#XF56 1.2

X-H1? Get One! ... If You Still Can

Don’t argue, just get one. Period. Fuji X-H1’s THE best interchangeable-lens APS-C camera Fuji made. Ever. And there ain’t many left, coz production stopped end of last year. But some shops still got some X-H1’s costing less than a grand, new! Y’all never gonna get such a bargain ever again! And I ain’t just talkin’, I got 3 of ‘em, crazy huh? Yeah, but the internet’s saying the X-H1’s no good … nonsense, I tell ya. Total BS, all that what you’re reading online, please take a look to find out why!

Two of a kind, captured on X-H1 with XF 90mm F/2 R WR @F/5.6, 1/240, ISO 400, developed in Capture 1

Thing is, at the moment Fuji’s going down the wrong rabbit hole. Their new X-T4 may be a fantastic featured camera but that damn selfie/vlogger fold-out LCD screen don’t cut it for me. And their new “pure photography” X-Pro3? That one’s got 2 new, useless features in one go: A crippled OVF and a “hidden” LCD screen. Jeezus … Done. I’m just NOT interested. Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitively not in a position to tell Fuji what to do (and I ain’t got no illusions whatsoever that they’d listen to me anyway …) hell, for all I know they may have found out that their future success & prosperity lies in offering:

  • Selfie/vlogger style video-centric cameras to the masses, and

  • Leica-esque fashion editions to a niche hipster crowd, made financially viable by compromising more mundane features only important to real photographers …

No problem. Go for it Fuji, but then you’re gonna lose me as a loyal customer - not that they’d care about that anyway, mind you … but they’d probably also lose a whole bunch of honest, serious still photographers in the process and that could cause a dent in their business! It would be such a shame, though. Creating no-nonsense cameras for serious photographers, with focus on still imagery was always Fuji’s heritage (“DNA” in business-speak). For me they were until today the only brand left, which was creating real photography tools, combining modern digital imaging technology with a traditional ‘exposure triangle’ user interface (aperture, shutter, ISO) based on tangible mechanical dials with always visible settings (even if the camera’s turned off). All the others have turned to churning out “computers”, where key settings pertaining to creating the photographic image are buried in multi-layered menus. Sometimes it seems that for some modern cameras taking the picture is more of a kinda afterthought, like “and oh, by the way it does take a picture too, at least now and then …”

After only just having launched their latest 2 flagship cameras (X-Pro3 & X-T4), which IMO both have veered off from the traditional path by inconsistent featuring, it’s gonna be at least 2-3 years until they come up with the next gen. X-Pro4 or X-T5, or whatever. Then it’s gonna be anybody’s guess whether they’ll wake up & come to their collective senses in using that opportunity to reconnect to their heritage, or just hatch out another crazy un-photographic “innovation”. So, y’all now got enough time to cure yourselves of GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) and just enjoy the good stuff Fuji’s blessed us with up to now (eg. X-Pro2, X-T3, X-H1 and X100V … ;-) and you don’t need to worry about your kit becoming obsolete any time soon!

All this seems kinda like a Déjà vu of my experience a long times ago with Nikon: I was running around in the 80’s as a journalist with 2 battered, fully mechanical Nikon F2’s and 4-5 primes. Man I loved that gear (weather resistant? Hell no, it was bomb-resistant! ;-) And then Nikon went along and launched the electronic F3. Oh man, was I pissed - in that era I sure didn’t trust no electronics (like many of my pro photographer buddies of the time, btw!) - they always seemed to run out of juice when you had no fresh button battery cells on you, forcing you to “limp” along with the 1/60 sec emergency mechanical shutter speed. For me Nikon just went downhill after the mighty F2 …

Façade in shadows, X-H1 with XF 90mm F/2 R WR @F/8, 1/600 sec, ISO 400, developed in Capture 1

Meanwhile, since the end of the last century the advent of mass produced highly integrated digital circuitry, including microprocessor based functions, has made electronic cameras extremely reliable (no moving parts, no wear & less production faults due to fully automated wafer fab’s). Way more reliable than their mechanical counterparts of yesteryear ever had been, in fact. You just gotta make sure you always got enough charged batteries on you (and that there’s somewhere an electrical outlet at hand to charge ‘em). An electronic camera w/o batteries = dead in the water! No juice, no pictures (and your fancy camera just became an expensive paperweight! ;-)

Back to the X-H1: For me it is simply the best interchangeable-lens APS-C camera in the market. Like my Nikon F2 was so long ago, the X-H1 seems to be the last of a golden age, with all that coming after her being under par in my opinion. Now, what is it specifically that puts the X-H1 above the others? For me it’s the balanced combination of 5 (not more, not less) key features:

  1. Best visual interface: Fluid 0.75x mag. EVF with high eye-point & lightning fast tilt-able LCD
    - ideal for flexible, fast subject viewing & composition, making image pre-visualization a joy!

  2. Perfectly positioned ‘feather touch‘ shutter with zero time-lag & traditional exposure dials
    - allowing me to capture the decisive moment instantaneously, discretely and intuitively!

  3. Slightly increased body size (vs. other APS-C cameras), with a larger highly ergonomic grip
    - perfectly fits my medium sized hands & the pronounced grip makes for totally safe holding!

  4. IBIS (in-body-image-stabilization), allows 3-4 stops slower shutter speed than 1/focal length
    - perfect for street & scenic twilight photography w/o tripod, when the light is most beautiful!

  5. Super robust, weather resistant body (25% thicker chassis compared to eg. X-T3)
    - tight, ‘bomb-proof’ perception, infusing confidence & liberating me to focus on my images!

Feels like I’ve been re-united with my legendary Nikon F2 (albeit with a modern heart!). See below image: I could capture the moment immediately when I saw it, framing it by quickly folding out the LCD screen (lifting the camera up to my eye would’ve ruined the spontaneity & lost the image), and having IBIS on board meant I could still capture a sharp image despite the bad lighting conditions!

Evening coffee, seen with X-H1 and XF 35mm F/1.4 R @F/2, 1/45 sec, ISO 800, developed in Capture 1

At first when I got my first X-H1 begin 2019 I thought it’s not really a pretty camera. But meanwhile I’ve come to appreciate its rugged, no-nonsense design & grown to love its intuitive & fast operation. And the sound of the mechanical shutter. Just gorgeous. It’s heaven! (Yeah, I know that don’t get you better images, but it sure makes the process of creating ‘em more enjoyable & satisfying!) In fact, I’ve grown so happy with my X-H1 that I now got 3 of ‘em (yes, three! The last 2 acquired recently for less than 800 bucks a pop - my favorite dealer seems to have built a secret stash of them somewhere when Fuji’d announced the phasing out of the X-H1 ;-)

OK OK, I hear some of youse out there sounding off about what kinda nutcase I must be buying ‘borderline obsolete’ cameras, where production’s already stopped … Let me me say this to that: I don’t give a rat’s ass! I don’t need the latest and the greatest, I need a photographer’s camera. A no-nonsense image taking tool w/o aspirational, fancy (video-centric) features that get in my way. That’s the X-H1 right there for me. You don’t like my advice? No problem, I’m not forcing you, it’s a free world after all. Do what you want, go somewhere else & be happy! Why having several of the same cameras? Think that’s an old habit from my analogue film days: I needed 2 cameras to allow me to use high & low sensitivity film in parallel to adjust to changing lighting conditions (and have a backup in case of some mechanical malfunction). In the digital age it’s more because I hate changing lenses to prevent dust entering the camera and ending up on the sensor. Those of youse know me know I’m kinda paranoid about that. The shrinks even got a name for it: “amathophobia”, derived from the greek words “amathos” = sand, and its diminutive form as dust & “phobos” = fear, i.e. “fear of dust” (and with me that psycho condition’s highly specialized: I just get it in relation to a camera sensor. Any other kind of dust, I couldn’t care … ;-)

So I keep 2 of my favorite primes, the XF 23mm F/1.4 and the XF 56mm F/1.2 like permanently glued to my X-H1’s. All fits in a compact Lowe Pro Inverse 200 AW belt pack weighing in at just about 3 kg (including spare batteries, cards, etc.). Not too bad!

Ok, I think that those of you patient enough to follow my ramblings up to here might fancy a small reward now! So, below I’ll share my preferred X-H1 function button allocations, optimized after many hours of trial & error playing around with the camera ;-). Note that the X-H1 has the highest number of customizable function buttons of all Fuji cameras (13), coz it’s got a D-Pad AND a touch screen LCD (both with 4 function slots)! This setup is also aligned with the setups of my X-Pro2’s and my X100V, allowing me to have an as much as possible standardized user interface across all my camera types (X-H. X-Pro, X100 and GFX):

See here the function button allocations more in detail:

  • Fn1: EXPOSURE COMPENSATION. toggles the exposure compensation via the front dial on/off

  • Fn2: FACE/EYE DETECTION SETTING. brings up face/eye detection menu (joystick to select)

  • Fn3: IS MODE. cycle IS (image stabilisation) mode from continuous to shooting only to off

  • Fn4: PLAYBACK. playback button on the right-hand side of the camera (like X-Pro2 & X100V)

  • Fn5: AF MODE. select AF-mode (SINGLE POINT > ZONE > WIDE/TRACKING > ALL)

  • Fn6: ELECTRONIC LEVEL. for quick check if camera’s level to prevent needing to crop in post

  • T-Fn1: SHUTTER TYPE. quick change of shutter type, eg. from electronic ES to mechanical MS

  • T-Fn2: ISO AUTO SETTING. quick change between 3 auto ISO settings (also via rear dial)

  • T-Fn3: D RANGE PRIORITY. don’t often need this but good to have

  • T-Fn4: NATURAL LIVE VIEW. I use ACROS-R film simulation, this is good to see the shadows

  • AE-L: AE LOCK ONLY. used to lock the auto exposure when needed

  • AF-ON: AF-ON. to activate back-button autofocus

  • R-DIAL: FOCUS CHECK. quick zoom in to check the focus

With these function button allocations I have an intuitive & fast user interface fully aligned with my way of making images. Please try it out & let me know if & how this works for you!

Summarizing, the X-H1 is IMO the best interchangeable lens APS-C camera Fuji ever made. It has no-nonsense ergonomics perfectly optimized for pro level still photography. The larger grip facilitates a cramp-free & safe holding even for longer photo sessions. The highly customisable intuitive user interface allows you to set the camera up so it gets outta your way when crafting your images. Last but not least its robust design will ensure you’ll always have a reliable photo companion with you for many years of photographic fun! Get one … If you still can, you won’t regret it!

Please be invited to join the discussion in the comments section below or leave me a PM on my about page, many thanks for visiting & supporting my blog. I hope y’all had an enjoyable read!

Take care & be safe!

Cheers

Hendrik

If you like you can support me by sending me a small donation via PayPal.me/hendriximages ! Helps me run this site & keeps the information coming, many thanks in advance!

Fuji RAW Worms - Has Adobe Finally Nailed It?

Got worms? Then you must be photographing in RAW with Fuji cameras and gotten suckered into a life-long relationship with Adobe’s Creative Cloud subscription model (just like me ;-) Don’t worry, you ain’t gotta take no nasty medicine anymore to get rid of them worms, coz I got good news for ya! Please read on if interested and join the discussion below in the comments …

The Hof Garden in Bayreuth, captured on Fuji X-H1 with XF 56mm F/1.2 @F/8 1/20sec ISO 200, ACROS-R JPEG

Adobe seems to have gotten their act together!? Finally … So, you may not need to get a divorce & ditch that subscription after all (they probably ain’t gonna let no-one escape anyway … ;-) Anyways, at the end of the day Photoshop and Lightroom are still the global standard when it comes down to pro digital asset management & post processing

But before discussing the cure let’s first understand the problem (for those of youse new to Fuji or contemplating joining the Fuji family). Simply put digital sensors are comprised of millions of photo sites (“pixels”) which measure the amount of light (number of photons) hitting them. To allow the camera to see the world in color the sensor is overlaid by a color filter array (CFA) of red, green and blue color filters in a distinctive repetitive arrangement, allowing the camera software to recompile the light levels into color information. This reconstructing of the full color information from the individual pixels is called “Demosaicing”. Obviously the demosaicing algorithm needs to match the arrangement of the color filters, otherwize you will not get the image you saw thru the viewfinder …

Color Filter Arrays used in digital camera sensors:
Fuji vs. the rest of the world (note the green “X” ;-)

All makers of digital cameras use a so-called “Bayer” color filter arrangement (repeating a 2 by 2 pixel pattern of 2 green, 1 red and 1 blue filters). Hang on, ALL makers of digital cameras? No. Fuji has implemented a different arrangement of color filters, repeating an alternating 3 by 3 pixel pattern of 5 green, 2 red and 2 blue filters, they call “X-Trans” (the “X” referring to the X-formed arrangement of the green photo sites)

Fuji claims this “X-Trans” arrangement delivers a more “film-like” rendering due to the less regular pattern and better performance than the Bayer arrangement, especially improving the micro-contrast due to the higher percentage of green pixels (55% vs. 50%). See here for more information. Demosaicing software optimized for the Bayer CFA layout (as used in Adobe’s Camera RAW converter at the heart of Lightroom & Photoshop CC) can cause trouble when applied to the X-Trans CFA layout, especially with small repetitive patterns, like foliage & brick structures

Now here’s the thing: I think that Fuji’s proprietary CFA layout is not even fully managed by their own in-camera demosaicing algorithm (albeit becoming visible only at more extreme magnifications). When you enlarge the below in-camera converted JPEG to a magnification corresponding to an approx. 20x30 inch / A1 size enlargement you can start to actually see the “worms”:

Fuji’s in camera JPEG conversion’s got worms!

Fuji’s in camera JPEG conversion’s got worms!

At mural sized prints (as I do for exhibitions) you will see these painterly, wormy artefacts (see the bridge railing and the mushy area in the upper left quadrant of the above image- there should have been some branches visible there)! Don’t get me wrong - you’ll probably never have any problem with images prepared for web viewing or normal sized enlargements, using printers up to 13”x19” / A3+ size when viewing them at normal viewing distance. But for big enlargements using JPEG’s is no option anymore. For anything above 12”x17” / A3 size you gotta go RAW. Unfortunately Adobe’s Camera Raw converter don’t do much better either, see the image below - in my opinion not much different compared to the in-camera JPEG conversion:

Adobe Camera RAW’s conversion also got worms!

Adobe Camera RAW’s conversion also got worms!

You can see the vertical rods of the railing are partly obscured by foliage and the branches in the upper left quadrant are still not visible. Not good, I’m afraid this even happens with the sharpening settings optimized for X-Trans (low “amount” & high “detail”)! So, what to do? Apart from using external RAW converters known to work satisfactorily with the X-Trans sensor layout, like Iridient or RAW Therapee there is for me only one bit of software which has a good X-Trans demosaicing performance, while combining RAW conversion and image management (I really don’t like having to split my workflow over separate bits of software …): Capture One Pro. Let’s see how that fares:

Capture One Pro. Less “wormy” but a little bit too harsh for my fancy …

Capture One Pro. Less “wormy” but a little bit too harsh for my fancy …

From my point of view it’s better - the vertical rods of the railing are now barely visible and you can see a hint of the branches in the upper left quadrant, but the it does look somewhat harsh now (also here I used my preferred settings but left out the grain to be comparable to the other images). To be fair I’ve happily been using Capture One for a while now as my preferred “heavy duty” solution for large printing (A3+ & larger). But I gotta say I’m not completely happy with Capture One’s user interface - maybe that’s because I mainly use Fuji’s in-camera converted JPEGs (for around 90% of my work) and am therefore used to Lightroom’s interface & workflow. Using Lightroom and Capture One in parallel means that I also need to maintain 2 separate catalogues and processed image folders on my MacBook Pro. So, when Adobe released their new “Enhance Details” feature end February this I was naturally intrigued & curious if it would do better with X-Trans images! See below the result, straight outta Lightroom, using Enhance Details (this creates a DNG in the same catalogue as a new “digital negative” which can be further processed in Lightroom just like a RAW file):

Adobe Camera Raw’s new Enhance Details feature

Adobe Camera Raw’s new Enhance Details feature

In my opinion this is far better than the previous examples, the bridge railing and the foliage have a more natural look. And you can now see the branches in the upper left quadrant (directly below the words “Enhance Details” ;-)! For my workflow this means I can process my ACROS JPEG’s as usual and apply Enhance Details with subsequent RAW development of the DNG file for those images earmarked for big enlargement / fine-art printing. Finally Adobe seems to have listened to us Fuji photographers, the results achievable with the “Enhance Details” feature are impressive! There’s only two caveats: 1. Enhance Details needs a lot of computing power (30-40 sec on a reasonably fast 2016 MacBook Pro), so those of youse with older machines might need to go out for lunch while batch processing the results of your latest photo-shoot … ;-) 2. the Enhance Details adds a DNG file to your drive for each processed image which is approx. 50% larger (around 150MB) than an average Fuji RAW file, eating up your disk space at an alarming rate!

Here the same image as before, developed by ACR Enhance Details into a DNG and processed to taste in Lightroom:

The same image developed from the Fuji RAW file, using Adobe ACR´s Enhance Details feature!

Another example with many small details in the grass & foliage:

Contre-jour image of trees in Bayreuth’s Hof Garden, captured on XF 56mm F/1.2 R @F/5.6, 1/140 sec, 400 ISO

I hope this post was interesting for you & y’all could get something from it for your own photography. Enjoy your Sunday & wish you all the best for your photographic endeavours,

Many thanks for visiting, please leave me a comment below if you have any questions or feedback, best regards

Hendrik

If you like you can support me by sending me a small donation via PayPal.me/hendriximages ! Helps me run this site & keeps the information coming, many thanks in advance!

JPEG's ... A Fool's Paradise?

I LOVE Fuji's JPEG’s. Unconditionally. On one of my recent Blog posts praising (again ;-) the qualities of Fuji ACROS JPEG’s, someone commented: “RAW is the answer. Only a fool relies on the severely limited JPEG’s”. So I thought I might take a closer look at my Fool’s paradise ;-) and compare one of those beloved ACROS JPEG’s to the RAW version processed in Capture One Pro 12. Please read on if interested …

A sunlit façade in Bayreuth’s town centre, Fuji X-H1 with XF 56mm f/1.2 @f/8, ACROS-R JPEG processed in LR

It was 0730 hrs when I came across this façade illuminated by the first rays of the morning sun, giving it a glowing, nearly transparent look. After some shuffling & jostling around to find the best perspective (ya gotta be fast, coz the light changes fast at this time of the day ;-) I captured the image on my X-H1 in RAW+ACROS-R JPEG with +0.7 EV compensation. Normally Fuji’s ACROS JPEG’s are just amazing - a little curves and levels adjustments in Lightroom and you ‘re good to go. Instant art. Great images in no time!

However, when I pulled this image into Lightroom it kinda didn’t replicate the scene as I’d visualized it during capture. Everybody knows RAW files got more latitude, so I thought I’d try “fool” around a bit in Capture One Pro 12 and see if I could get closer to my original vision of the scene: A sunlit façade with that delicate, transparent look! See the result below:

The same façade, now as RAW processed in Capture One Pro 12. More as I’d originally visualized it!

What’s different here is that I could keep the light tones of the façade lighter than on the JPEG by flattening the highlight shoulder of the tone curve. This resulted in a greater separation to the dark foreground, giving the image that transparent look. Another key factor supporting this is the possibility to selectively darken the sky on the top left by reducing sensitivity in the Cyan and Blue channels and darkening the roof by reducing sensitivity in the red channel in Capture One’s Black & White tool (without affecting the tonality of the other colors). Try covering up the sky portion with your hand and you’ll see what I mean! No sir, this don’t work on the JPEG, but it does take quite a bit of time to get there. Below you can see 100% crops of the JPEG and RAW images side-by-side:

ACROS-R JPEG - more contrast & tonal seperation!

RAW work-out in Capture One Pro - transparent!

So you gotta choose: Either fast and good (JPEG) or slow and better (RAW ;-) … Which one d’you you like better? Yeah, many try to replicate their JPEG’s with the RAW files, but I think that defeats the purpose, each approach has its merits. As for me, I do like both, each image has its own distinct character - the ACROS JPEG with more tonal contrast, but having experienced the real scene the more subtle RAW image more closely represents my original impression of lightness & transparency!

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below or leave me a private message in my “About” page. Peace be with you & wish y’all a wonderful Easter celebration! Thanks for visiting & reading, best regards

Hendrik

I hope this post was helpful / interesting for you - If you like you can support me by sending me a small donation via PayPal.me/hendriximages ! Helps me run this site & keeps the information coming, many thanks in advance!