Official Fuji X-Pro 2 thread

Well Fuji delivered, they sent a replacement hand grip which arrived today, plus they sent me one of the X pro 2 pre order straps, excellent customer service. I'm well chuffed. They seem to be continuing the trend of world class service, whether it's software upgrades or response to customer concerns, they put the big two to shame. Now if they can only release a software upgrade to enable 4k video on the XP2 :whistle:
 
One from my recent trip to Suffolk. This is Flatford Mill, in Constable Country, taken with the X-Pro2 and 18-55 in raw, processed in Lightroom using the Acros preset.

Flatford Mill by Stephen Lee, on Flickr
 
Stephen L said:
One from my recent trip to Suffolk. This is Flatford Mill, in Constable Country, taken with the X-Pro2 and 18-55 in raw, processed in Lightroom using the Acros preset.

Flatford Mill by Stephen Lee, on Flickr
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That's very nice Stephen, well framed and with a full range of mono tones.(y)

George.
 
Hmmm. I appear to have joined the ranks of the xpro 2 owners!

I sold all my Canon kit last year to buy the Leica Q, fed up with lugging the 5D3 and assorted lenses around. As luck would have it, I couldn't buy the Q for love nor money as they were in short supply, so I bought a X100T as a stop gap to keep me going (already own the original X100, but just a little too sluggish for me).

Long story short, I really liked the X100T, but did grow frustrated with the single lens, so clearly suffering from heat stroke, I headed down to Park Cameras in Burgess Hill to try to xpro2 and ended up walking away with the body and 23mm and 56mm lenses to boot.

Now for the dilemma - having played with the camera, I duly loaded the raw images into Lightroom, and again, as I have done so many times, watched all the beautiful images slowly revert to the insipid colour versions. On a whim, I decided to load the pictures from the jpeg only card, and, well now I'm suffering a crisis of confidence!

I actually really liked the jpeg files - the only edit I did was a bit of cropping to a couple of the pictures. I know I can select the profiles etc to bring the raws back to something close, but something was stopping me. I sat staring at 'the other card', the one with all the infinitely recoverable raw files on thinking I should import it - 'just in case', but after hours of heroic internal deliberation not seen since the days of Solomon, I formatted it. They were gone - I was naked, exposed and out on a limb. I HAD ONLY JPEG files.

Going cold turkey after a decade long raw habit is hard. My god... what have I done!
 
Furtim said:
Hmmm. I appear to have joined the ranks of the xpro 2 owners!

I sold all my Canon kit last year to buy the Leica Q, fed up with lugging the 5D3 and assorted lenses around. As luck would have it, I couldn't buy the Q for love nor money as they were in short supply, so I bought a X100T as a stop gap to keep me going (already own the original X100, but just a little too sluggish for me).

Long story short, I really liked the X100T, but did grow frustrated with the single lens, so clearly suffering from heat stroke, I headed down to Park Cameras in Burgess Hill to try to xpro2 and ended up walking away with the body and 23mm and 56mm lenses to boot.

Now for the dilemma - having played with the camera, I duly loaded the raw images into Lightroom, and again, as I have done so many times, watched all the beautiful images slowly revert to the insipid colour versions. On a whim, I decided to load the pictures from the jpeg only card, and, well now I'm suffering a crisis of confidence!

I actually really liked the jpeg files - the only edit I did was a bit of cropping to a couple of the pictures. I know I can select the profiles etc to bring the raws back to something close, but something was stopping me. I sat staring at 'the other card', the one with all the infinitely recoverable raw files on thinking I should import it - 'just in case', but after hours of heroic internal deliberation not seen since the days of Solomon, I formatted it. They were gone - I was naked, exposed and out on a limb. I HAD ONLY JPEG files.

Going cold turkey after a decade long raw habit is hard. My god... what have I done!
Click to expand...

Shoot RAW + JPG. If you really need to recover one of the shots then you can.
 
The untouched raw ones do look flat, but contrary to some opinions Lightroom does a good job with X-Pro2 files. The jpegs are good, but I just can't bring myself to use them, as I find it much easier to tweak the raws.

PS it's usually possible to recover camera-formatted cards (if they've only been formatted once since the "missing" files) as the camera doesn't do a full format. Sandisk and Lexar both supply recovery utilities, and there are commercially available ones also.
 
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I have to admit if I could get the JPEG's a bit closer to my liking I'd be tempted to just use them more, however I'm not sure if its my in-camera settings or maybe my shooting style but I tend to prefer playing with the RAW's.
I've found Lightroom to be good and having the Film Simulations is nice too! Just bought Irident Developer though as it seems to get top marks for X-Trans processing, need to get to grips with it now!
 
twist said:
Shoot RAW + JPG. If you really need to recover one of the shots then you can.
Click to expand...

The key for me is being able to 'let go' of the raw 'safety net'. I've not significantly tweaked a shot in Lightroom for donkeys years - it was not always the case, I used to love that aspect, but latterly, I find it a chore; I spend more time trying to get the image I want in Camera, and to have to 'do it again' when the raw file is ingested.

Stephen L said:
The untouched raw ones do look flat, but contrary to some opinions Lightroom does a good job with X-Pro2 files. The jpegs are good, but I just can't bring myself to use them, as I find it much easier to tweak the raws.

PS it's usually possible to recover camera-formatted cards (if they've only been formatted once since the "missing" files) as the camera doesn't do a full format. Sandisk and Lexar both supply recovery utilities, and there are commercially available ones also.
Click to expand...

No problem with Lightroom's rendition, although I did but Irident when I first bought the X100T and it did do a slightly better job at the time. Not sure there's much of a gap now, but as I said above, I don't tend to do much in LR anyway.

chrism_scotland said:
I have to admit if I could get the JPEG's a bit closer to my liking I'd be tempted to just use them more, however I'm not sure if its my in-camera settings or maybe my shooting style but I tend to prefer playing with the RAW's.
I've found Lightroom to be good and having the Film Simulations is nice too! Just bought Irident Developer though as it seems to get top marks for X-Trans processing, need to get to grips with it now!
Click to expand...

You can (or could) download the in camera film simulations for Irident too.

I think overall, I'm going to shoot raw + jpeg, but only import the jpeg files into Lightroom. If during the culling there's a particular shot I want to push, I can always refer to the raw file on the other card, but I'll likely delete them after the initial review. This is a big change for me; I've 10+ years of raw files in my Lightroom catalogue, but I might as well use this opportunity change my workflow and focus more in the in camera look as that's where I am in my particular journey.
 
I used to have a Nikon D300 and D700. I currently have an X100. Anyone use the x-pro2 camera for the one off action shot? I'm not interested in burst, etc. Just want this body and lens to focus quick enough for a single shot without tracking.
 
Has anyone used the xp2 with the 100-400 for bif yet, using the ovf?

I love my xp1s but they're crap for moving targets and for me, dropping this much money on a new body it needs to do more than people and landscapes. I thought using the ovf with zone tracking may work with the 100-400 +tc.

I was holding out for an xt2 but I prefer the xp bodies.
 
bumper said:
Has anyone used the xp2 with the 100-400 for bif yet, using the ovf?

I love my xp1s but they're crap for moving targets and for me, dropping this much money on a new body it needs to do more than people and landscapes. I thought using the ovf with zone tracking may work with the 100-400 +tc.

I was holding out for an xt2 but I prefer the xp bodies.
Click to expand...

I'm curious about this as well. I still want the possibility of this range despite my desire for mainly primes.
 
texfoto said:
I'm curious about this as well. I still want the possibility of this range despite my desire for mainly primes.
Click to expand...
Glad I'm not the only one:D

I love the 100-400 but it's not suited to the xp1, I've been using the xt10 with the lens,even the focusing on that feels light years ahead of the xp1.

I want the xp2 but it needs to be useable with the lens. I think the ovf may help with wider tracking with birds than the evf, by the time focus has locked on with the xp1 on the lens with the tc, the bird is in another county:LOL:
 
Yeah, that's what I fear. I have an X100 now but I'm looking at either getting back into Nikon or going smaller with the Fuji lineup. Low light is also something I want the ability to do. I'm asking for a lot, I know.
 
As ever with a new toy, I was sitting in the kitchen playing with my new X-Pro 2 and 56mm lens when Ollie came wandering in for food (as teenagers do!).

I asked him to look up from the sandwich based snack he was peparing, and sneaked this shot. Turned out quite well for a candid - I think I'm going to like this new setup.


Ollie (candid) by David Thompson, on Flickr
 
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One week on

It has been a week since I bought the X-Pro 2, so I thought I'd update any prospective purchasers with my feelings / feedback after a bit of use.

For context, I'm just a hobbyist, having shot predominantly Canon for the last decade, most recently the 5D3 and some decent glass. With the X-Pro, I'm using the 23mm f/1.4, 56mm f/1.2 and 90mm f/2

Let's start with the niggles...
  • The ISO dial - lots of press around this already, but when I first picked up the camera, I thought it was a lot of fuss about nothing, in fact I quite liked it. Having used it for a week though, it's annoying. I typically only change the ISO in low light situations and in low light situations it's impossible to read the numbers on the dial.
  • The battery life - This thing eats batteries. Wandering around Brighton yesterday morning shooting and in around an hour and a half, I'd used 43% of the battery. Perhaps that's not bad, I can't really be sure, but my reference point was the Canon 5D3 and those things lasted forever. Now it may be because the battery I had in camera was one of the ExPro clones rather than the OEM, or because the battery display is more granular (down to 1% variations). That said, I bought 4 spare batteries from ExPro for under £40 from Amazon, so it's not a massive issue.
  • Not really the X-Pro 2's issue, but getting a raw + jpeg workflow in Lightroom is a nightmare! I want to use the jpeg files as the 'master' and only refer to the raw if I want to push it, but it's really clunky.
Now onto the things that have wow'ed me.
  • The AF - but I'll caveat this my saying I'm not talking sports shooter here. People, pets and places is my bag, and this nails it every time - better than my 5D3 ever did, and I think this is down to the fact that because it's mirrorless, it can account for any variations in individual lens performance - no need for micro adjustments as there were for the Canon glass. I really could not be happier with it's auto focus ability, which brings me on to the next point...
  • Manual Focus - another wow! The tools at your disposal are fantastic for manual focus. I've set it up for AF+M on the focus, which basically means you can (if you choose on a shot by shot basis), half press the shutter for AF, and then adjust with the manual focus on the lens if you want to be 100% sure. Combined with the AF Check facility, it automatically zooms in on the focus point in the EVF if you choose to turn the focus dial on the lens, and peak highlighting to give instant feedback on the areas of focus, it makes the workflow completely natural for me. I don't use manual focus often, but if the subject demands it, it is a completely natural action and the results have been amazing
  • The jpeg engine / film simulations - I've never ever use the in camera processing before, always into Lightroom, until now. The jpeg files are great, the looks are great and the in camera options are great! For now at least most of my images I'm using are jpegs, perhaps with a bit of cropping in post. I have the raw files still and will use them if needed, but for the moment, I'm enjoying more time on camera and less time on computer. The pictures from this camera are lovely.
  • The EVF - the one on the original X100 was innovative but unusable. No such issues with this one, and even though I thought it was the same one as in the X100T, it appears snappier to me - no perceptible lag to me. Because it accurately previews all the picture settings, exposure, DoF etc, I find it almost trivial to adjust the dials on the fly to get the look I want, without having to think too hard. This has resulted in a far higher keeper rate. I'll find myself dialing in the right amount of exposure comp without even thinking about it now for example.
  • The OVF - Also great, clear and bright. Of less use on the 90mm for obvious reasons, but it allows for viewing the wider scene beyond the frame. The overlays are crisp, clear and very usable. Perhaps the best thing here is the ability to switch between the OVF and the EVF at will to suit the circumstances, and the speed at which you can do so is slick now.
Onto the good...
  • The joystick for focus point selection works the same way as on the 5D3, and the 1D series and is something I am very happy to see come to the Fuji. Silly as it sounds, it was a factor in the decision to stick the the Canons in the past and a significant draw to choosing the X-Pro 2.
  • The size, while obviously bigger than my X100T, it's not too much bigger and it is significantly smaller and lighter than the old Canon kit. I can realistically carry the body and the three lenses around for a day without needing corrective surgery.
  • I like the rangefinder style. You're not hidden behind the camera, people can see your face, your mouth. It helps build rapport with the subject.
  • The way you can make pretty much any button do what you want or need it to do.
Overall - It's a very good camera and the fuji lenses are optically tight indeed, a great combination. I've only had it a week, but I can confidently say it's the 'least disappointing camera I've ever bought'. I say that slightly tongue in cheek, but normally after a week of so, some form of buyers remorse sets in, and I'l be disappointed with this aspect or that. There's very little to be disappointed with, and the results are well beyond what I was expecting. For once, I am truly happy with a bit of kit!
 
Thanks for the report. On the battery life, I have to say mine is much better than my X-T1, and that's without excessive use of the OVF, and using the very same batteries.
 
Furtim said:
One week on

It has been a week since I bought the X-Pro 2, so I thought I'd update any prospective purchasers with my feelings / feedback after a bit of use.

For context, I'm just a hobbyist, having shot predominantly Canon for the last decade, most recently the 5D3 and some decent glass. With the X-Pro, I'm using the 23mm f/1.4, 56mm f/1.2 and 90mm f/2

Let's start with the niggles...
  • The ISO dial - lots of press around this already, but when I first picked up the camera, I thought it was a lot of fuss about nothing, in fact I quite liked it. Having used it for a week though, it's annoying. I typically only change the ISO in low light situations and in low light situations it's impossible to read the numbers on the dial.
  • The battery life - This thing eats batteries. Wandering around Brighton yesterday morning shooting and in around an hour and a half, I'd used 43% of the battery. Perhaps that's not bad, I can't really be sure, but my reference point was the Canon 5D3 and those things lasted forever. Now it may be because the battery I had in camera was one of the ExPro clones rather than the OEM, or because the battery display is more granular (down to 1% variations). That said, I bought 4 spare batteries from ExPro for under £40 from Amazon, so it's not a massive issue.
  • Not really the X-Pro 2's issue, but getting a raw + jpeg workflow in Lightroom is a nightmare! I want to use the jpeg files as the 'master' and only refer to the raw if I want to push it, but it's really clunky.
Now onto the things that have wow'ed me.
  • The AF - but I'll caveat this my saying I'm not talking sports shooter here. People, pets and places is my bag, and this nails it every time - better than my 5D3 ever did, and I think this is down to the fact that because it's mirrorless, it can account for any variations in individual lens performance - no need for micro adjustments as there were for the Canon glass. I really could not be happier with it's auto focus ability, which brings me on to the next point...
  • Manual Focus - another wow! The tools at your disposal are fantastic for manual focus. I've set it up for AF+M on the focus, which basically means you can (if you choose on a shot by shot basis), half press the shutter for AF, and then adjust with the manual focus on the lens if you want to be 100% sure. Combined with the AF Check facility, it automatically zooms in on the focus point in the EVF if you choose to turn the focus dial on the lens, and peak highlighting to give instant feedback on the areas of focus, it makes the workflow completely natural for me. I don't use manual focus often, but if the subject demands it, it is a completely natural action and the results have been amazing
  • The jpeg engine / film simulations - I've never ever use the in camera processing before, always into Lightroom, until now. The jpeg files are great, the looks are great and the in camera options are great! For now at least most of my images I'm using are jpegs, perhaps with a bit of cropping in post. I have the raw files still and will use them if needed, but for the moment, I'm enjoying more time on camera and less time on computer. The pictures from this camera are lovely.
  • The EVF - the one on the original X100 was innovative but unusable. No such issues with this one, and even though I thought it was the same one as in the X100T, it appears snappier to me - no perceptible lag to me. Because it accurately previews all the picture settings, exposure, DoF etc, I find it almost trivial to adjust the dials on the fly to get the look I want, without having to think too hard. This has resulted in a far higher keeper rate. I'll find myself dialing in the right amount of exposure comp without even thinking about it now for example.
  • The OVF - Also great, clear and bright. Of less use on the 90mm for obvious reasons, but it allows for viewing the wider scene beyond the frame. The overlays are crisp, clear and very usable. Perhaps the best thing here is the ability to switch between the OVF and the EVF at will to suit the circumstances, and the speed at which you can do so is slick now.
Onto the good...
  • The joystick for focus point selection works the same way as on the 5D3, and the 1D series and is something I am very happy to see come to the Fuji. Silly as it sounds, it was a factor in the decision to stick the the Canons in the past and a significant draw to choosing the X-Pro 2.
  • The size, while obviously bigger than my X100T, it's not too much bigger and it is significantly smaller and lighter than the old Canon kit. I can realistically carry the body and the three lenses around for a day without needing corrective surgery.
  • I like the rangefinder style. You're not hidden behind the camera, people can see your face, your mouth. It helps build rapport with the subject.
  • The way you can make pretty much any button do what you want or need it to do.
Overall - It's a very good camera and the fuji lenses are optically tight indeed, a great combination. I've only had it a week, but I can confidently say it's the 'least disappointing camera I've ever bought'. I say that slightly tongue in cheek, but normally after a week of so, some form of buyers remorse sets in, and I'l be disappointed with this aspect or that. There's very little to be disappointed with, and the results are well beyond what I was expecting. For once, I am truly happy with a bit of kit!
Click to expand...


That's a very good and thorough user report David, and many thanks for taking the time to post it.(y)

George.
 
twist said:
Oh dear, what happened?
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Nothing dramatic. I've tried a few times to make the switch from DSLR to Fuji but after some real world testing yesterday shooting a big event I decided it still wasn't as capable as my D750. So it's gone today and I've picked up a used X100T as my Fuji guilty pleasure :D
 
UaeExile said:
Nothing dramatic. I've tried a few times to make the switch from DSLR to Fuji but after some real world testing yesterday shooting a big event I decided it still wasn't as capable as my D750. So it's gone today and I've picked up a used X100T as my Fuji guilty pleasure :D
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Same reason I use 2 systems. Enjoy the new camera (y)
 
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