Fuji X10

[John Schweikert]

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[bcalkins]

I was unable to get the X10 working with pocket wizard Plus II transceivers.  They were triggering fine on my Canon 7D, and I was also able to use a Canon 580EX in the X10's hotshoe, so everything seemed to be working correctly.  Never saw the PW light flash, like it does every time I release the shutter on my Canon 7D.

You must have 'external flash' set to ON, and Super Macro mode off for an external flash to work, but even with those settings it did not work for me.

[BernardLanguillier]

Hi Josh,

Interesting question. May I ask what usage scenario you have in mind?

I had never thought of using studio strobes with a compact digital camera.

What does it do that your 7D doesn't do much better?

Cheers,
Bernard

[EgillBjarki]

I find this very interesting, I'm buying the X100 soon and I was hoping for high speed sync with it.

Regarding raw files from X10, has Adobe updated the DNG converter for the X10? If so you could convert the files to .dng and then use Lightroom?

I shoot environmental portraits for editorial a lot. The X10 image quality will be very good for single page images in print. Being able to sync  high with packs/heads outdoors is very desirable to control and create scenes and mood, a balance to daylight.

I was hoping the camera would allow syncing at 1/1000 or even 1/2000 with pack lights, but that won't be possible.

I've done full page editorials with a Canon G9 and syncing at 1/1000th or higher. Worked nicely. I like having tools that allow interesting options.

I look forward to when Lightroom will support the X10 raws. For the meantime, I'll use the jpegs which look quite nice for a pocket cam.

[stever]

Sean Reid found issues with the LR 3.6 beta and 6mp RAW but thought they were corrected.  He found the 12mp RAWs to be superior to JPEG or the Silkypix TIFFs.  Received my X10 a few days ago and have been waiting for 3.6 before testing.  Will do some resolution tests, but am more interested in high ISO noise.  Now i'll pay more attention to color as well.

My initial impression is that the viewfinder is (unfortunately) an alternative to the screen only when you need to be discrete, hand hold long exposures, or the screen is washed out in bright light.  bit of a disappointment, but consistent with reviews and better than none at all.

Not terribly happy with the lens cap.  It's going to get lost sooner or later.  Also doesn't work when the camera is on and lens extended which means there's no protection for the camera in-use when carrying it - will have to buy the expensive hood which will have to be unscrewed and stored when pocketing or casing the camera.  Why can't camera manufacturers in general (not just Fuji) have some working photographers involved in development?

Hope to see some software upgrades soon as i'll probably keep the camera if IQ is as anticipated.

[stever]

on the flash topic, every high-end compact camera should include a built-in trigger for external flash even if it's proprietary.  even a hand-held external works wonders compared to the useless built-in flash

[stever]

have downloaded LR 3.6 and just did a couple shots at iso 1600 RAW with the x10 and s90 and am terribly disappointed.  X10 no better than the s90.

will pursue this somewhat and try the 6mp setting, not what i expected.

[stever]

a few more better controlled shots and the x10 is clearly better than the s90, maybe 2 stops, and responds well to LR noise reduction.  the larger aperture at long end is helpful

now i need to think a bit about testing

[stever]

whenever i switch modes or turn the camera off and on i lose RAW?!

[Nacnud]

I've done some initial testing with X10 RAW using LR3.
I like it 

Test conditions were indoor at night; 12Mp, DR400, ISO 800. JPEG noise settings have been turned down (not off), a recommendation I read elsewhere.
Subject was my old cat (lots of fine detail).

In LR3 I managed to find an extra 2 stops of detail in the highlights and 2.5 stops of shadow detail before false colours and noise became intrusive - that's impressive for ISO 800! I didn't see if this gets affected by DR400, more testing needed.

I needed a heck of a lot of work in LR3 RAW to get anywhere near the Fuji JPEG which was rich in texture throughout the image. I think the camera uses some sort of tone-mapping. The out of camera JPEG is very impressive!

The Adobe fine detail algorithm seems quite different to Fuji.
Although the Fuji JPEG results appear to have lots of fine detail, they are not the same details brought out by LR3 RAW.
For example, a slightly out of focus part of my monitor in the corner of the screen, the JPEG showed off-vertical lines that look like monitor pixel structure, but these look patchy (aliased?) on the LR3 RAW. however, that's not the whole story as the monitor was showing LR3 star ratings in the bottom bar and the stars are just blobs in the JPEG, but clearly visible as stars in the LR3 RAW.
Another area that highlighted the difference was text on a cable deep in the shadows; the lines in the text are narrower than the noise clumps. Interestingly, the text is crisp and readable on the LR3 RAW, but only just readable on the JPEG.
So the Fuji JPEG is extracting different sorts of fine detail to the LR3 RAW...

Thinking back, an ISO 800 landscape shot I have which has smearing in distant foliage (just visible in an A3 print). I'm no longer convinced is completely attributable to factory noise reduction settings I was using at the time; I think it is also the Fuji fine detail algorithm extracting some odd looking fine detail. Unfortunately I don't have a matching RAW for that image and I need to re-test.

As already noted, the colours are wildly different!
I haven't had the opportunity to take test shots in good light, but I did spot one thing that was odd.
The Fuji JPEG deep shadows fade to dark red or dark blue depending on the subject colour, whereas the LR3 RAW deep shadows fade to black. Didn't matter how much I lifted the shadows on LR3 RAW, I couldn't get colour into them. Weird huh ?
Time will tell if I am right - but at the moment my gut feeling is that although the LR3 RAW colours are far more muted, they will prove to be more true to life and a better start point for post-processing.

[stever]

i've read the manual and sort of understand what the setup parameters are but am mystified about what some of the settings really do and how the camera may be processing RAW images and what the relationship with LR is

Lloyd Chambers has observed that images appear in LR with a lens correction even tho LR shows no correction profile - is the camera doing this or LR behind the scenes?  He also finds that standard sharpening doesn't work - quite obvious when you try it.

I've been testing at ISO 1600 and it seems like adding DR (200, 400) adds noise and looses detail with the additional headroom.  The JPEG images loose a lot of detail.  i prefer the RAWs at DR100 processed in LR.  It seems that the shadows are relatively clean, but mid-tones and above show lots of luminance noise.  tried EXR and got 6mp JPEGs that look heavily processed, lack detail and aren't any less noisy than 12mp RAWs processed in LR.

i hope Fuji engineers haven't been too clever for their own good