On Sun, May 1, 2011 at 11:35 AM, Cotty <[email protected]> wrote: > On 1/5/11, Bob W, discombobulated, unleashed: > >>These are among the reasons why I and so many others are so excited about >>the X100. I've ordered one but it's delayed in this country because of the >>factory closure following the earthquake. I've seen a shop dummy model and >>it looks nice, and a decent size, so I was very interested to hear your >>comment about the size of the controls. > > Indeed. For me the viewfinder quality would be paramount. Any comeback > on that Godders?
The Fuji X100 has an excellent optical viewfinder, no question. It is crisp, clear, and has about a dozen or three fully configurable information display overlays all of which work brilliantly. Almost too many, in fact, but you can set it up to be as devoid of stuff as you like or as busy as you like. Its EVF, on the other hand, isn't all that great. It reminds me of the EVF on the Panasonic FZ10 I had: it works but seemed somewhat dim, low rez, and slow on refresh. Nowhere near the equal of the EVF in the Panasonic G1, Olympus VF-2 for the Pen series ... or the Ricoh VF-2 for the GXR. Of course, with the Fuji, you only have one lens so you can simply use the optical viewfinder nearly all the time (you'll need the EVF for closeup work as they disable focus closer than about 2.5' with the optical VF due to parallax considerations). The (optional) EVF for the GXR is (I think) the same technology as that for the Panasonic G1 and is similarly very high resolution and very fast refresh. Since the GXR supports multiple focal length lenses and a couple of zooms, a high quality EVF is pretty much required unless you buy a lot of optical viewfinders and don't mind changing them all the time. Since I bought the camera with the 28mm EFL lens and don't envision that I'll buy any other lenses until the Leica M lens mount module becomes available, I went with the small, simple Ricoh GV-2 optical finder. It's very good quality, crisp and clear, and there's nothing in it but a brightline frame ... It's exactly what my Rollei 35 has and is just what I was looking for. (When I first played with the X100, the optical viewfinder was cluttered up with a dozen overlays turned on and it really put me off ... I turned them off and was rewarded with the simple and clear view.) You also have to remember that neither of these cameras is a rangefinder camera ... the viewfinder in the X100 with the focusing target overlay enabled looks like a very clean, clear EVF with framing lines that highlight the focus points. The GXR with my simple optical finder presents a pure, simple, clear view with nothing in it but the frame surround. I'm still learning how to use the GXR with optical finder best, but the combination of settings things makes it almost invisibly easy to use in eye level use: - Set the Full Press Snap mode on - Set the Spot AF on with the AF spot centered - Set the F1 button to toggle AF/MF The Full Press Snap mode says "if focus isn't locked and the shutter release is pressed home, jump to the pre-focus setting." The pre-focus setting runs 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, ... infinity in meters. I keep it set to 1.5 or 2 m as I tend to work in close when I'm going fast. The Spot AF target is dead center in the frame: simple matter with the AF/MF toggle set to half-press the shutter release on your target and get focus lock, then flip to MF and reframe at leisure. It focuses quickly with the 28 lens. Given this combination of configuration settings, it proves very quick and fluid to use the eye level finder, as quick and fluid as using the X100's optical finder and its AF system far as I'm concerned. I didn't find the X100 on manual focus with the EVF to be either particularly great or poor. The GXR on manual focus with the 28mm lens and the LCD seems better, although focusing takes a little more care due to the shorter focal length with the A12 28mm module and resulting greater DoF. I haven't got the GXR's EVF yet, but I suspect it will outperform the X100's EVF. -- Godfrey godfreydigiorgi.posterous.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
