Mark: there have been numerous reports, including at least one lens test, that indicates that the 18mm isn't better than Nick D's report. There is no single verifiable report that indicates a single Fuji 18mm is better than that. I think the reason is found in your first paragraph.
Image quality as such from the camera indeed seems superb.
Apparently Fuji will eventually release a 23/2 (after having sold off most of the X100 inventory) and that will probably be a great lens on the X Pro 1.
All cameras do. The gamut of most cameras is closer to Adobe RGB or even a bit larger in some areas. The question I guess is how those out-of-sRGB colours are mapped to sRGB when processing the JPGs.
I don't know exactly what Fuji's editor might be doing to determine that colours are out of gamut, *after* they have been mapped to sRGB. I suspect they just set a high threshold, like 250 or 255 possible values per channel, and flag anything higher than that, which is kinda lame, since they might be real colours.
Anyway, I would suspect the in-camera JPG processing here. Try with RAW and see if you can get a shot which isn't over-exposed in the reds, yet produces blown reds in JPG.
Btw, too powerful reds is very common for digital cameras. Canons are notorious for this, and I hated it in my 5D. I just couldn't get powerful reds with lots of tonality.
Unfortunately, Sean Reid's review has already noted that there is a likely issue with the X-Pro1 blowing out the red channel and the example in that link sort of corroborates this.
I don't know about bashing, but I think you are wrong here:
The Fuji is the winner here, simply because the 35/1.4 lens is sharper - the Canon 50/1.4 at f1.4 has some glow to it, a blurry veil, making the resolution rather bad.
The resolution of the 5D + 50/1.4 wide open is clearly a lot better in my eyes -- only the contrast is lower. The Fuji image looks oversharpened, with bright and dark sharpening haloes, but this is probably due to the fact that you're upscaling a jpeg image.
Anyway; IMO the "blurry veil" (spherical aberration) doesn't lower the resolution of fine details, but lowers the larger scale contrast. The "acutance" is lowered, but not the resolution.
AhamB - technically you are correct, the 5D actually has higher resolution, but an ugly resolution. However, the Fuji haloes are rather annoying, but overall, at f1.4, the Fuji wins. At all other apertures, the 5D is a clear winner!
Hope Lightroom soon will support the X-Pro1! Working on JPEGs are no fun...
This camera is way expensive for how many limitations it has.
At $1000, I would definitely consider it... but even then I'm not sure.
What limitations are those?
The XPro-1 has no real competitors - it's the only mirrorless autofocus camera with a built in optical viewfinder (and a EVF). Not sure why anyone would think that the complicated OVF setup shouldn't add cost relative to a OM-D or NEX-7 (both of which, of course, have their own 'limitations').
The XP-1 is not the wundercamera many were hoping - but short of being willing to haul around a D800, appears to be quite the winner where it counts (image quality).
A 5N with EVF is about $1200, IIRC. $2200 with the one excellent prime available - or almost exactly the cost of a XP1/35 combo.
Based on what I've seen, the XP1 is at least as good as the 5N - and you get a OVF to boot.
It's not a magic camera with the performance of a D800 in the body of a X100 - there are compromises with every camera (weight, features, cost, etc.). Compared to the 5N+EVF, NEX-7 and OM-D, the Fuji's price doesn't seem at all out of line.
At the end it depends on how much one is willing to pay for the OVF and accept its quirks.
5N+EVF cost $1050, XPro-1 cost $1700, is the OVF worth $650 at the expense of slower AF and not as good EVF? Not to me.
The XPro/35 is compelling, but you can probably get similar base iso performance with OM-D/25 with a much lower price tag ($2300 vs $1550), better high iso/OVF vs faster AF/smaller size, is the difference worth $750? Not to me
Like you said, everything is a compromise and it depends on what is important to one. If the price tag of XPro-1 can be lowered substantially, it will drastically change the equation and make it even more compelling.
Sony doesn't have a 35/1.4 and Fuji doesn't yet have a 23/2 out, so that's as close as the comparison gets. Each is the flagship lens of its line.
So a 5N+EVF+ZA is $2100 - $200 cheaper than a XP1, sans OVF and with a hotshoe EVF (a dealbreaker for me, personally). I don't see this as a radical price disparity in favor of Sony. The controls of the XP1 are also quite valuable to me.
miloz, you mean I have to buy lenses too?! The high cost of the ZA 24mm is what makes the Fuji price competitive with the Sony.
I like native lenses on these cameras, so I'd probably never buy a Sony. The X-Pro1 with all three lenses does still come out to about $900 more than an OM-D with the 12, 25, and 45mm prime lenses. So the tough call is whether that premium is worthwhile or not... It mostly comes down to better controls, high ISO image quality, and an optical VF versus smaller body, larger lens selection, IBIS, faster AF, and lower price.
Maybe will have to see but I don't see these images being better than a NEX-7 and the NEX lens roadmap should be pretty competitive.
In fact, once someone has both, I would love to see if the XPro1 does better than a NEX-7 in resolved resolution and down sampled noise. Remember when the 7 is downsampled, it's very similar to a 5N.
The outstanding EVF on NEX is worth a lot more to me than the OVF in the XPro1 so far because I use manual lenses.
Of the Fuji lenses, only one seems exceptional just like NEX. So far, it seems AF is far faster on NEX as well as having facial tracking.
Mar 26, 2012 at 01:58 PM
Steve Spencer Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: On
FlyPenFly wrote:
The IQ doesn't all that much better from all the samples I've seen so far than a very good modern camera.
Maybe someone needs to do a 1:1 with a 5N?
I'm just not seeing the mind blowing image quality to justify the price.
I personally don't see the huge difference in price once you buy a few lenses. After a little research at B & H I put a few kits together to compare.
Fuji X-Pro 1 (($1,699; 451g) with 35mm f/1.4 ($599; 187g) & 60mm f/2.4 macro lens ($649; 215g) - Total cost $2947; total weight 853g
NEX 5N ($599; 267g); external viewfinder ($349; 26g) with ZM 35mm f/2 lens ($1005; 240g) & Leica R 60mm f/2.8 macro lens ($640 - priced a Jim Colwell's lensdata base; 400g) Total cost $2,593; total weight 933g
NEX 7 ($1199; 292g) with ZM 35mm f/2 lens ($1005; 240g) & Leica R 60mm f/2.8 macro lens ($640 - priced a Jim Colwell's lensdata base; 400g) Total cost $2,844; total weight 989g
Olympus OM-D ($999; 430g) with Panny Leica 25mm f/1.4 ($539; 200g) & Panny Leica 45mm f/2.8 macro lens ($669; 225g) Total cost $2208; total weight 855g
Given these comparisons I don't think the price of a camera kit is all that high or that a Fuji X-pro kit would be all that big. If you think the price is too high compared to a NEX 5N, you could just as easily say that the price of the NEX 5N is too high compared to an OM-D. I know there is a difference between M4/3 and 1.5 crop, but still we aren't talking a huge amount of money in my book and if you add a lens or two in addition to the above the Fuji kit could end up being cheaper than the NEX kit.
So for me, at least at this point, price is not a big influence on which kit I would be interested in buying, but IQ potentially is. Although it is way too early to tell about IQ yet, IMO. We can start to compare the lenses listed above, but even that is hard until we can start to process Fuji shots in raw. There are still lots of questions that we can't answer yet like how will the Fuji 23 f/2 compare to the Zeiss 24 f/1.8 on the NEX 5N or 7, an how will the Fuji 14 f/2.8 compare to the CV 15 f/4.5 on the NEX 5N. I can make guesses (I expect the Fuji 14 to be better than the CV 15, but obviously the Fuji 14 isn't even out yet. I also expect that the Zeiss 24 will be better than the Fuji 23 f/2, but again this is rank speculation). IMO, it will be quite awhile before we can compare the systems even close to fully, but I am still willing to bet there won't be a clear winner in performance or in price. Maybe I am wrong about that, but I will be surprised if it works out that way.
Of course figuring into the lens price the difference is smaller, but don't forget that the lens usually retain its value pretty well in the used market, while the body's value drop significantly when the replacement model come. So, the actual cost of using a system in a certain time period is probably closer to the New price - Used price formula, which weight heavily towards the body price depreciation. Fuji's lens price is pretty reasonable (except for the 18/2 IMHO), but I would hesitate to drop $1700 on a APSC body. But that's just me
