Continuing the blog serialisation of my popular X-Pro Series lust/hate/love story:
Part 28: The X-Pro2 Review: The X-Pro2 Review Part Four: View Finding
All new for the X-Pro2 is of course the much requested Dioptre adjustment. I’ve never really understood people feeling so incensed about this…. OK I get it, LOTS of people need glasses.
But for example Ken Rockwell described the X-Pro1 as “defective” because of its fixed Dioptre. Well no offence Ken (or indeed to any spectacle wearers) but actually it’s your eyesight that’s defective.
I have a slightly deformed right hand, because I smashed it up in a motorbike accident over 20 years ago. Therefore ergonomically I struggle to hold some cameras, and I need a decent grip. But this doesn’t give me carte blanche to say that all cameras are defective because I can’t hold them properly. Because it’s not the camera’s fault, no?
I realise that the X-Pro1 early adopters struggled to find Dioptres for their prescriptions. But that was 4 years ago; now the info is out there to source the correct Dioptre, do this once and job done. Never touch it again.
Anyway, I HATE the Dioptre adjustment on the X-Pro2. It doesn’t stay put. So I frequently find myself bringing the camera to my eye, only to squint a bit and muse to myself ‘man, was I drinking last night?’
So, we migrated away from the stay put Dioptre solution and ended up with an adjustable one, which we’ll almost certainly be adjusting a lot. Of course we could wrap electrical tape over the Dioptre wheel, because that doesn’t look at all crap does it and is perfectly acceptable to have to do that on a high end prosumer body, that apparently was 4 years on the design board. (I relented, and added electrical tape to the camera last week, and a sticky rubber pad to the AF-L button)
What bugs me most about that? There’s not even a scale on the body to line up the mark on the Dioptre wheel against. If the X-Pro2 had that, we might at least get a hint that the wheel had shifted as we lift the camera to our eye.
So basically, Fuji has taken the hassle of a one-time procurement of a Dioptre lens away from spectacle wearers, and instead given EVERYBODY the hassle of having to check their Dioptre wheel frequently.
Thanks Fuji. Not.
Something else I that I personally feel is woeful, is the size and luminance of the icons within the OVF. They’re tiny and translucent and VERY hard to see. It’s like that after finally fixing the Dioptre issue [sic] that Fuji decided to celebrate by giving everyone an eye test.
This came SO close to being a deal breaker for me…. I spent I lot of time in a lot of stores deciding if I could live with it… and even then, it’s a LOT worse out in the field, if the OVF is over something white (the same colour as the OVF display) then it’s virtually impossible to read the histogram, see the SS, DR etcetc icons. And no, there’s no way to make the OVF display brighter.
Again, I have to ask, no SHOUT; how did that get through the net? How did no single beta tester not raise this camera to their eye and not say; “erm excuse me Fuji, but I can’t see jack. Can we get this sorted please?”
For me, I tend to do any critical focusing, exposure setting etc in the EVF, then switch to the OVF, so I can work round it… But I really shouldn’t have too… That the OVF needs the ability to adjust the brightness of the display is basic, BASIC stuff.
Now it may sound like I’m not very happy with the X-Pro2. Not at all. The areas that truly matter (IQ and how easy it is to access that IQ) work very well. But equally… That doesn’t mean that the X-Pro2 is without foibles, failings and idiosyncrasies. I just feel compelled to point them out to you
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Adam Bonn Fotografia 