Fuji My X-Pro2 Review

Great follow up to part 1.

Another way to copy and paste settings is to hit shift+command+c(shift+control+c on windows) together. This copies the settings. Then select the image/s you want to apply these settings to. Then hit shift+command+v(shift+control+v on windows).

C1Pro adds even more color editing tools. Also the ability to do layers. And several other tools. But those two are really big for most people. I've found that with Capture One Pro and Affinity Photo, I can do everything I need to do. I'm considering looking at Alien Skin as that seems to be really popular as a final step with portrait photographers.
 
Great follow up to part 1.

Another way to copy and paste settings is to hit shift+command+c(shift+control+c on windows) together. This copies the settings. Then select the image/s you want to apply these settings to. Then hit shift+command+v(shift+control+v on windows).

C1Pro adds even more color editing tools. Also the ability to do layers. And several other tools. But those two are really big for most people. I've found that with Capture One Pro and Affinity Photo, I can do everything I need to do. I'm considering looking at Alien Skin as that seems to be really popular as a final step with portrait photographers.

There good tips Bobby, thank you

I played with the trial of AS, and I quite liked it, but I think it’s a little too much money for what it is (I also think the same about C1 Pro tbh which in Europe costs the equivalent of $405)
 
Holiday Snaps: Limited Time and an Open Mind

You might need an open mind for this.... I've still got all the new camera announcements swirling round my goldfish bowl, and just how much criticism many of them are receiving online... Surely these new cameras really do offer enough, even if it's not what everybody wants in a camera? Less is seldom more but it can certainly be ample

Fate and my generous nature actually gave me chance to put this to the test

Holiday Snaps: Limited Time and an Open Mind

(I promised you all my holiday snaps!!! :D )


Having lugged my Leica M10, 50mm Summilux, A7RIII ZM25, FE55, Voigtlander 35mm, FE85 1.4 all over Symi in my shoulder bag for 4 days, on and off ferries and up the loose stoney tracks of Symi.... uphill..... I have come to the conclusion that I took most of my pics with the M10 and 50mm combo. I had the ZM on the A7RIII and with these two cameras it fulfilled all my needs. If push came to shove I could have just taken the the M10, 50 and 25 and been done with it but it's nice not to have to keep changing lenses, especially when holidaying with another couple who are very patient with me and my picture taking ;)
 
There good tips Bobby, thank you

I played with the trial of AS, and I quite liked it, but I think it’s a little too much money for what it is (I also think the same about C1 Pro tbh which in Europe costs the equivalent of $405)
Yikes!!!

it's nice not to have to keep changing lenses
This is why I switched back the 16-55. Not having to change lenses will make a lot of what I shoot easier. It helps that the Fuji 16-55 has image quality equal to the Fuji primes.
 
Having lugged my Leica M10, 50mm Summilux, A7RIII ZM25, FE55, Voigtlander 35mm, FE85 1.4 all over Symi in my shoulder bag for 4 days, on and off ferries and up the loose stoney tracks of Symi.... uphill..... I have come to the conclusion that I took most of my pics with the M10 and 50mm combo. I had the ZM on the A7RIII and with these two cameras it fulfilled all my needs. If push came to shove I could have just taken the the M10, 50 and 25 and been done with it but it's nice not to have to keep changing lenses, especially when holidaying with another couple who are very patient with me and my picture taking ;)

If 70-80% of all the pictures I've taken in the past 4 years weren't at 50mm (or equivalent on APSC) I'd be very surprised... and probably about 75% of the remaining 20-30% (I think that makes sense..) would have been 35mm (or equivalent on APSC)

Luckily (sic) my Leica budget was such that my choices of 35 rit and 50 'cron mean these lenses are comparatively tiny and easy to stick one in a pocket and the other on the camera

I had a little go on the M10p in the store a coupe of weeks back... which was a bit silly for GAS as there's no way I'll be owning one anytime soon... I liked it more than I thought I would though...
 
If 70-80% of all the pictures I've taken in the past 4 years weren't at 50mm (or equivalent on APSC) I'd be very surprised... and probably about 75% of the remaining 20-30% (I think that makes sense..) would have been 35mm (or equivalent on APSC)

Luckily (sic) my Leica budget was such that my choices of 35 rit and 50 'cron mean these lenses are comparatively tiny and easy to stick one in a pocket and the other on the camera

I had a little go on the M10p in the store a coupe of weeks back... which was a bit silly for GAS as there's no way I'll be owning one anytime soon... I liked it more than I thought I would though...

I still have the M240 and actually find it easier to hold than the M10 even though it's a bit fatter, also the shutter is much nicer I think.
 
Nice comparison between the two.

I learned something new in C1 this weekend. Accidentally, yesterday I did a shoot in jpg instead of raw. I imported the images into C1 for some minor tweaking. And discovered that the ICC profile can be changed. Lightroom doesn't allow changing ICC profiles on jpgs.
 
Nice comparison between the two.

I learned something new in C1 this weekend. Accidentally, yesterday I did a shoot in jpg instead of raw. I imported the images into C1 for some minor tweaking. And discovered that the ICC profile can be changed. Lightroom doesn't allow changing ICC profiles on jpgs.

Thank you

I didn’t know that either! C1 has a lot of charm... it’s a great edition to fuji land
 
Adam, I have an idea for something to try in C1. Going back to when you were changing the exif on some Pro2 images so the editors saw them as Pro1 files. Import one of those into C1, so that C1 sees it as a Pro2 file. Then change the ICC profile to X-Pro1 generic. I'm curious how the result will look compared to what you have done already in the comparison. That is, if you have the time to do it.
 
Adam, I have an idea for something to try in C1. Going back to when you were changing the exif on some Pro2 images so the editors saw them as Pro1 files. Import one of those into C1, so that C1 sees it as a Pro2 file. Then change the ICC profile to X-Pro1 generic. I'm curious how the result will look compared to what you have done already in the comparison. That is, if you have the time to do it.

I like it!

Watch this space
 
C1E won't open then hacked files (incidentally nor does LR) :-(

bah!

EDIT

Changing the X-Pro2 files from X-Pro2 generic to X-Pro1 generic makes no visible changes to them at all
 
@Adam Bonn
Amazing body of work you have in here. I skimmed the entire thread during the day and read most of the ongoing review as well.

After having read numerous X-Pro2 reviews hardly any of them addressed if the camera actually has a soul to the same amount X-Pro1 had. I'm inclined to believe in such a thing after having shot X100T and XT1 for some time, and determining the X100T a clear winner in its purposeful design and all that. X-T1 didn't stand a chance!

Thanks to your great posts, I also gained good insight on how the camera performs with the OVF on. Your account of the ERF quirks was very valuable -- my hopes of it being a usable "rangefinder" tool with the Fuji focusing aids (split prism, focus peaking, whatnot) were somewhat crushed by this and following my GAS has alleviated a good bit. :)

I shall wait for the X-Pro3 if there ever will be one. The absolute killer thing would be to make the OVF usable in the sense you could use any adapted glass on it and the focus confirmation could somehow be conveyed on the OVF. It's a hard problem to solve, I'm sure.

Meanwhile I've been suffering from a Leica M bug too and it was a delight to read all of your opinions and comparisons on the subject matter. The fact is that X-Pro2 has kept its second-hand-market value pretty well, meaning that M9 is closing in on pretty fast. Granted, there's still multiple-thousand-buck gap between second-hand systems but it's starting to be in the low multiple thousands.

If you care to, I'd like to hear more about some minute differences between X-Pro2 and M bodies. Namely:

- metering the exposure: is M9's spot metering something you can forget about if you fix it it post or do you take your time to meter around your scene?
- shutter delays. I'm in the understanding that Leica is the king of managing a low delay. Especially with M9 that has the half-press quick trigger. How does the X-Pro2 compare?
 
@Adam Bonn
Amazing body of work you have in here. I skimmed the entire thread during the day and read most of the ongoing review as well.

After having read numerous X-Pro2 reviews hardly any of them addressed if the camera actually has a soul to the same amount X-Pro1 had. I'm inclined to believe in such a thing after having shot X100T and XT1 for some time, and determining the X100T a clear winner in its purposeful design and all that. X-T1 didn't stand a chance!

Thanks to your great posts, I also gained good insight on how the camera performs with the OVF on. Your account of the ERF quirks was very valuable -- my hopes of it being a usable "rangefinder" tool with the Fuji focusing aids (split prism, focus peaking, whatnot) were somewhat crushed by this and following my GAS has alleviated a good bit. :)

I shall wait for the X-Pro3 if there ever will be one. The absolute killer thing would be to make the OVF usable in the sense you could use any adapted glass on it and the focus confirmation could somehow be conveyed on the OVF. It's a hard problem to solve, I'm sure.

Meanwhile I've been suffering from a Leica M bug too and it was a delight to read all of your opinions and comparisons on the subject matter. The fact is that X-Pro2 has kept its second-hand-market value pretty well, meaning that M9 is closing in on pretty fast. Granted, there's still multiple-thousand-buck gap between second-hand systems but it's starting to be in the low multiple thousands.

If you care to, I'd like to hear more about some minute differences between X-Pro2 and M bodies. Namely:

- metering the exposure: is M9's spot metering something you can forget about if you fix it it post or do you take your time to meter around your scene?
- shutter delays. I'm in the understanding that Leica is the king of managing a low delay. Especially with M9 that has the half-press quick trigger. How does the X-Pro2 compare?

Thank you very much.

For my opinion the X-Pro2 doesn't have the soul to it's images that the X-Pro1 did.... but that's pretty subjective...

I dunno... how to explain... some of the best selling musicians of all time don't have technically great or maybe a better phrase would be limited range voices, but millions love the sound... the XP2 has a great range... the XP1 sings like ol' blue eyes ;-)

I think personally Fuji need to find a way of making either a transparent hybrid VF that means we get the OVF view but with focus peaking overlaid on top of the IRL view, or perhaps something where the part inside of the framelines is the EVF but the outside of the framelines is all optical...

I'm planning to bite the bullet (I once said I wouldn't - hopefully not publicly...) and write up a comparison of the M9 and the XP2.

The centre weighted metering on the M9 isn't terrible... most of the time... after some shots you get a sense (in aperture mode, where it actually tells you the SS in the VF) of whether what the camera has chosen is about right or not... The big score for me with the M9 is that the histogram you get in playback mode is from the DNG, so if it's important to me I usually confirm with that

As a very general rule of thumb the M is strong at all the things the XP2 isn't a vice versa

Shutter lag is a great example... the XP2 murders the M9 in shot to shot times. The M9 is tangibly quicker for a single shot. The M9 start up time and wake from auto-power off is superior too. (I'm talking fractions of a second here, but you notice it)

If you get an M9 make sure you get one with a replacement sensor.

If you run down to the Leica store and get an M10-P and a trinity of fast glass you'll spend decent second hand car money.

Buy an M9 and save the superfast glass for more modern cameras (ie stick to F2 and up*), get it all second hand you'll spend a shed load more than the Fuji, but it's a lot more palatable...

For example, I bought a new old stock 90mm F2.4 summarit (so it came with a 2 year warranty) and it was £20 more than a brand new Fuji XF90 F2. That's worth it in my book....

When I last checked in the UK decent second hand M9s are about 35% more than brand new X-Pro2s.... 35% is a big uplift, but if that's what the heart wants... it's doable... a lot more justifiable than a £6500 M10p anyway :)

The M9 really feels it's age... the build quality is high, but expect it to lag a little when engaging play back/menu. The LCD is frankly sh erm crap. The ISO is woeful, don't set it above 640 and see what you can get out of it in post (usually another stop or maybe two). The M9 OVF is nicer than the Fuji one (clearer, less distortion at the edges)

But at base ISO, it's still the only FF CCD camera in the world and the pictures really sing with soul!

*For my humble a opinion an M isn't about wide open everything... it's a documentary camera, you set the focus where you know what's in focus and use the OVF to wait for your moment.
 
Excellent set of images, Adam. Great job with the Pro1.

Some of your thoughts going into this shoot, about needing the performance of the X-Pro2, then going with the X-Pro1, remind me of how spoiled we are these days with modern cameras. I remember shooting film, when everything had to be done manually. Back then, we would have killed to have the performance of the X-Pro1.
 
Excellent set of images, Adam. Great job with the Pro1.

Some of your thoughts going into this shoot, about needing the performance of the X-Pro2, then going with the X-Pro1, remind me of how spoiled we are these days with modern cameras. I remember shooting film, when everything had to be done manually. Back then, we would have killed to have the performance of the X-Pro1.

Yes that’s very true Bobby,

I’ve since done one of these with the m9 too, which also made me wish I had the ‘driver aids’ of the X-Pro1 :D
 
For my opinion the X-Pro2 doesn't have the soul to it's images that the X-Pro1 did.... but that's pretty subjective...

I dunno... how to explain... some of the best selling musicians of all time don't have technically great or maybe a better phrase would be limited range voices, but millions love the sound... the XP2 has a great range... the XP1 sings like ol' blue eyes ;-)

Thanks for a great response! By the soul of the camera I more meant about the craftmanship and the design of the buttons and dials, and the features of the camera. :) X100T for example having a built-in ND filter and a tiny flash (removing the need to necessarily carry an external one, if you don't need it much) vs the X-T1 made it more a all-in-one package with careful thought put to the feature set. Things like automatic TTL flash compensation and face detection (of all things) worked better in X100T than in X-T1 which further entrenched the impression of a through-and-through well-designed and executed camera. Perhaps a sign of a camera having a soul to its own... :eek:

I think personally Fuji need to find a way of making either a transparent hybrid VF that means we get the OVF view but with focus peaking overlaid on top of the IRL view, or perhaps something where the part inside of the framelines is the EVF but the outside of the framelines is all optical...
[--]

I'd love to see some EVF/OVF hybrid solutions but the ultimate problem with true overlays of info is how the OVF will always be zero-lag and all digital overlays always have a delay by necessity. Probably needs very serious computing power to minimize the delays. Also needs very fast sensor readout speeds because a 100 ms delay definitely won't cut it.
 
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