Ray Sachs
Legend
- Location
- Not too far from Philly
- Name
- you should be able to figure it out...
I ordered an X70 from B&H yesterday afternoon and due to the miracle of living within one UPS day of NYC I picked up the X70 at the local UPS depot this morning at 8:30. By mid-afternoon I've already clearly determined it's going back to B&H. Not because it's a bad camera in ANY way, or even a lesser camera than the Coolpix A I was comparing it to in any way. It's just not near as convenient in use for the overwhelmingly specific way I use the Coolpix 99% of the time. So here's my tale of woe for those interested, but don't say I didn't warn you as to how specific this would be to my particular idiosyncrasies... The X70 is a great little camera - 99% of photographers will probably love it - it's just not great for me compared to what I've already got... Please don't be discouraged - anyone should give it a try.
First rude surprise - no battery charger! This is a trend I hate. Fortunately I stopped relying on manufacturers chargers a while ago, having bought one of the Watson dual chargers with interchangeable plates for different batteries. The plates are only $2 each, so I ordered one of those for the Fuji battery - I'd have grabbed a second one if I'd realized there wasn't a charger because I ordered a second battery as well.
I was able to get the camera figured out pretty quickly. On my Coolpix A, I have two custom settings on the mode dial and the only real differences between my two setups are the auto ISO settings and my starting aperture settings. I have one custom slot set up for street, with a max ISO of 6400 and a minimum shutter speed of 1/500 with a default aperture of f8, and one for more static shooting with a max ISO of 3200 and a minimum shutter speed of 1/80, with a default aperture of f4. Any other settings I just move to one of the PASM modes and set up to taste, but these two custom slots work as starting points for the vast majority of my shooting with such a camera. With the X70, there's no mode dial and there IS an aperture ring, so changing the ISO setup is a menu based operation and I have to use the aperture ring to make sure I'm in the right aperture for the job. There are three auto-ISO settings in the ISO menu, so you can set each of them up the way you like, pull up the ISO menu with a fn button of your choosing, and then switch between the two settings.
Once I figured out the basics, I headed out on the street to see how well I could switch quickly between general settings and street settings and just how it felt in use.
Long story short: I find the Coolpix A much quicker in action to switch between shooting modes. It's a hasty judgement and I'm sure I'd get somewhat faster on the X70, but just from the number and types of steps involved, I know I'll find it more cumbersome than I'm willing to deal with.
Short story long: On the Coolpix A, I have to switch between the U1 and U2 settings on the mode dial, and then switch between AF and MF with the switch on the side of the camera. When switching to MF, I also have to turn the focus ring to set focus to about 2 meters. This is generally about a 2-3 second combined operation. On the X70, I have to hit the fn button I've assigned ISO to, then use the up and down buttons to select the auto-ISO setting I want, using a half press of the shutter to lock the new setting in. Then I have to remember to set the aperture manually each time I switch. And I have to also use the switch on the front of the camera to switch between AF and MF. This three step process is a lot more cumbersome than on the Coolpix, even allowing for being new to it. First, using a menu to change the ISO setup is a lot less quick than just turning the mode dial one position. And then you have to add the step of adjusting the aperture ring, which was one of the things I liked in theory on the X70, but actually slows down my most common operation by adding an additional step.
Switching between AF and MF is about the same on both cameras - both are mechanical switches in similar positions reachable from the left side of the camera. But changing the focus once in MF (I shoot street using a zone focus approach, and use 2 meters as a starting point on these small 28mm equivalent cameras) is actually more difficult on the Fuji for two reasons - the focus ring doesn't move the focus point as quickly or smoothly, and the focus scale is a lot harder to see, particularly in bright light. What I thought would be good news with the X70 is that the manual focus distance is sticky, but that only applies when you turn the camera off and back on. So if I'm only shooting street and have MF set to two meters, I can turn the camera off and on as many times as I want and the focus will be set to two meters. On the Coolpix, I have to reset the focus from it's default of infinity to two meters each time I turn on the camera, but it's such a quick movement of the focus ring that I have that down to muscle memory and it barely adds any time at all.
And the MF distance is not sticky on either camera when you switch between AF and MF, a much more frequent move in my shooting universe. So if I'm in AF shooting some scenic shot or macro-ish shot, and then want to switch quickly to 2 meters for a street shot, I have to use the focus ring on either camera to get there. If I'm way down in macro territory, I can get there pretty quickly using the focus ring or I can just quickly flick the Coolpix off and back on again and it will reset to infinity focus, which is just a tiny turn to get back to two meters. On the X70 this wouldn't work because the sticky focus would keep the focus down in the macro range. The Coolpix is quicker and smoother than the X70 and allows for a shortcut not available on the X70. And the focus point on the X70 is just really hard to see, particularly if you have the aperture wide open and there's barely any DOF to create some contrast with the DOF scale around the focus point. If you remember to reset the aperture to f8 before you start moving the focus ring, there's enough DOF that you'll pretty quickly see where the combination of the focus point and surrounding DOF scale is as it moves up the scale. But if you leave the aperture down near f2.8, good luck finding the focus point! On the Coolpix, there's no DOF scale and the focus point is just really easy to see in any light. And, as noted, the ring moves the focus point much more smoothly.
Continued below...
First rude surprise - no battery charger! This is a trend I hate. Fortunately I stopped relying on manufacturers chargers a while ago, having bought one of the Watson dual chargers with interchangeable plates for different batteries. The plates are only $2 each, so I ordered one of those for the Fuji battery - I'd have grabbed a second one if I'd realized there wasn't a charger because I ordered a second battery as well.
I was able to get the camera figured out pretty quickly. On my Coolpix A, I have two custom settings on the mode dial and the only real differences between my two setups are the auto ISO settings and my starting aperture settings. I have one custom slot set up for street, with a max ISO of 6400 and a minimum shutter speed of 1/500 with a default aperture of f8, and one for more static shooting with a max ISO of 3200 and a minimum shutter speed of 1/80, with a default aperture of f4. Any other settings I just move to one of the PASM modes and set up to taste, but these two custom slots work as starting points for the vast majority of my shooting with such a camera. With the X70, there's no mode dial and there IS an aperture ring, so changing the ISO setup is a menu based operation and I have to use the aperture ring to make sure I'm in the right aperture for the job. There are three auto-ISO settings in the ISO menu, so you can set each of them up the way you like, pull up the ISO menu with a fn button of your choosing, and then switch between the two settings.
Once I figured out the basics, I headed out on the street to see how well I could switch quickly between general settings and street settings and just how it felt in use.
Long story short: I find the Coolpix A much quicker in action to switch between shooting modes. It's a hasty judgement and I'm sure I'd get somewhat faster on the X70, but just from the number and types of steps involved, I know I'll find it more cumbersome than I'm willing to deal with.
Short story long: On the Coolpix A, I have to switch between the U1 and U2 settings on the mode dial, and then switch between AF and MF with the switch on the side of the camera. When switching to MF, I also have to turn the focus ring to set focus to about 2 meters. This is generally about a 2-3 second combined operation. On the X70, I have to hit the fn button I've assigned ISO to, then use the up and down buttons to select the auto-ISO setting I want, using a half press of the shutter to lock the new setting in. Then I have to remember to set the aperture manually each time I switch. And I have to also use the switch on the front of the camera to switch between AF and MF. This three step process is a lot more cumbersome than on the Coolpix, even allowing for being new to it. First, using a menu to change the ISO setup is a lot less quick than just turning the mode dial one position. And then you have to add the step of adjusting the aperture ring, which was one of the things I liked in theory on the X70, but actually slows down my most common operation by adding an additional step.
Switching between AF and MF is about the same on both cameras - both are mechanical switches in similar positions reachable from the left side of the camera. But changing the focus once in MF (I shoot street using a zone focus approach, and use 2 meters as a starting point on these small 28mm equivalent cameras) is actually more difficult on the Fuji for two reasons - the focus ring doesn't move the focus point as quickly or smoothly, and the focus scale is a lot harder to see, particularly in bright light. What I thought would be good news with the X70 is that the manual focus distance is sticky, but that only applies when you turn the camera off and back on. So if I'm only shooting street and have MF set to two meters, I can turn the camera off and on as many times as I want and the focus will be set to two meters. On the Coolpix, I have to reset the focus from it's default of infinity to two meters each time I turn on the camera, but it's such a quick movement of the focus ring that I have that down to muscle memory and it barely adds any time at all.
And the MF distance is not sticky on either camera when you switch between AF and MF, a much more frequent move in my shooting universe. So if I'm in AF shooting some scenic shot or macro-ish shot, and then want to switch quickly to 2 meters for a street shot, I have to use the focus ring on either camera to get there. If I'm way down in macro territory, I can get there pretty quickly using the focus ring or I can just quickly flick the Coolpix off and back on again and it will reset to infinity focus, which is just a tiny turn to get back to two meters. On the X70 this wouldn't work because the sticky focus would keep the focus down in the macro range. The Coolpix is quicker and smoother than the X70 and allows for a shortcut not available on the X70. And the focus point on the X70 is just really hard to see, particularly if you have the aperture wide open and there's barely any DOF to create some contrast with the DOF scale around the focus point. If you remember to reset the aperture to f8 before you start moving the focus ring, there's enough DOF that you'll pretty quickly see where the combination of the focus point and surrounding DOF scale is as it moves up the scale. But if you leave the aperture down near f2.8, good luck finding the focus point! On the Coolpix, there's no DOF scale and the focus point is just really easy to see in any light. And, as noted, the ring moves the focus point much more smoothly.
Continued below...