The Official Fuji X10/X20/X30/XF1/XQ1 Thread

DuncanDisorderly said:
Pete,
On my monitor, your first image looks bang on....
The second looks too warm, and the third looks blue.
Click to expand...

You make my point set out in the preamble: you weren't there and so must be making a judgement based on what the snow scene should look like given the thousands you have seen and/or created yourself. You 'know' how it should look.

For the last five years or so, my sister has given me the task of photographing the multi-coloured quilts she creates and raffles off for charity. She asks me to run off 20 or 30 prints that she can hand out to the interested parties. Before the X10 (which I haven't yet used for the task), all I had was my first digital, a simple "point and shoot" Lumix given to me by friends.

My first efforts involved checking that things 'looked right' in the LCD, and coming home to reproduce the colours as exactly as I could with the printer. That was hopeless, at least for me. Now, I won't undertake the job, unless my sister will let me take the quilts home so that I can match colours involving quite a few test prints. The results are not perfect - always a compromise - but it really is 'good enough'.

I've found a very good exercise is to take a print of a photo back to its place of origin, and just compare. The outcome is often surprising, occasionally alarming - my (and probably others') capacity to remember even approximate colours is not good.

I think no. 1 is the best too, but I know my judgement is based on aesthetics, not reality. It just doesn't reproduce the colour of the mud mixed with the snow in the road - it is sort of 'sanitized'.

How are you getting around up there on the Mendips? Roads OK?

Pete
 
So what mode do we all use flash in? EXR, auto or program?

I get shutter speeds of 1/4 sec with EXR so a bit blurry sometimes.
 
petercastleton said:
Pete,

I wasn't there of course but image one looks right to me, I accept your point though that I might be conditioned to think it's right even if it isn't a true reproduction of the scene.
Click to expand...

Same here, Pete. The first one looks best. But when you say in reality the colour of the mud mixed with the snow was different, could it be that working the shadows/dark areas back down a little would address that?

It would also be interesting to know what the settings you use are? WB correction? Highlights and shadow processing tweaks?

And last but not least, it could be your screen/monitor that is slightly off.
 
As the others have said Pete the first one looks the most accurate. I find the X 10 white balance to be remarkably good in all situations. But the key to any colour balanced workflow is of course a properly calibrated monitor. I use a Spyder.

When it comes to snow I find that the X 10 requires nothing more than a +2 shift towards warm on the uppermost colour temperature slider in Lightroom.
 
Here's a couple that aren't snow, although I went through snow, hail and bighting wind before gettig them! These are really to illustrate Duncan's "just point the camera at the sun" advice! Yesterday, we went for a walk along the coast near Edinburgh (from Yellowcraig towards Gullane, scouting out surfing opportunities for my mad son!). The weather was incredibly changeable, alternating between snow and hail as mentioned and periods of better weather. I swear there was even an icebow (as in rainbow when it's not raining). Snow on the beach, unusual! I was mostly using my film camera, but that was back in the bag when we turned the corner onto a west-facing section looking across to Edinburgh, just as the clouds opened up a bit letting the late afternoon sun shine through. For 10 minutes we had incredibly varying light, just wonderful. Here's a couple...

1) Arthur's seat in the far distance

DSCF4658.jpg


2) Straight into the sun

DSCF4660.jpg


Of course, we'd forgotten that the wind was behind us, so we were pretty miserable by the time we got back to the car at Yellowcraig, but it was worth it!
 
ChrisR said:
Here's a couple that aren't snow, although I went through snow, hail and bighting wind before gettig them! These are really to illustrate Duncan's "just point the camera at the sun" advice! Yesterday, we went for a walk along the coast near Edinburgh (from Yellowcraig towards Gullane, scouting out surfing opportunities for my mad son!). The weather was incredibly changeable, alternating between snow and hail as mentioned and periods of better weather. I swear there was even an icebow (as in rainbow when it's not raining). Snow on the beach, unusual! I was mostly using my film camera, but that was back in the bag when we turned the corner onto a west-facing section looking across to Edinburgh, just as the clouds opened up a bit letting the late afternoon sun shine through. For 10 minutes we had incredibly varying light, just wonderful. Here's a couple...

1) Arthur's seat in the far distance

http://i1161.photobucket.com/albums/q513/cudbm/DSCF4658.jpg

2) Straight into the sun

http://i1161.photobucket.com/albums/q513/cudbm/DSCF4660.jpg

Of course, we'd forgotten that the wind was behind us, so we were pretty miserable by the time we got back to the car at Yellowcraig, but it was worth it!
Click to expand...

Sweet pictures, Chris. Absolutely wonderful. Can't wait to get my X10 back. Got an e-mail from Fuji saying it's ready. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed everything is all right...
 
Piscator Pete said:
You make my point set out in the preamble: you weren't there and so must be making a judgement based on what the snow scene should look like given the thousands you have seen and/or created yourself. You 'know' how it should look.

For the last five years or so, my sister has given me the task of photographing the multi-coloured quilts she creates and raffles off for charity. She asks me to run off 20 or 30 prints that she can hand out to the interested parties. Before the X10 (which I haven't yet used for the task), all I had was my first digital, a simple "point and shoot" Lumix given to me by friends.

My first efforts involved checking that things 'looked right' in the LCD, and coming home to reproduce the colours as exactly as I could with the printer. That was hopeless, at least for me. Now, I won't undertake the job, unless my sister will let me take the quilts home so that I can match colours involving quite a few test prints. The results are not perfect - always a compromise - but it really is 'good enough'.

I've found a very good exercise is to take a print of a photo back to its place of origin, and just compare. The outcome is often surprising, occasionally alarming - my (and probably others') capacity to remember even approximate colours is not good.

I think no. 1 is the best too, but I know my judgement is based on aesthetics, not reality. It just doesn't reproduce the colour of the mud mixed with the snow in the road - it is sort of 'sanitized'.

How are you getting around up there on the Mendips? Roads OK?

Pete
Click to expand...


Pete, I took the liberty to download the first picture (taken with AWB) and tinker a little. Not to criticize, but to show the possibilities. The JPGs produced by the X10 are certainly wonderful, but some of them need a little bit of improving. I think one cannot expect a camera to produce spot-on pictures all of the time.

Why the first picture? Because I think (apart from trying different/creative effects) that proper WB is the key to great pictures. You said that the mud-snow mixture was not as it seemed in reality; it all looked a bit sanitized.

Below you see your original no.1 and below that the processed one. I did the following (using Darktable, but the same could be done in ALR, SilkyPix, etc.):

1. Take the highlights back a little (as the sky seemed over exposed);
2. Pulled the L-channel down a little in the lower region;
3. Tweaked the a-channel (also part of the Lab tone curve) for both red and green (but keeping the middle centered in order to prevent colour shift), creating a very subtle S-curve (to "de-sanitize" the picture);
4. Tweaked the b-channel similarly to the a-channel;
5. Added a minimum of vibrancy.

Results are as follows:

No. 1 "Original"

8395424378_cd7836d7ea_k by Robenroute, on Flickr


No. 1 "Processed"

8395424378_cd7836d7ea_k-dt01 by Robenroute, on Flickr


I'd love to hear your thoughts...
 
LLcoolDave said:
Hi All
can I run a quick question past you, i have an x10, and im getting mixed results with it-im getting a lot of slightly out of focus images, it seems to be any 'snaps'of people, its like the auto focus takes a long time and I miss the shot particularly in low light....
Im fairly amateur with my knowledge, but can anyone share there settings with me and advice on the AF switch, I had it on AF-S and tended to use EXR or Simple mode, I have 2.0 firmware also
Thanks in advance
:)
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Hello Dave,

Nice to hear from you, and sorry you've run into this problem. I was hoping that those with greater experience would jump in and help, but they're probably working on it right now.

Last night in my sitting room with very low light, and at times with only the telly for illumination, I tried to reproduce the problem. There was no 'face' here to practise on, but apart from the X10's occasional reluctance to focus quickly, I couldn't make it do what you describe. I have found in the past that, not surprisingly, it is unable to focus on a bland area lacking any feature that could give contrast - in near darkness it didn't like my red curtains either despite the focussing illuminator. I was experimenting in the automatic modes you are using.

I think most of us tend to use AF-S unless there is a specific reason to go manual.

Anyone out there that can answer this cri de coeur more satisfactorily?

Pete
 
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Piscator Pete said:
Hello Dave,

Nice to hear from you, and sorry you've run into this problem. I was hoping that those with greater experience would jump in and help, but they're probably working on it right now.

Last night in my sitting room with very low light, and at times with only the telly for illumination, I tried to reproduce the problem. There was no 'face' here to practise on, but apart from the X10's occasional reluctance to focus quickly, I couldn't make it do what you describe. I have found in the past that, not surprisingly, it is unable to focus on a bland area lacking any feature that could give contrast - in near darkness it didn't like my red curtains either despite the focussing illuminator. I was experimenting in the automatic modes you are using.

I think most of us tend to use AF-S unless there is a specific reason to go manual.

Anyone out there that can answer this cri de coeur more satisfactorily?

Pete
Click to expand...

Dave, Pete, my X10 certainly struggles achieving accurate focus in low light. Which I believe is rather normal for this type of camera. Less available light means less contrast, and, hence, more difficulties focussing. I don't have my X10 nor my X10 manual at hand at the moment, but isn't there a setting somewhere that prevents the X10's shutter to release when focus hasn't been achieved?
 
I find the autofocus of my X10 to be remarkably consistent, but certainly there will be some situations where any camera will struggle. Dave, have a look at whether or not you are allowing the camera to select the point of focus because that could explain why your subjects may have been missed. This can be particularly problematic where people are concerned since the camera will lock onto whatever has the most contrast. The solution is to select the centre focus point, focus on your subject then keeping the button half pressed recompose your shot.
 
PJ S said:
I prefer Pete's result for 2 main reasons:
Chimney brickwork details
Branches in upper left/right are closer to being correct in darkness level, to my mind.
There's also a slight yellowy tone to the clouds in yours, Rob.
Click to expand...

Hi Phil. You're absolutely right. The point I was trying to get across is that the tones in the picture can be "de-sanitized", as Pete would call it. He was a bit unhappy with the first picture (AWB), but I think there's not much wrong with it. The important thing is that WB should be as accurate as possible. From there on one could tweak the image to one's preference. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough about that. Sorry if that caused any confusion.
 
DuncanDisorderly said:
Oh yes....
It could only be Scotland in the Winter.
I love both of them, though the second ticks all my boxes.
Click to expand...

Yes, that stretch of coast from about Aberlady, round through Gullane and North Berwick as far as Tantallon Castle, is magic. Coloured sands, dunes, rocks, cliffs, headlands, islands, the odd arch, the Berwick Law, the town itself and harbour, and Tantallon grim above its cliffs. The coast faces in about 3 directions, and I've never failed to get something satisfying.

robenroute said:
I keep looking at the second picture and find it most magical. It almost looks like a Kodachrome picture.
Click to expand...

Thanks, both. I'm afraid you're only encouraging me!

3) This was taken between the last two. The person on the horizon is my son, checking out the next bay:

DSCF4646.jpg


4) Here's a "surfing opportunity", I think. Daft blighter will probably be there this afternoon when the tide is right. He had the surfboard and gear in the car, but too far away when we found the spot!

DSCF4653.jpg


5) About face from the first 3, looking across to Fife when that light came through, and a complete transformation. Those dark clouds were SO blue. I know there's nothing in the composition but a series of parallels, but I still like it!

DSCF4649.jpg


6) And last, from a bit earlier. This one is absolutely SOOC; didn't need to pull anything back (bit of highlight and shadow is all any of the others had):

DSCF4642.jpg
 
ChrisR said:
Yes, that stretch of coast from about Aberlady, round through Gullane and North Berwick as far as Tantallon Castle, is magic. Coloured sands, dunes, rocks, cliffs, headlands, islands, the odd arch, the Berwick Law, the town itself and harbour, and Tantallon grim above its cliffs. The coast faces in about 3 directions, and I've never failed to get something satisfying.



Thanks, both. I'm afraid you're only encouraging me!

3) This was taken between the last two. The person on the horizon is my son, checking out the next bay:

http://i1161.photobucket.com/albums/q513/cudbm/DSCF4646.jpg

4) Here's a "surfing opportunity", I think. Daft blighter will probably be there this afternoon when the tide is right. He had the surfboard and gear in the car, but too far away when we found the spot!

http://i1161.photobucket.com/albums/q513/cudbm/DSCF4653.jpg

5) About face from the first 3, looking across to Fife when that light came through, and a complete transformation. Those dark clouds were SO blue. I know there's nothing in the composition but a series of parallels, but I still like it!

http://i1161.photobucket.com/albums/q513/cudbm/DSCF4649.jpg

6) And last, from a bit earlier. This one is absolutely SOOC; didn't need to pull anything back (bit of highlight and shadow is all any of the others had):

http://i1161.photobucket.com/albums/q513/cudbm/DSCF4642.jpg
Click to expand...


Quality set, Chris. The one featuring a set of parallels is just as great. Personal favourite: very last one!

Thanks for sharing.
 
robenroute said:
Hi Phil. You're absolutely right. The point I was trying to get across is that the tones in the picture can be "de-sanitized", as Pete would call it. He was a bit unhappy with the first picture (AWB), but I think there's not much wrong with it. The important thing is that WB should be as accurate as possible. From there on one could tweak the image to one's preference. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough about that. Sorry if that caused any confusion.
Click to expand...

Rob, many thanks for your painstaking input and advice. I haven't got back to you because the discussion has drifted so far away from the intention behind the test shots (at Martyn's suggestion - blame him!) deliberately with no PP added, that I need time to think about a reponse short enough to be tolerated.

(Aren't those recent shots by Chris terrific?)

Pete
 
Piscator Pete said:
Rob, many thanks for your painstaking input and advice. I haven't got back to you because the discussion has drifted so far away from the intention behind the test shots (at Martyn's suggestion - blame him!) deliberately with no PP added, that I need time to think about a reponse short enough to be tolerated.

(Aren't those recent shots by Chris terrific?)

Pete
Click to expand...

Not to worry, Pete. And yes, Chris' shots are riveting!
 
Piscator Pete said:
Martyn, I think a little mischievously hinting at a prediliction for sheep, suggested I go and photograph 'em again using the custom WB! There was problem, and so instead I snapped the cottage in aperture priority, first using auto WB, then 'custom', thirdly 'shade', and finally using "Snow" in "SP" mode that offers no control over colour temperature. All the photographs that follow are straight out of the camera and have never been near PP software:

1. Auto WB


A1 by wylyeangler, on Flickr
Click to expand...

:LOL:

Moi... mischievous - non Monsieur! But one wonders what the problem was - perhaps they wondered what your game was returning a second day in a row.

Looks spot on - not like UK at all - a calendar xmas shot to me.

Oh how I've wasted the weekend. Spent in town watching football and drinking. Wish I'd headed out to the country with my snow board and camera. The crunch under foot walking back from the tube was heaven. I wish our winters were full of snow rather than cold drizzle and cloud!
 
ChrisR said:
DSCF4642.jpg
Click to expand...

Chris - :notworthy:

Best of the bunch and you win today's shots hands down. Whilst we all snap snow - you find the sun. From the bottom of my heart this is truly impressive. Now where's YV for something different - she's out in the sun swimming in outdoor pools - there must be some photos to share with us!
 
Ed Sutton said:
Ain't it just. :)

I'm still liking my X10, but not as much as the other day. :|

DSCF6329.jpg
Click to expand...

(y)

Is it me or for once is London getting the worst of the weather!? Everything here is covered from head to foot in snow. I couldn't have found a clear patch like you have Dave!
 
souldeep said:
Is it me or for once is London getting the worst of the weather!? Everything here is covered from head to foot in snow. I couldn't have found a clear patch like you have Dave!
Click to expand...

The cold weather's come in from the south east and hardly made its way up here to the north west. I heard from someone there was no snow at low level in the Lake District yesterday, yet someone in Leicstershire told me there was six or more inches. What little we got here in west Lancs got has pretty much melted away now.
 
Ed Sutton said:
The cold weather's come in from the south east and hardly made its way up here to the north west. I heard from someone there was no snow at low level in the Lake District yesterday, yet someone in Leicstershire told me there was six or more inches. What little we got here in west Lancs got has pretty much melted away now.
Click to expand...

Down here in Somerset, temperatures at my house haven't risen above freezing since the middle of last week.
Still got every flake of snow that has fallen (about 6 inches) with a couple more bands of snow expected before things are due to warm up.
I just wish we had some light; this dark grey sky is rubbish :(
 
DuncanDisorderly said:
Down here in Somerset, temperatures at my house haven't risen above freezing since the middle of last week.
Still got every flake of snow that has fallen (about 6 inches) with a couple more bands of snow expected before things are due to warm up.
I just wish we had some light; this dark grey sky is rubbish :(
Click to expand...

Hi Duncan :wave: I came here to see if you had been out taking piccies instead of arranging to meet up for a coffee? I'm always the one to moan about light and weather while you say 'no such thing etc'. I agree it's bloody dismal but I have managed a few pics with the G12 (wash my mouth out!).

http://www.carolineshipsey.co.uk/Other/January-2013/27652659_z4WSPQ

Cheers
Caroline
 
robenroute said:
...I'd love to hear your thoughts...
Click to expand...


Rob, the sheep photos I originally posted were taken in the poor light that was a combination of Duncan’s “dark grey sky” and late afternoon. A quick bit of PP turned the JPEGs into something that most will accept, but you spotted the tinge of cyan. Even more quickly then, I ‘warmed’ them up to close to what my eye sees in these snow scenes - not everyone’s cup of tea, which Duncan pointed out at the time.

At Martyn’s suggestion, this led me to experiment with WB to find out the settings that best reproduced my personal ‘reality’ in these conditions (snow scene in heavy overcast) – hence the four cottage shots straight out of the camera. Any PP would have made such a test pointless: aesthetics weren’t the issue.

In these conditions and with my perception, the original no. 2 (custom WB with fresh snow as the reference) comes closest to my ‘reality’. This is not to say that it couldn’t do with a spot of PP to make it more acceptable even to me – I hope I haven’t invested in Lightroom over Christmas for nothing – but that it might be a good starting point for my taste.

I should have posted the next images instead of the cottage shots (the detail in them confuses), taken a little earlier in the lane where I live, meaning I could nip out quickly and check colours. Again, necessarily straight out of the camera:


Auto 1 by wylyeangler, on Flickr


Custom 1 by wylyeangler, on Flickr

Number 1 is auto WB; number 2 is custom and is closer to what I see – the colour of the mud/gravel and salt/snow mix is nearly right, I can see the 'right' green in the trees, and the snow itself doesn’t have the ‘blue whitener’ look so favoured by cleaning products. Actually No. 1 is what I would have ‘expected’ to be right, but observation proves isn’t – more attractive though, I shall concede!

With the generous help of this thread, I am getting clearer in my mind how I should use the X10 with all its ‘bells and whistles’. I want to know how to get its JPEGs out of the camera closest to my ‘reality’, leaving me freedom in PP to adjust images to whatever I want. If for some reason I want to use a different WB, or an SP, or other mode for special effect, I need to know what the camera’s doing. That was the point of this little experiment, and the many others that we all do.

I think that for most of our sort of photos, Dave’s dictum of “if it looks right, it is right” is spot on…but “reality has nowt to do with it”? Try telling that to my sister when I get the colours wrong photographing this sort patchwork quilt, raffled off for charity each year:


P1020942 c by wylyeangler, on Flickr


Pete
 
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Hi all, been lurking for a little bit and here's my first post!

Got my X10 a couple of months ago, and like many I guess it's for those days when I can't be bothered to take the DSLR out. Which is most days:LOL: I'm really enjoying this little camera, and I know it makes me shallow, but I love the looks of it and the build quality which feels bombproof.

I had a go with the snow setting in Scene Position yesterday and have come away a bit mystified. I am aware that on other settings the camera will underexpose a snowy scene, but even when using the snow setting there was no discernable difference and it too came out very underexposed. As a benchmark, I took a shot in Program mode. The camera chose ISO 100, F3.2 and 1/420th. In Snow setting it chose ISO 100, F3.2 and 1/400th - so no real difference there. I then used manual at the same ISO and Fstop and just reduced the shutter speed in steps until I thought it was correctly exposed - which happened between 1/160th - 1/200th, so the camera's choice was way off. To my mind the snow setting should have either a significantly slower speed or wider aperture than say using P mode, or am I doing something fundamentally wrong? It's no big deal as a simple auto tone adjustment in photoshop did a great job (for once!) of correcting it, or I could shoot in manual or just plus the EC, but it would be nice if the snow setting worked otherwise what's the point of it being there?

Anyone had any similar experiences, or can tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Sorry if my first post is a bit of a gripe, I love this camera really:D
 
To be honest these scene modes are for beginners who may not have a clue when it comes to dealing with various scenarios. For you, as a DSLR user and presumably someone who knows a bit about camera craft, I would always recommend taking control of your own situations. By that I mean staying in whichever shooting mode you normally favour, be it manual, Aperture priority etc and metering for the scene as you normally would. Obviously where snow is concerned you would overexpose as needed. With the X 10 I find that due to the sensor architecture a little less overexposure is needed than when using my DSLRs.
 
Welcome to the forum!

As Lindsay's said, the scene modes are generally best avoided and as a relatively experienced photographer, you'll have some understanding as to what needs to be done to get a more pleasing exposure. By the time you've waded through the menus to find the scene mode you want, you could have taken a test shot and made any exposure adjustments after a quick review on the rear screen! Any WB issues can usually be addressed in PP (if you're into that) if needed.

I'm still enjoying both my baby Xs, with the XF-1 still a nose ahead due to its pocketability and lack of removeable cap - the flower type cap that's in the post to me should help me with that slight issue on the X-10!
 
Thanks Lindsay and Nod.

I know exactly what you are saying and tbh I'm mostly in Aperture priority with the odd foray into Shutter priority. I was interested though to see how good the snow mode was in SP and I guess the answer is "not very"!

I do really like this camera, there's just something about it that I can't quite put my finger on that makes it probably my favourite camera that I've ever owned.

I splashed out and got the Fuji leather case which is really nice, but if I'm just off out with the kids or dogs I use a Kata DF408, which is a nice every day case, if a little tight fitting at first. I don't have any other accessories as I just want it as simple as possible.

Nod, I haven't managed to lose the lens cap yet, but give me time!
 
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