[Leica] My Experience with the X Pro-1 and Leica Lenses

[steve.barbour at gmail.com (Steve Barbour)]

On May 19, 2013, at 1:12 PM, Richard Taylor <r.s.taylor at comcast.net> 
wrote:

> Hello again.  It's been quite a while since I posted, but I've been 
> following the recent discussion about the X Pro-1 and XE-1 with great 
> interest and thought you might be interested in my experience with my 28 
> Summicron on the camera.  I use the Fuji adapter.  
> 
> I've had an X Pro-1 since it first came out.  I am delighted with it and 
> with the Fuji 35mm and 18mm lenses I usually use on it. 
> 
> As the recent postings have said, using Leica lenses on the camera is only 
> a bit more hassle than using them on an M.

except now focus is spot on, even under tenuous circumstances.....

> In the OVF with the camera set to manual focus a quick press of the thumb 
> wheel brings up a magnified EVF image in the finder, focus, half press the 
> shutter to bring the OVF back, and shoot.  Great, and pretty quick. 
> 
> Unfortunately, in bright light--read that an anywhere outdoors on a sunny 
> day--the OFV frame lines are so dim as to be invisible.  Why this is so is 
> beyond me since the frame lines are perfectly visible in bright light with 
> the Fuji lenses mounted.*  This looks like a bug to me and maybe a 
> firmware update will fix it. 
> 
> The EVF is fine outdoors, fortunately, but you have to lock the EVF on 
> since there is enough of a light leak around your head when the light is 
> bright to keep the sensor on the back of the camera from triggering the 
> automatic switch to the EVF and to prevent the manual switch from working. 
>  
> 
> The shooting process is the same as with the OVF and just a quick.  I find 
> I need to shoot with both eyes open, though, since the EVF is pretty dim 
> in bright light.  It serves primarily as a focusing and framing device.  
> The XE-1 may be better in this regard.  My one look through one of those 
> viewfinders made me think I was looking though a piece of glass.  
> 
> On file size, I was initially getting very large (55MB) image files after 
> import into Lightroom 4 even though I wasn't embedding the RAF files.  You 
> can bring the file sizes down to normal--about 25MB RAF; 19MB DNG--by 
> selecting Compatibility "ACR 7.1 and Later" in the preferences dialog box 
> for imports into LR4.  I got this fix from a Fuji X forum.  This usually 
> limits you to using CS6 and LR 4.1 and higher but that's not a problem for 
> me, anyway.  
> 
> Image quality with the 28 Summicron looks pretty good but I haven't really 
> looked at it in detail yet.  This lens will be my 40mm equivalent lens at 
> least until Fuji finally releases its 35mm equivalent.  
> 
> The X Pro-1 is my current Leica substitute.  It's great camera, use it 
> with joy!  
> 
> Dick
> 
> *There is one exception to this.  I situations where there is bright light 
> and the light is highly polarized, such as light off the water, the frame 
> lines will be invisible with the camera held horizontally.  Rotate it to 
> vertical and the frame lines reappear.   
> 
> If you're wearing polarizing sunglasses the frame lines will be invisible 
> in all situations and the EVF will be black and unusable.   
> 
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