A love story with a little hate feeling.
Last year I bought a new Fuji X-Pro-1, it was a great deal few days before the XPro2 was on the market, I bought it as a camera to keep in my pockets not really as a serious option but I loved it since I started to take the first pictures. I even bought a second one used and converted it to infrared.
The quality of the RAW file is incredible and so the quality of the lenses. I really enjoy the OVF and the option to switch to EVF sometime. Low or high ISO the quality is superb and I started to bring the camera with me always, something that I was not doing with the much bigger and heavier Canon 1DSMkIII I own. Every single time I develop the RAWs I like it a little more.
So I cannot be happier and I hope I will get the X-Pro-2 very soon.
But… I hate absolutely all the buttons and wheels that get pushed and moved anytime I take the camera in my hands from the bag. The macro function seems made only to make me worry that the OVF/EVF switch is broken every time I push it accidentally and I get stuck in EVF. The exposure compensation get always out of the zero and I under or over expose pictures because I do not like to have always the display on to check… all the buttons soon or later get pushed accidentally. It makes me crazy!
So, dear Fuji, why you do not put an option in the firmware to disable the buttons and dials? I know, I’m a dinosaur in the modern photography because I need only shutter speed, aperture and ISO, 90% of the time. But Leica made money with a model without even the display!
Some line of code in the firmware and we will be able to personalize the camera, turning off all the buttons we want and the camera could go back and forth, from normal to limited function, with something simple as pressing one of the annoying buttons for more than 3 seconds or something similar.
Personally I would be happy with all the buttons and dials inactive but play, shutter speed and aperture. Other people can have other needs but I think that can be easy to customize with a menu similar to the menu used to choose what to display in the OVF.
The fun part is that this can be done on all past, present and future models.
Dear Fuji, I already love you but with that option you will save me a lot of money for couple therapy because I start to curse when I accidentally push you the wrong button!
Please, dear Fuji, listen to me… I even have a ring ready for you to make this relationship stable in time!
Whit love and a little hate.
A little update few days later… someone made me notice that pressing the OK/MENU for two seconds lock the selector avoiding to go accidentally in macro mode. I missed that in the manual, my fault ooooops, but still I would love to turn off also the other buttons and the exposure compensation dial… but this is better than nothing.
William Franklin
November 25, 2016
Being able to disable all the buttons and just use shutter speed and f stops would be great.
Dominique
November 26, 2016
Well said ..
lee you
November 26, 2016
I love the color of your camera body. Did you change the body wrap? i notice it’s red and texture is different. nice customised camera. very unique
Luigi Barbano
November 26, 2016
Yes I changed the skin, you can read how I did the conversion to IR (and the skin change) and see a video in a previous post in my blog. There is also the link to the guy that sells the skins.
Teebo
November 26, 2016
I don’t know about the X-Pro1 but my X-Pro2 has the option to lock the rear buttons by holding down the menu button for a few seconds.
Luigi Barbano
November 26, 2016
Yes, also the XPro1, and to be honest I just discovered it from some comments (my faults to have not deeply read the manual) but I still would love to deactivate also the other buttons and specially the exposure compensation wheel.
Johan Rastenberger
November 27, 2016
But if you only shoot in manual, the exposure wheel does nothing, right? On the x-t2 I can lock a few wheels. My biggest issue is that I by mistake get into continuous shooting mode…
Luigi Barbano
November 27, 2016
But the point to have a great exposure system, really wonderful with the Infrared, is to use it. So a lot of time I just stay in aperture priority.
A lot of people have different way to handle the camera, so different switches/dials/buttons that get accidentally moved. This is why I would love to see a way to personalize the active or not buttons. I never had problem with the EVF switch, a friend of mine always move that accidentally, for example.
I sometime also switch the focus mode and loose time to get back.
I think it is impossible to make a camera perfect for every single user, so a perfect camera must be highly personalizable.
Kinderfotograf Wien
November 28, 2016
nice camera yes, makes great pictures but you have right, they need to put something in the firmware to disable the functions.