, but with the latest firmware it is pretty decent. The X-E2, however, has PDAF and that really speeds things up when it can use it (brighter conditions.)

Ok, thanks. I bought and used the X-A1, it was fine in terms of speed (even coming from the V1) and it was a pleasant surprise after hearing about how slow Fuji ML cameras were. The X-E1 may test my patience though.

AustinB said:

Ok, thanks. I bought and used the X-A1, it was fine in terms of speed (even coming from the V1) and it was a pleasant surprise after hearing about how slow Fuji ML cameras were. The X-E1 may test my patience though.

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The X-E1 is pretty close to the X-A1. The difference is only noticeable when you use them back to back. The X-E1 doesn't get "lost" more than the A1. It only feels a tiny bit less snappy. If Fuji released the X-E1 with the latest firmware, instead of taking a year to figure it out, there wouldn't have been the complaints.

To Albert, Thank you very much! I downloaded and converted those two files and examined them

minutely last night. It seems to me that the 2 has kept the excellent IQ of the 1, but with many improvements.

Thank you agin drom the whole DP readership!

Mike P

Astrophotographer 10 said:

Yes that is a good point. For starters I did not know the XE1 was only 12 bit. No wonder they upgraded that. I thought all modern cameras were 14 bit. All my astronomy cameras have been 16 bit for years and years. I guess it takes more computer power so they put it off to keep the current microprocessors useable for as long as possible before upgrading.

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Sounds unlikely. Operations on 12 and 14 bits should be equally expensive on those CPUs. I would guess most of the cost of adding 2 extra bits is in having a sensor that can quadruple the number of meaningful values to be captured through each photosite.

BillyInya said:

I may be wrong here but the X-E1 is sure to be sharper than the X-E2.

Physics tells us with each layer of material in front of the light capturing device results in a fractional degradation of light quality, in the case of a camera application this would also naturally translate to sharpness.

The X-E2 has I believe two extra elements in front of the sensor that the X-E1 doesn't, one being the split screen focusing system element.

Of course the difference will be very small but it will be there. Suffice to say I'm pleased I've got the X-E1.

Click to expand...

The X-E2 has only one additional layer in front of the sensor and that accommodates both the PDAF and split focus. This layer causes no apparent degradation of sharpness. It is located between the X-Trans CFA and the standard 16MP sensor.

But, the X-E2 has LMO, which offers a noticeable improvement in sharpness. From all examples I have seen, the X-E2 is capable of producing slightly sharper images than the X-E1 and X-Pro1.

The X-E1 and X-E2 both use the same sensor, but the X-E2 captures 14-bit output from the sensor compared to 12-bit in the X-E1. This is why the X-E2 raw files are 32MB while the X-E1 files are 25MB. This allows the X-E2 to have slightly more DR and color depth.

Randy Benter said:

BillyInya said:

I may be wrong here but the X-E1 is sure to be sharper than the X-E2.

Physics tells us with each layer of material in front of the light capturing device results in a fractional degradation of light quality, in the case of a camera application this would also naturally translate to sharpness.

The X-E2 has I believe two extra elements in front of the sensor that the X-E1 doesn't, one being the split screen focusing system element.

Of course the difference will be very small but it will be there. Suffice to say I'm pleased I've got the X-E1.

Click to expand...

The X-E2 has only one additional layer in front of the sensor and that accommodates both the PDAF and split focus. This layer causes no apparent degradation of sharpness. It is located between the X-Trans CFA and the standard 16MP sensor.

But, the X-E2 has LMO, which offers a noticeable improvement in sharpness. From all examples I have seen, the X-E2 is capable of producing slightly sharper images than the X-E1 and X-Pro1.

Click to expand...

. . . now if we just knew what it was really doing! 14 bit is good.

MrFresno said:

The X-E1 and X-E2 both use the same sensor, but the X-E2 captures 14-bit output from the sensor compared to 12-bit in the X-E1. This is why the X-E2 raw files are 32MB while the X-E1 files are 25MB. This allows the X-E2 to have slightly more DR and color depth.

Click to expand...

I am not seeing this with the samples I have inspected.

12 bit vs 14bit is output not input.

You throw extra elements in front of the sensor and it matters little whether the output is 12bit or 14 bit.

With the X-E1 there are less elements the light has to pass through to get to the sensor's photo sites compared to the X-E2.

Now I do not know whether this is why the X-E1 appears fractionally sharper than the X-E2 so I'll leave this for others to debate.

Facts are that when you start adding extra elements for light to pass through it most certainly does not result in "sharper" images, it results in the exact opposite.

At the end of the day I am pleased I have an X-E1 and not an X-E2.

Activatedfx said:

I did some informal head-to-head testing before I shipped my X-E1 off to it's new owner. Didn't really see much difference in IQ. X-E2 JEPGS might be a little "richer" looking, but too close to say. RAWS look the same. I will say the better overall handling and speed of the X-E2 is VERY noticeable! Particularly the AF speed and accuracy. Honestly feels like a whole different camera, even though it looks almost identical.

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are you using your XE2 in 'high performance mode" to see the difference? My XE2 will arrive tomorrow. I never used XE1 or X100/X100s in high performance mode. I wonder if I should keep it in original mode (I like to get 350 shots per battery, not 200 shots per battery) or if high performance mode is a must? I don't care much as to initial wake up time, I can wait there. My only concern is fast AF.