Still in love with the X-E2

MatMayer wrote:

Hi Oscar, not sure which camera you are asking about so will quickly do both:

With the X-E2 I mostly shot Velvia -1 noise, -1 colour, +1 sharpness. Then I used the auto ISO modes up to 800 in the day and 3200 at night. I usually set the shutter speed to 1/200 as I often shoot traffic, but have a night option at 1/60.

The only time I played with highlight and shadows was when I was in Monochrome. I tried the high contrast look- making blacks blacker and whites brighter. I had it set to plus one third of a stop exposure compensation most of the time so did find that blew highlights out more. I remember making it much flatter when visiting Paris as I wanted to soak up all the details. So there I did the opposite and brought the highlights down a bit and raised the shadows (sorry, forgot if that is + and - on the camera).

On the X-E3 I have begun using the custom modes and to be honest, haven't settled on anything yet. I have used a mixture of experimenting and there is a website where a guy posts "recipes" to simulate film, plus there is at least one YouTube video I have used.

I have all 7 custom modes set but only really focus on two at the moment and I am still playing with everything. The first is Velvia -1NR, +1 sharpness, Auto ISO 1/200 SS and up to 3200. Mode 2 is Acros -2NR, -2 Highlights, +1 Shadows, +2 Sharpness. Auto ISO 1/200 SS and up to 3200. Still playing with the highlight and shadows and finding that I will probably need to make 2 or 3 different Acros custom profiles: one for overcast days, one for sunny and one for night. I am really liking that I don't always need to edit Acros photos. It is just getting the highlights and shadows right so I have maximum contrast without crushing the blacks too much or blowing out highlights.

For buttons I just used one for film simulations on the E2 and the Fn button next to the shutter on the E3 is great for the custom modes, especially as I just use two modes currently, so one press is all thats needed to get me back to color. Only other button I use is the rear dial pressed to magnify the image when using manual lenses, which come to think of it, could be better placed.

Keep in mind I am a newbie to Fuji, approx 3, maybe 4 months, and I think settings depend on location. For example, people's skin tones were totally different in Paris compared to Asia. There were beautiful buildings all over the place in Paris, whereas generally where I live in Asia they are pretty crappy. So in Paris I wanted everything in focus and keep as much detail as possible. Whereas in Chiang Mai I shoot with longer lens more of the time at f2, so the buildings often get turned into nice bokeh, or I crush the blacks a bit more which hides them and provides more pop. Therefore, I think setting are best done individually via trial and error.

Thanks Mat for your detail explanation

I was specifically asking about the X-E2 and your function buttons configuration, because you say that you don't use the menus or Q button at all, and it is something that I am interested in. I mainly use buttons and dials but, when shooting jpegs, I need to adjust Shadows and Hoghlights, and that means that I need to access to the Q menu...

Best regards

Óscar