Fuji X20 has arrived -- initial thoughts


Not on my camera, it doesn't. It manifests as the dead center area doubled or else dead center, low, and side-by-side doubled, extending both left and right. It's not unlike cameras which pick their own area on which to focus. Parallax correction would not change the size of the focus area, only move it *slightly* down and right. You will note that in even the X100 the fixed focus box and the fixed maximum correction brackets overlap. This is something different from parallax correction. Really.
 
Not on my camera, it doesn't. It manifests as the dead center area doubled or else dead center, low, and side-by-side doubled, extending both left and right. It's not unlike cameras which pick their own area on which to focus. Parallax correction would not change the size of the focus area, only move it *slightly* down and right.

Since you are extremely reluctant to read (or understand) the article I have linked to several times, I have to admit you may be a lost cause. In any case, your statements regarding this matter are factually wrong. I'm writing this in order to make sure other readers following this thread are not confused by your false assessment. Hopefully, most of them will have followed the link to my article or have figured it out by themselves, as it really isn't rocket science if you think about it for a moment. It's just a pretty clever way of indicating in-between positions on a fixed AF grid.
 
Been following this thread with interest, and just went to read your post on FR,Rico. Very interesting approach Fuji have taken to show true area of focus, accounting for parallax. What surprised me is that Fuji's Xs only use inner 5 frames.

At any rate, am glad I held off from the X20 for now; I've spent the last week with my "new", second-hand, X10, practicing how to frame and focus properly in the absence of OVF info. I am getting the hang of it; I've used film RFs with frame lines as well as both the XPro 1 and X100, so that helps. Still a bit disconcerting not to have frame lines to guide.
 
Still a bit disconcerting not to have frame lines to guide.

I think it would be nice to have a 3 x 3 grid, but that would collide with the grid's AF function. The grid can only glow in one color at once, and it's no hybrid viewfinder, so the camera can't display a white framing grid and then overlay green (or red, or blue) AF frames to indicate focus areas. It's either one or the other. There's one grid with one color for one function, and that's AF.
 
Descripe and flysurfer, thanks for your conversation. Your passion for photography really comes through in this discussion. It is very informative for people like me. For now, I will wait with my thoughts on the X20 until I've done dome further testing. Your observations help me in doing that.
peter
 
Not exactly. In the X20 there is *no* indication of selected focus area -- never mind a corrected one -- until the shutter is half pressed. In fact, until the shutter is half pressed, the finder differs not at all from that of the X10.

You'll note that with the X100, you can turn off corrected frames but you cannot turn off the always-there box. There is no always there box in the OVF of the X20, and it is this omission to which I object.

True, you can't turn off the "always there", box but its no more "predictive" than the corrective box (unless you always shoot distant subjects, in which case it's pretty close). It just defines the upper left part of the range of where the actual focus box could be - the "corrected" box defines the lower right part of the range. For distant subjects, the "actual" box box largely overlaps with the "always there" box, for very near subjects, it overlaps with the "corrected" box, and for subjects at in-between distances, the "actual" box pops up in-between the two. The X20 could provide a single "target" box like the original X100 did, but it would still have to show the "actual" box after AF was achieved and that box would only correspond to the target box to the extent the subject was at a distance. IE, the "target" box would only establish one end of the range of possible locations.

-Ray
 
True, you can't turn off the "always there", box but its no more "predictive" than the corrective box (unless you always shoot distant subjects, in which case it's pretty close). It just defines the upper left part of the range of where the actual focus box could be - the "corrected" box defines the lower right part of the range. For distant subjects, the "actual" box box largely overlaps with the "always there" box, for very near subjects, it overlaps with the "corrected" box, and for subjects at in-between distances, the "actual" box pops up in-between the two. The X20 could provide a single "target" box like the original X100 did, but it would still have to show the "actual" box after AF was achieved and that box would only correspond to the target box to the extent the subject was at a distance. IE, the "target" box would only establish one end of the range of possible locations.

Okay. Remember the X100 before the second firmware update? It had no "corrected AF frame" at all. When it did, we learned that even at its most extreme, the parallax adjustment was slight, the worst-case brackets mostly overlapping the immovable focus box. And, if you remember, the "corrected AF frame," when it did come down in a firmware update, defaulted to off. That is because in the wider variety of shooting situations the difference was so slight as to make no difference. But throughout there has been a fairly accurate focusing box that can be moved around (though focus-recompose is easier than moving the box around if you're not using a tripod). No, it is not corrected for parallax. And I maintain that the front window of the viewfinder is close enough to the lens that parallax will never be much if any issue except for pictures taken very close up, in which case the camera turns on the LCD anyway. But that's beside the point.

What the X20 lacks is that initial, fixed box. The important scientific observation that Fuji has used up all the colors available to the LCD is risible. And the absence of the box -- not a grid, not a fluffy bunny scene mode, just a plain box of the sort you get when turning on the X100, is in my estimation a terrible flaw. Not as bad as the inability to configure the LCD to behave as one wants, but terrible still. When you get your hands on an X20, look through the viewfinder, then look through an X100 viewfinder, and see how bad the X20's nothing-before-a-half-press "information display" is. And for no reason.
 
Maybe for both the X10 and X20 we adopt a DIY fix from early WW2 fighter pilots with their wonky reflector gunsights- scratch a mark in the middle of the frame! :D I read in some early 2012 posts about people suggesting the use of a Sharpie mark for the X10 OVF, but others commented that it would block most of the view. Maybe the X30 will have a proper hybrid viewfinder like the X100 and X-Pro. Then again, by the time I get around to buying an X20, firmware 4 will have been released, and all will be well.....
 
Okay. Remember the X100 before the second firmware update? It had no "corrected AF frame" at all. When it did, we learned that even at its most extreme, the parallax adjustment was slight, the worst-case brackets mostly overlapping the immovable focus box. And, if you remember, the "corrected AF frame," when it did come down in a firmware update, defaulted to off. That is because in the wider variety of shooting situations the difference was so slight as to make no difference. But throughout there has been a fairly accurate focusing box that can be moved around (though focus-recompose is easier than moving the box around if you're not using a tripod). No, it is not corrected for parallax. And I maintain that the front window of the viewfinder is close enough to the lens that parallax will never be much if any issue except for pictures taken very close up, in which case the camera turns on the LCD anyway. But that's beside the point.

What the X20 lacks is that initial, fixed box. The important scientific observation that Fuji has used up all the colors available to the LCD is risible. And the absence of the box -- not a grid, not a fluffy bunny scene mode, just a plain box of the sort you get when turning on the X100, is in my estimation a terrible flaw. Not as bad as the inability to configure the LCD to behave as one wants, but terrible still. When you get your hands on an X20, look through the viewfinder, then look through an X100 viewfinder, and see how bad the X20's nothing-before-a-half-press "information display" is. And for no reason.
Actually I remember the initial X100 configuration quite well. And I remember an amazing amount of sturm and drung over the inability of the OVF to effectively focus because of parallax. Many discontented DSLR users returning the camera very soon. I remember trying to understand it myself and working with a tripod, the upper left corner of a picture frame, and switching between the EVF and the OVF to really understand where the actual focus box was. Then when the "corrected AF" option was added, it illustrated the concept very well. But I don't remember the parallax as being "so slight as to make no difference" Between the distant focus and near focus (but still outside the macro range), there's effectively zero overlap between the focus boxes. So I'd say its pretty significant. And clearly a lot of early adopters who never came to terms with it though it was a big enough problem to return the camera over. Although in fairness, that first iteration had more than its share of issues, so I know they didn't all go back because of parallax.

I suppose Fuji could add a center focus "target" box in the X20 that might make it easier to pre-visualize a shot, but it would have to be large enough to be almost meaningless and should still be followed by an updated "actual" box after focus is locked. Again, I haven't even seen an X20 yet. So I'm not commenting on what they might do there, just that the issue of parallax is not insignificant for any subject closer than about 6-8 feet. This varies quite a bit depending on which lens I'm using with the X-Pro, so I'd imagine it would vary quite a bit depending on zoom level with the X20 too, a not insignificant complicating factor.

-Ray
 
In a year of shooting an X10, including several hundred pictures for publication, I have yet to encounter a situation where parallax at any non-macro distance and at any focal length exceeded the additional coverage due to the less than 100 percent viewfinder image. And if I remember correctly -- and I do -- the complaints that had people sending back their X100 cameras (can't say X100s as a plural anymore, can we?) centered on its being slow to focus and slow to write to storage and having unusable manual focus absent less-than-optimum button-pushing kludgearounds. Its menus were also, um, peculiar, but that's Fuji. And it had some operational quirks that set it apart and not in a good way, such as the inability to change settings while writing to storage (which wouldn't have been an issue if it weren't so slow at writing to storage).

Many but not all of those things got fixed in firmware. But never have I found parallax being a leading complaint -- because it wasn't. And again I note that even Fuji considered an initial focus-area box, not exact but close, to be among the minimum requirements. It was deemed sufficiently essential that it could not be turned off. It could, you remember, be moved around to signify the selected focus areas.

There is no reason in the world why we cannot have such an aid in the X20. The circuitry is clearly already there. It would not be a huge power drain because a.) it isn't in the X100 and b.) it surely uses less juice than the LCD does with all its festoonery. And if it is of no use, why did they put one on the X100 and make it undefeatable? As to it varying as to zoom level -- it could not matter, if the lens and viewfinder views are parallel. The inch difference at the camera is constant, unless the lens and viewfinder are produced inexactly and point therefore in different directions. Nor need it be so big as to be unhelpful, again as witness the X100.
 
Well, fair enough, we remember it a bit differently. I agree that people were frustrated by all of those other issues (I think the one that had many experienced photographers scratching their heads was the way your ISO settings were sticky for any given exposure mode, so if you didn't remember to check your ISO every time you switched modes, look out!). But I also remember a LOT of confusion and discontent over the inability to focus on what you thought you were focussing on in the OVF. I remember once I'd worked it out for myself and explained it a number of times. a lot of folks still didn't get it, but they understood it better once Fuji added the "corrected framelines" option in the second or third firmware update, or whenever they added it. It made it easier to explain and conceptualize for those without experience with parallax. The X10 was a rather different situation, altogether since there was no focus information of any sort showing in the viewfinder. So you just had to hope that when the little green light came on that the focus point was actually on what you were hoping it was on. Worked pretty well for landscapes, not so well for portraits...

I'm not saying Fuji shouldn't add some sort of pre-AF target area to the X20, just arguing it would be quite imprecise by nature and should be followed up by a second actual focus box upon focus lock.

-Ray
 
I think it would be nice if one could move around (change) the AF field in AF-S Area mode while looking through the OVF. I may suggest that to the camera's developers in Tokyo. What does everybody else think about that?
 
I think it would be nice if one could move around (change) the AF field in AF-S Area mode while looking through the OVF. I may suggest that to the camera's developers in Tokyo. What does everybody else think about that?

I think that it would be fine -- except you have spent the last many messages pointing out how that would be of no use because of some kind of heavy-handed parallax correction (on a scale that if that were what it is would suggest that the finder is a foot away from the lens axis), so where you you put the AF field wouldn't matter anyway. And how would you implement this, if there's no focus area indication *at all* until focus is locked? Just getting a focus area indication before pushing the shutter release would be an enormous improvement. (And except for when it's on a tripod so people would most likely be using the LCD anyway, it's always going to be quicker to focus and recompose than to fiddle with controls so as to move the [currently unspecified] focus area.

With the ability to see a focus area, ala the X100, all the time, and the ability to glance down at the LCD post-shot to confirm, the image remaining there until the shutter is half pressed and not some arbitrary 0.5- or 1.5-second thing (which doesn't currently work at all, btw, unless one uses the LCD exclusively or the eye-detector gimmick), the X20 would be about perfect. Without those things, it is at least for me a real pain.

As to Ray's memory of the parallax issue with the X100, I have looked back and found no mention of it in a single review and certainly no one saying they are returning the camera because of it. This is probably due at least in part to the fact that a touch of that little lever puts one in EVF mode for close pictures. With the X20, we have the LCD for close pictures.
 
I think it would be nice if one could move around (change) the AF field in AF-S Area mode while looking through the OVF. I may suggest that to the camera's developers in Tokyo. What does everybody else think about that?

That would be very nice to have! It's something I made a note of today when I was using the camera. Switching the drive-mode and AF buttons was a great idea. But it's useless without the ability to see where the focus point is when you're looking through the OVF.
 
Maybe for both the X10 and X20 we adopt a DIY fix from early WW2 fighter pilots with their wonky reflector gunsights- scratch a mark in the middle of the frame! :D I read in some early 2012 posts about people suggesting the use of a Sharpie mark for the X10 OVF, but others commented that it would block most of the view. Maybe the X30 will have a proper hybrid viewfinder like the X100 and X-Pro. Then again, by the time I get around to buying an X20, firmware 4 will have been released, and all will be well.....

Actually, there was a time, and not so long ago, when something very much like this was possible. a photographer would go to 37 West 47th Street in New York, take the ancient elevator, and ask Marty Forscher. He owned Professional Camera Repair, and he could do anything. In this case, I would ask him to make and insert a bright frame showing the spot-focus area at infinity. (I used to have a Nikon F he modified for me in the late 1960s. The problem was that the 21mm Nikkor was not retrofocus, so you had to use it with the mirror locked up and a separate, expensive, finder. It was guess-focus -- not a big worry with a 21. Anyway, Marty cut away a little section from the bottom center of the mirror, just a little bite, and now the mirror could clear the back of the lens so it could be used like any other lens. The missing bit of mirror didn't have that much effect on the view with other lenses, either.) He is now gone and is greatly missed. Now when the Geographic and others need a modification, it has to be done in house, and not as well. Alas.
 
Actually, there was a time, and not so long ago, when something very much like this was possible. a photographer would go to 37 West 47th Street in New York, take the ancient elevator, and ask Marty Forscher. He owned Professional Camera Repair, and he could do anything. In this case, I would ask him to make and insert a bright frame showing the spot-focus area at infinity. (I used to have a Nikon F he modified for me in the late 1960s. The problem was that the 21mm Nikkor was not retrofocus, so you had to use it with the mirror locked up and a separate, expensive, finder. It was guess-focus -- not a big worry with a 21. Anyway, Marty cut away a little section from the bottom center of the mirror, just a little bite, and now the mirror could clear the back of the lens so it could be used like any other lens. The missing bit of mirror didn't have that much effect on the view with other lenses, either.) He is now gone and is greatly missed. Now when the Geographic and others need a modification, it has to be done in house, and not as well. Alas.

I remember reading about him back in the late70s/early 80s on Popular Photo magazines; as I recall, he definitely had this wizard mystique about him. I didn't realize he did mods for the Geographic photo staff, I thought they did that in house? He must have been an amazing gent.
 
As to Ray's memory of the parallax issue with the X100, I have looked back and found no mention of it in a single review and certainly no one saying they are returning the camera because of it.

Reviewers often fail to notice or mention issues which users pick up on. For example, none of the early reviews of the Fuji X10 mentioned white orbs, whereas those orbs were an absolute obsession in some forums. Early reviews didn't notice IR contamination with the Leica M8, but users found it to be a huge issue. I clearly remember some users in the DPR forum making a big deal out of the parallax in the X100 and X-Pro 1 because they didn't understand and had never encountered parallax before.

Now getting back to this particular thread, I'm not going to single out anyone in particular but would appreciate if everyone would avoid being snippy in their remarks. The whole exchange comes across as more than a little bit rude, and we are trying to create a friendly community here at FujiXspot.
 
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