Yes my metering dial sticks and can be tricky to hit center weighted and yes, the ISO dial would be less work if it only locked on A. Yet I've noticed as I continue to use the hell out of my X-T1 that the persistence of these controls is a big part of what makes taking pictures with the X-T1 feel so much more intuitive and less abstract than it did with my Nex-7. If a situation arises where shutter speed matters, I was so used to "OK what mode am I in? Ok which shortcut key? Ok which dial? Ok, which speed? Ok Perfect! What am I doing again?". Three quarters of that process had nothing to do with my desired end result and no matter my muscle memory, it always made for a distinct lack of flow (even if I didn't know it). With the X-T1, I may fumble now and again with the physical element of changing settings, but mentally, I'm no longer playing "how do I get there from here" hopscotch and for me, this has been huge. Just my two cents!
We're all different. The XT-1 dials were a *nightmare* for me. Each time I tried to change ISO, I unvoluntarily changed the drive mode, ended up in Pano or self-timer or whatever, then when I wanted to change the speed, I'd accidentally knock the metering dial off and suddenly be in spot metering. Not too mention the exp comp dial was super stiff and acutally needed a slight angle to be turned. Horrible all the way. I know a lot of people love it, but it was as counter intuitive to me as can be. I've been shooting the NEX7 for over two years and I can do so half awake, it's just totally natural. Not to say one is better than others, just different stuff for different shooting styles. The X-A and X-M are the only Fujis I can consider as they offer a traditional (to me !) two free spinning digital wheels set-up....
ROTFL! Not sure what will happen when they have to match the competition's 1/8000 sec shutter speed - smaller letters on the shutter dial, or a bigger dial perhaps.
Michael Reichmann of Luminous Landscape is correct when he points to the lack of custom setting on the X-T1. The following is a quote from his site on a discussion of the limitations of manual controls:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/fuji_x_t1_further_thoughts.shtml
"But, as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for. It wasn't long after the first blush of passion had passed that I realized that this oh-so-desirable design had a dark side. The camera has no customization settings for shooting modes. This means that when you want to quickly change from one type of shooting to another, every applicable control has to be individually altered. Let me explain.
You are standing out in the field in the late afternoon light taking a shot of your girlfriend posing demurely by a fence. You've set the camera to either manual focus, or maybe single button AF. The shutter speed is moderate, because you're hand holding, the ISO is low for optimum quality, and you have set the aperture fairly wide for shallow depth of field. You're using average zone metering because she is side lit. Drive mode is set to single frame, and metering for matrix.
All of a sudden, an amazing flock of Canada Geese appears behind her. Their wings are illuminated by the low sun, but they're flying fast in chevron formation. What a shot! What do you do?
With the X-T1 you turn the dial to change the shutter speed to something fast, say 1/1500 sec. You then turn the aperture dial to something on the wide side, because you don't want to have to use too high an ISO. The metering mode needs to be changed from average to spot, and the drive mode from single frame to high speed with focus tracking. Finally, the ISO needs to be boosted, because of the high shutter speed, or maybe reset to Auto.
Sadly, by the time that you've done all this, the geese have gone back to Canada and have begun to raise their families."
At least on my X-A1 I can program one custom setting on the mode dial.
My old Canon G7 has two positions, and this is the case for many advanced cameras with standard mode dials. With all of the manual dials on Fuji's advanced cameras, the only place to put custom settings would be in a menu.
