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X-Pro 1 hands on look

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Dailypix

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I just got back from the Fuji product launch in Toronto (thank you Billy from the Fujiguys for the invite)

I got to play with the X Pro 1 for about 15 minutes, could have spent longer but did not need to.

My aim was to check out the manual focus. I am assuming that the image quality will be supurb. Love the way the camera feels. Too light? (are you nuts?) It feels really good. Lovely finger grip. Ergometrically wonderful. Looks beautiful and very well designed. perfect weight. It "feels" expensive.

Great the way you can shoot off a burst of shots and almost immediately shoot some more. Great improvement over the X 100.

I've had this on order since its announcement and Vistek started taking orders. Was worried though about the manual focus. I am no fan of this fly by wire technology as demonstrated in the X100. It was my only worry.

Verdict from me is that MF will be usable. Yes it is fly by wire but much more responsive. You can go from extreme close up to infinity very quickly, I'd say comparable to a L lens. It is not the same feel of course but it works.

Focusing in the macro mode -Who hasn't tried shooting a spider web in auto and all the camera can see is the fence 10 feet behind? Even my 5DII needs manual focus in that situation - in macro mode the manual focus was quick and I would assume reliable. The AF was perfect in bright light. Seemingly "instant". At least a generation or two improved over the X100.

Autofocus was snappy and immediate. It was a well lit studio though. Shots towards a darkened corner had no trouble acquiring focus.

Cannot wait to get my own copy.

Do not believe all of the noisy negativists who put down this camera without ever having held one. For me it was love at first sight. If that makes me a fanboi too bad.
 
It was an informative hands on experience. Was that Billy from the FujiGuys that did the presentation? I didn't realize that.

I think I tried out the camera for about 15 minutes as well and found that the buttons and menu items were intuitively where I thought they would be. I found I could change settings without having to think much about it. I think people expecting the heft of an M9 are perhaps disappointed when they pick up the camera but I didn't find it felt odd or 'hollow', and the lenses are very light. I liked the 1/3 stop dents on the lenses, but the 35 iris felt a little 'soft', perhaps owing to being a pre-production sample.

Like many others have said, I really liked the 60mm. I downloaded the shots I took to my computer and the 60mm f/4 shot at ISO 12800 looks perfectly fine onscreen.

Overall it was much more enjoyable to use than many comments here have led me to believe it would be. As an eyeglass wearer the eyepiece did not present an issue, so that was a relief.

As to the availability of Fuji's own M adapter they could only say that it would be in the fall.
 
I'm also pretty psyched for the Xpro1, or at least to get a hold of one to try out. People also complained about the weight and feel of the x100 and I just don't get it. It feels great in my hand and so much like some of my film rangefinders (my CV Bessa R2A specifically). Possibly people are expecting it to feel and weigh like a brick, like a dslr, and are caught off guard when it weights less.

But until I've held one myself, I'm not going to make any judgements.

--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brudy
 
Dailypix said:
I just got back from the Fuji product launch in Toronto (thank you Billy from the Fujiguys for the invite)

I got to play with the X Pro 1 for about 15 minutes, could have spent longer but did not need to.

My aim was to check out the manual focus. I am assuming that the image quality will be supurb. Love the way the camera feels. Too light? (are you nuts?) It feels really good. Lovely finger grip. Ergometrically wonderful. Looks beautiful and very well designed. perfect weight. It "feels" expensive.

Great the way you can shoot off a burst of shots and almost immediately shoot some more. Great improvement over the X 100.

I've had this on order since its announcement and Vistek started taking orders. Was worried though about the manual focus. I am no fan of this fly by wire technology as demonstrated in the X100. It was my only worry.

Verdict from me is that MF will be usable. Yes it is fly by wire but much more responsive. You can go from extreme close up to infinity very quickly, I'd say comparable to a L lens. It is not the same feel of course but it works.

Focusing in the macro mode -Who hasn't tried shooting a spider web in auto and all the camera can see is the fence 10 feet behind? Even my 5DII needs manual focus in that situation - in macro mode the manual focus was quick and I would assume reliable. The AF was perfect in bright light. Seemingly "instant". At least a generation or two improved over the X100.

Autofocus was snappy and immediate. It was a well lit studio though. Shots towards a darkened corner had no trouble acquiring focus.

Cannot wait to get my own copy.

Do not believe all of the noisy negativists who put down this camera without ever having held one. For me it was love at first sight. If that makes me a fanboi too bad.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the report. Sounds like I'm just going to have to try it out myself at a store or such. Some reports have said the X-Pro1 was slower than the X100 (at least in some situations), others have said it was the same, and yet others have said the X-Pro1 was faster.

I'm guessing part of the problem is that the camera'a AF speed performs differently in different lighting, at different distances, and with the three different lenses. Then there is the human factor of people making comparisons off of memory.

Anyways, in bright light, what would you say is the autofocus speed of the camera compared to this indoor test? Same? Slower? Faster?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDEGMgtJ_4E
 
Threshold Tech said:
It was an informative hands on experience. Was that Billy from the FujiGuys that did the presentation? I didn't realize that.
Click to expand...
Yeah that was Billy. Greg was there as well. Really nice guys and quite knowledgable. Billy even helped me with a setting on my X 100 (which I used to shoot this)

 
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