Many thanks for sharing this
appreciate
Back to clubsnap after a long long while , decided to post this to speak up and do some justice for the fujifilm X20.
Here's what i found after spending a day on test shots and configurations.
1. A lot of people (in dpreview forums as well) are experiencing grainy pictures / jagged edges / Jpeg artifacts in the "standard default setting" of noise reduction "0" and sharpness "0"
- honestly - this firmware 1.01 on my fujifilm x20 is overdoing the sharpening and noise reduction in their default settings.
I came from a long history of using various systems (full frame/ aps-c/ foveon/ micro4-3rds and compacts).
only when i tune "noise reduction = -2" and Sharpness " -1" , those results (jpeg) are hugely improved.
- Also don't try set 400% DR for all photos thinking you would have the best HDR effect , that increases the shadow noises and chroma colour noise as well - especially noticeable when your shots are under exposed. I set mine to "auto" or 100%.
2. Shooting raw - i download the latest version of adobe DNG converter - that is supposed to support fuji x20, but the results are disappointing - after converted to DNG format , it has some strange random noise-like artifacts across some of my photos.
you are better off using the silkypix software that comes with the camera to export your raw files for post processing till Adobe fix this.. Not sure if this is just my version of the DNG converter or photoshop cs that is causing this.
3. The raw files - strangely and unexplainable , in many of my shots ISO 800 , 1600 .. the raw files have excessive noise. Much more than I'm not sure if this due to the x-trans CMOS II sensor . I sold my x10 long time back , so i couldn't really do a comparison between that 2 cameras as the sensor technology is different even though both are 12 megapix. It's not fair for me to compare the x20 ISO control with the other larger sensor cams. In my opinion, the X20 noise grains are uniform and only 10% of those are the irritating chroma color noise and can be cleared quite easily. ** try clearing the sigma foveon sensor noise , you will know the pain ,it's much craper comparing to x20- despite the sensor size larger** If any of you readers comes from the "film" era , the noise level of x20 iso 1600 resembles the film ISO 400 type of noise. Nowadays pixel peekers photographers have a very low tolerance for noise and expect it to be absolutely clean. I'm pretty fine with noise with the condition that the noise does not distract into the finer details of what was being photographed. The raw files that i have are very "sharp" - overly sharp for my likings till i find it too digitally artificial for my likings - i'm pretty sure that i have turned down sharpening to "none "on the silkypix .
4. Colour accuracy - i shoot sigma foveon SD1 and i'm very particular on skin tones. Using the fujifilm x20 - settings film type - "Astia" , highlights -1 , i got very accurate skin tones when i'm shooting raw. Honestly i wasn't expecting to see this level of accuracy in colours from a compact camera that cost less than S$800 - and this camera is a keeper for me.
5. AF speed - Excellent ! and the shutter lag is almost in-existence. Obviously this cam is not meant for long zoom sports photography but i'm quite pleased that when i'm shooting kids jumping around , moving cars - it captures the exact moment that i wanted most of the time.. maybe 15% misses that's all - which is pretty impressive for a compact cam of this price and size.
If the fujifilm folks are reading this - please for your next firmware
1. Look into the issue of jpeg processing in your camera - The average raw files that are taken from this cam is 18 meg and the jpeg output was around 4 meg (on the best settings).
this amount of jpeg compression is too excessive and a lot of fine details /data are lost. And to add to the problem - the current x20 jpeg processing add in too much sharpening and noise reduction to make the photo pop to the eye.
Obviously this suits some of the consumers category of photographers but it turned away some of the other photogs.
2. And where's that EXR setting that allows DR of 800-1600 ? that was one of the settings that differentiate x10 from the other cams.. i miss that option..[/QUOTE]
