Saturday, June 16, 2012

Fuji X-S1 Review – Part 6 – Acuity is mine!

This camera has two issues so far that are bugging me a bit. First, the AF does in fact freeze a bit when it has to acquire the subject. If it is not almost in focus, there is a noticeable pause while you wait. And the EVF freezes too.

The second issue is I am having as much or more trouble with the X-S1 as I did with the HS25 in getting a really sharp image. I get quite a few that are very close and that might satisfy a lot of people when displayed small, but I like to open an image and see perfect acuity. Dead crisp and sharp.

So after getting back from Petrie island, I shot images of my car, and they have spawned two posts already – the ORBs and Luxe Auto Lounge.

Here is the third … I walked slowly to a squirrel that was wandering about the yards and saw it pause at the base of my neighbour’s Ash tree. I started shooting it as I edged ever closer and eventually got almost under the tree. I think I shot 8 images at full zoom. Of those, exactly one turned out as sharp as I like.


fuji x-s1  100iso  f/5.6  1/50                                                      Click this image for the larger version!

In fact, the stabilization is probably doing pretty well … 1/50 is about 4.5 stops down … that’s Nikon territory. But, of course, Nikon get excellent acuity most of the time at 4 stops … Fuji get it rarely.

But this is a great reason to remember to shoot lots of copies of the same image. One of them will be something you can be very pleased with.