@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.