Making a Comeback!
Amongst manufacturers of colour films, Fujifilm is the only real survivor. In the last two years, it has strengthened its range of digital compacts and aggressively entered emerging markets. Sensing the opportunity in the mirrorless camera segment, Fujifilm has now come out with an ILCC that not only has a fairly large sensor (APS-C sized) but also reminds one of the rangefinder cameras of yore like the Leica! The X-Pro 1 is Fujifilm’s first attempt in this direction and at first sight looks pretty impressive. How good is it? Read on...
Design and Build Quality
The Fujifilm X-Pro 1 reminds you of a Leica rangefinder. Its build quality is very good, though the shape makes it look a bit ‘ boxy’. The top and bottom plates are made of metal, while the rest of the body is made using engineering plastic. A nicely designed hard rubber grip ensures confidence that the camera will not slip out of your hand. The tripod mount is made of metal. A lens hood is provided with the XF-series 35mm 1:1.4 lens. [ XF-series lenses currently available for the X-Pro 1 are: 18mm f/2, 35mm f/1.4 and 60mm f/2.4 Macro (equivalent to approx. 28, 50 and 90mm respectively in the 35mm format). The 14mm f/2.8 (21 mm equivalent), and 18-55mm f/2.8-4 (27-83mm equivalent) were announced on June 26th, 2012 and should be available shortly. Another 5 lenses will be announced in early 2013, bringing the total count to 10 lenses.]
Key Features
The Fujifilm X-Pro 1 is a 16.3 megapixel, mirrorless, interchangeable lens APS-C size sensor camera that does away with the Anti-aliasing ( Low-pass) filter in an effort to create sharper images. It uses what Fujifilm calls ‘ X-Trans CMOS Sensor’. The new sensor assembly, claim Fujifilm, uses a non-conventional colour filter array that minimises the generation of moire and false colours. Its sensor cleaning system uses an ultrasonic vibration device to vibrate away any dust that may collect on the sensor assembly. Pressing the View Mode button offers a choice of display. You can choose between Automatic display, Viewfinder only or LCD monitor only. The Automatic display operates using an ‘eye sensor’ – when the camera is brought close to the eye, the LCD monitor ‘shuts down’ to preserve battery power, and comes ‘on’ when you move the camera away from the eye. The Viewfinder display can be set to Optical viewfinder or Electronic viewfinder. The X-Pro 1’s optical viewfinder always allows a sharp, clear view of the subject without any display lag but suffers from parallax errors; the electronic viewfinder ‘sees’ through the lens (no parallax errors), offers precise framing, and allows you to preview the effects of White Balance settings, exposure, and depth of field. What you use is your choice. If you need control over the display of indicators in the
viewfinder and LCD monitor, the X-Pro 1 lets you do that too. It offers Standard, Custom and Info Display. The following displays can be customised for viewing: Framing grid, Virtual horizon, Focussed distance, Histogram, Exposure, Exposure compensation, Metering, Flash mode, White Balance, Film simulation, Dynamic range, Remaining exposures, Image Quality/ Size, and Battery level. The X-Pro 1 lets you shoot in Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and Manual exposure mode. Don’t search for the Exposure Mode dial, for there is none! When the lens aperture ring as well as the shutter speed dial is set to ‘A’, the camera is in Program mode. To set Aperture Priority, you move the lens aperture ring from ‘A’ to the aperture of your choice but leave the shutter speed dial to ‘A’. To set Shutter Priority, you set the shutter speed of your choice but leave the lens aperture ring on ‘A’. To set the camera to Manual exposure mode, you set both, the aperture and shutter speed. The X-Pro 1 uses a lens mount that Fujifilm term as ‘ X-mount’; it has 10 contact points for transferring messages to and fro between the lens and the body. An Exposure Compensation dial on the top right lets you compensate the exposure in 1/3 EV steps in P, A, and S mode. Exposure control is via TTL 256-zone metering. 3 metering modes are available: Multi, Spot and Average. The X-Pro 1 offers a fair amount of independent control over highlights and shadows. ISO sensitivities on the X-Pro 1 range from 200-6400 but H (12,800), H (25,600) and L (100) are also on offer. The user can also set Auto ISO (Auto 400, Auto 800, Auto 1600 and Auto 3200). Note that when shooting in Raw, sensitivities of L (100), H (12800) and H (25600) cannot be used. Images can be recorded in JPEG, Raw or Raw+JPEG. Shutter speeds range from 1/4 sec – 1/4000 sec in P mode, 30 seconds to 1/4000 sec in all other modes. ‘Bulb’ mode is available for a maximum time of 60 minutes. On the left of the 3-inch LCD monitor, there are 3 buttons: Drive, AE and AF. The Drive button lets you choose between 6 fps and 3 fps in a continuous burst, Auto Exposure Bracketing (+/- 1/3, 2/3 or 1 stop), ISO Bracketing (+/- 1/3, 2/3 or 1), Film Simulation Bracketing, Dynamic Range Bracketing, Motion Panorama, and Movie. Note that when Dynamic Range Bracketing is enabled, ISO sensitivity is restricted to ISO 800. The AE button lets you select between Multi, Spot (measures about 2% in the centre of the frame) and Average metering patterns. The AF button lets you select between AREA and MULTI. When AREA is selected in AF Mode (Shooting Menu), and S is selected for Focus mode, the electronic viewfinder and LCD monitor offer a choice of 49 focus points; the optical viewfinder offers 25 focus points. The Focus Mode Selector at the camera front allows you to select between single AF (S), continuous AF (C) and manual focus (M). Focus modes are Single AF, Continuous AF and Manual focus. Pressing the Menu/OK button takes you to the Shooting Menu (5 tabs), Set-up Menu (3 tabs). White Balance can be set to Auto, 7 Presets, Kelvin temperature setting and Custom. Multiple exposures and sweep Panorama shooting is possible ( horizontally as well as vertically). A Function button on the top right corner can be used to select any one of the following: Multiple exposure, DOF preview, self-timer, ISO sensitivity, Image size, Image quality, Dynamic range, film simulation, white Balance, AF mode, Movie recording, RAW/JPEG toggle, and Custom settings. The X-pro 1 can record High Definition movies, during which time focus, exposure and White Balance are adjusted automatically. There is no built-in flash on the X-Pro 1, but the camera offers a dedicated accessory shoe for optional EF-42, EF-20 and FE-X20 shoemounted flash units. Flash can be synchronised up to 1/180 sec in P and A modes; Up to 1/160 sec in S or M modes. The camera is powered by a rechargeable li-ion battery. The camera is powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery. Images can be stored on SD/SDHC/SDXC memory card. The X-Pro 1 body weighs approx. 450 g including battery and memory card.
35mm 1:1.4 Lens
The 35mm (equivalent to approx. 50mm in the 35mm format) f/1.4 lens is constructed with 9 elements in 6 groups (includes 1 glass moulded aspherical element) and offers an aperture range from f/1.4 to f/16 in 1/3 EV steps. The diaphragm uses 7 blades. Minimum focussing distance is 28cm, while the maximum magnification is 0.17x. The lens weighs 187 g and the lens mount is made of metal. The filter diameter is 52 mm.
Ergonomics
The X- ro 1 is comfortable to hold and easy to use, but operating the Drive, AE and AF buttons while viewing through the viewfinder may take some time getting used to. When the camera is put ‘on’, there is a discomforting sound, as if something is loose within. If you look into
the lens, you will see the aperture blades opening out, making that odd sound. A part of the lens hood (and also a smaller part of the lens itself) can be seen when viewing through the viewfinder. The buttons and dials offer a positive feel.
Performance
We reviewed the X- ro 1 with the 35mm (approx. 50mm in 35 mm format) lens. We would term the overall performance of the Fujifilm X-Pro 1 as excellent, though it is not without some irritants. Images shot with the X-Pro 1 were sharp and with good colours. Noise control was good, though pixel peepers may find an overzealous noise reduction feature slightly softening texture at higher ISO sensitivities. The native image size was 16.32 x 10.88 inches at 300 ppi. At 16.7% screen size, images were usable at all ISOs, though we could observe a very slight softening of detail after ISO 1600 (however, most users are not likely to notice this). At 50% screen size, again, images were usable at all ISO sensitivities, though noise can be noticed at ISO 1600 onwards. When further enlarged to 100% screen size, noise was visible from ISO 800 onwards but we would safely use images up to ISO 6400. Depending on your acceptable standards for noise, you may find ISO 12,800 and 25,600 unacceptable for large images. White Balance performance was good, with very slight colour casts in different lighting situations. Flare was visible in direct against-the-light shots and so was slight purple fringing. Slight darkening of corners was seen at all aperture settings, but in all fairness, this was very mild and most users may not even notice it. The 35mm lens showed a very slight barrel distortion. Autofocus was slow and difficult in low light/low contrast situations.
Value for Money
The Fujifilm X- Pro 1 is available at an MRP of Rs. 1,04,999 ( body only). With the 35mm ( 50mm equivalent) f/ 1.4 lens, the MRP is Rs. 1,41,998. This definitely makes it very expensive in spite of its good performance.