R
Raist3d
Guest
I am going to keep this short and in bullet form since it's late.
First a picture I took last night with continuous AF, XF27 F2.8. I suppose composition could be a tad better and the white car in the background next to the guy makes the picture a bit less than it could be, but I still like the action and tones.
Impressions
For street life the Panasonic can do a mechanical shutter all the way to 1/500 that is a barely audible click on the streets. This is a huge advantage for this model for some of the shots I do. Beats PenF/X-E3 here.
The overall camera UI response of the X-E3 and this camera are similar
Coming from Olympus PenF
Olympus really did a kick @ss job with the exposure and files of the PenF, so the RAWS are good and the JPEGS is as close as I have seen in terms of quality m43rds get to Fuji. I get an initial sense that the PenF at high ISO in JPEG may do slightly better due to dealing better with the noise reduction, though converting from RAW changes some things.
Where the PenF falls bad vs the X-E3 is in
- usability / UI
- Auto focus (particularly continuous which on the PenF can be a bit of a joke sometimes)
- Overall camera speed/response - UI response, first file save on turn on, turning on, change modes/settings. I feel that the UI lags behind me and can't quite keep up. It's not dead slow, but it's just this little lag that is just annoying.
Coming from m43rds in general
A key advantage I see for m43rds is if you shoot with focal lengths above 80-90mm equivalent. The lenses on the Fuji side start to become notably bigger. Focals of 27-80 there are options that match or almost match m43rds sizewise of equivalent or better aperture light advantage.
PenF has IBIS, and it's great, but IBIS doesn't work in all situations like if you want to freeze street life movement.
This ended up being longer than I wanted. I am giving it a spin and see how it feels for my needs. I would have wished Panasonic to have made a "GM7" with the new PenF/GX8 20 MP m43rds sensor, but that looks like it's just not happening at this point.
--
Raist3d/Ricardo (Photographer, software dev.)- I photograph black cats in coal mines at night...
“The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it.” - George Orwell
First a picture I took last night with continuous AF, XF27 F2.8. I suppose composition could be a tad better and the white car in the background next to the guy makes the picture a bit less than it could be, but I still like the action and tones.
Impressions
- X-E3 is *fast* (keep in mind I am not used to using an Xpro 2 or X-t2)
- Touch screen gestures work fine
- Lots of refinements over what used to be Fuji X-E1/X-T10, like highlights settings can now have more. You can pull back -2 EV when raw converting, etc.
- Camera starts up pretty darn fast (Panasonic GM5 is somewhat similar)
- Wish the mechanical shutter was even quieter, but it's quieter than X-T10/X-E1
- Love that you get feedback on C-AF with the little green squares showing what the camera is focusing on
- Love that the smallest single AF point is *very* small/precise
- Camera with one of the pancake lenses is definitively jacket or even big pocket pants pocketable
- You can "pump the shutter" - something the X-T10 , X-E1 couldn't do (I hear X-T2/Xpro 2 can also do this). The half press-> full press -> half press deal-> repeat deal.
- Love that there's a button of AFL and AEL separately
- Love "my menu" so you can put together a menu of options you use the most, and pressing the menu button by default shows it first.
- Accidentally deleted my first batch of test shots by a quick select/confirm with the stick. Fuji- please patch this so that to delete all frames, you need to use the OK button. While this is not as easy to make of a mistake, the fact that in 24 hours of ownership I did it points to a usability potential issue. Good thing this was just a "test shots" batch.
- At night, electronic shutter can give you nasty banding coming shutter speeds of 1/160
- Wish grain simulation had a separate setting per film simulation you pick. I find myself turning it on/off depending if I am shooting B&W or color.
- I don't understand the whole Bluetooth / iOS App pairing deal (yet). The App still wants me to select WiFi connect. I must be missing something - this is not what I expected. Panasonic and Olympus iOS Apps to connect to their cameras continue to be more refined it seems.
- Seems like Face detection could be better in the feedback it gives you.
For street life the Panasonic can do a mechanical shutter all the way to 1/500 that is a barely audible click on the streets. This is a huge advantage for this model for some of the shots I do. Beats PenF/X-E3 here.
The overall camera UI response of the X-E3 and this camera are similar
Coming from Olympus PenF
Olympus really did a kick @ss job with the exposure and files of the PenF, so the RAWS are good and the JPEGS is as close as I have seen in terms of quality m43rds get to Fuji. I get an initial sense that the PenF at high ISO in JPEG may do slightly better due to dealing better with the noise reduction, though converting from RAW changes some things.
Where the PenF falls bad vs the X-E3 is in
- usability / UI
- Auto focus (particularly continuous which on the PenF can be a bit of a joke sometimes)
- Overall camera speed/response - UI response, first file save on turn on, turning on, change modes/settings. I feel that the UI lags behind me and can't quite keep up. It's not dead slow, but it's just this little lag that is just annoying.
Coming from m43rds in general
A key advantage I see for m43rds is if you shoot with focal lengths above 80-90mm equivalent. The lenses on the Fuji side start to become notably bigger. Focals of 27-80 there are options that match or almost match m43rds sizewise of equivalent or better aperture light advantage.
PenF has IBIS, and it's great, but IBIS doesn't work in all situations like if you want to freeze street life movement.
This ended up being longer than I wanted. I am giving it a spin and see how it feels for my needs. I would have wished Panasonic to have made a "GM7" with the new PenF/GX8 20 MP m43rds sensor, but that looks like it's just not happening at this point.
--
Raist3d/Ricardo (Photographer, software dev.)- I photograph black cats in coal mines at night...
“The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it.” - George Orwell
