X-T4 from Sony A6600?

Stokkes wrote:

Hello,

Just looking for some advice - i've been flip/flopping at lot over the past year on gear, thankfully making most of my money back. I've had an A7iii (sold it - too big/bulky, expensive lenses) and in December bought an A6600 and Sigma 30mm f1.4 for a trip to Hawaii. While in Hawaii I rented for 2 weeks a Sony 70-300 (full frame). The 70-300 stayed mostly on my camera, and for landscape/wide shots, I used my iPhone 11 Pro since I didn't have a wide lens.

Overall, there's a lot I like about the A6600, but my trip really showed me that I'm more of a zoom person than a prime person (using mostly primes indoors in low-light). I'm looking at the 16-55 f2.8 G and it's $1450 here, and that got me thinking about Fuji and the X-T4 (and the 16-55 2.8 which is about 1100 here). I feel I could easily sell the 6600+30mm and recoup most of the money I paid for it - effectively, going from Sony to Fuji would cost me about 300-400$ - which is something I am considering.

My likes of the 6600:

• The AF is so unbelievable - the lock on tracking AF, EyeAF and Animal eyeAF (yes I know Fuji doesn't have this)
• The DR - I was able to pull details from the shadows with little loss of quality from my trip, this was great.
• The IQ is amazing - personally I don't buy in to the colour science - most images look appealing if you're not comparing them to something else.
• The small size - one reason I got rid of my A7iii was due to bulky/heavy and expensive lenses

There are things with the 6600 that really annoy me:

• Lack of dials - it really only has 1 dial that you can customize for aperature/ss/etc. There's another one, but it's so finicky (the menu dial) that it's easy to accidentally press it and activate a separate function
• No joystick - moving the focus area is painful and since I use my left eye in the viewfinder, the screen is mostly covered and difficult to use the screen to set the focus point
• Sony doesn't seem too invested in APS-C - yes there's the 16-55 (expensive) and the 70-350, but I think they just released these lenses to shut up the A6xxx users - it doesn't seem to me that they're heavily invested in the format. There's also no good wide lenses for APS-C - only the 10-18mm f4 which is hit or miss IQ wise.

The X-T4 looks really good and overall I think would be cheaper in the long run - yes there's the initial $400 to switch over, but lenses are generally cheaper, and the X-T4 has a lot of the things I miss from the a7iii that are not on the A6600 - extra dials, joystick, etc.

However I do have some questions:

1. Is the X-T4's autofocus closer to Sony's?
2. How is the X-T4's tracking (lock on + track)?
3. How's the DR?
4. Is it normal that Fuji lenses seem to be a bit "softer"? Sony's seem sharper (e.g.: the sony 16-55 2.8 vs fuji 16-55 2.8)
5. Is the X-T4 significantly bigger than the 6600? I know from a weight perspective it's about 100g, but overall size, it seems the X-T4 is more in FF size territory for the body (yes I know lenses are typically tiny)
6. Most importantly - I am a pure iPad user for my workflow and I use Lightroom - is this going to be a problem with the RAF files? (I shoot raw) - lots of comments on this forum give me great pause on this.
7. What would be the best portrait/indoor prime as a starter that provides great IQ, shallow DOF?

Thanks!

I don't know how the AF is compared to Sony, but I have an X-T3 and the AF is very good and it's supposed to be even better on the X-T4. Wouldn't surprise me if Sony is still a bit better in the AF department, though.

I find the DR to be very good on the X-trans4, I've never felt limited by it and I even shoot landscape.

I believe the reason why you might experience some Fuji photos as "softer" is due to the X-trans sensor and subpar demosaicing. The X-trans sensor requires different demosaicing compared to the conventional bayer sensor to get the most out of it. Lightroom is well known for not being the best option for X-trans. If you use Lightroom I highly recommend to either use Iridient X-transformer to convert your files or switch to another editing program. Personally I use Capture One which does a very good job with X-trans files.

As for the best portrait lenses you have the 56/1.2 and the 90/2, both are fantastic lenses with amazing IQ. The lenses are one of the main reasons to shoot with Fuji as they are generally very good and many of them are absolutely superb.