CoffeeGeek • Posts Tagged ‘review’

Photoshop Touch for Android

This is my review of Photoshop Touch for Android based on using it for only one day. I was considering buying this program when it first launched for $15 in the Android Market because of the claims that it had a lot of photoshop built in for not much money. My two primary tools for my photographic work are Lightroom (by far) and Photoshop desktop, and having a powerful app on my tablet was a natural draw. Before I bought the program, I asked (several times!) on Twitter if any of my photo friends had used it. Crickets. ;) So I decided to buy it anyway and try it out - as soon as I said that on Twitter, I got a half dozen tweets from people asking me to share my thoughts on the program, so here it is:

First, the really good stuff:

Very Smooth Operation - at least on my Android Tablet, which is a bit unfair because my tab is the Transformer Prime with 64gb internal storage, and the fastest chip inside of any current Android tablet - the Nvidia Tegra 3 Chip, a crazy quad core mobile chip with ridiculously low power draw. At the Prime’s normal balanced setting, Photoshop Touch just flies - sure, some of the more complex filters and effects can pause the display as it thinks and redraws, but it never lasts more than a few seconds. Other operations, like getting PS Touch to auto select backgrounds based on where you draw lines is instantaneous. Most layer effects ditto - in fact most operations are instantaneous and smooth with the exception of just a few of the more complex filters and effects. I also noticed that as you lay on effects, it can get a bit slower.

Just to see how it might perform on an older tab, I ran my Prime in the super power saving mode which really reduces the processing chip’s juice. It was still very smooth, but perhaps a bit more herky jerky. Still extremely usable.

The interface is fairly intuitive as well. There’s a lot borrowed from how Lightroom’s interface works, but of course, it is all set up to work with your finger touching the screen. Nice smooth transitions in and out if you want tools off screen.

Great Set of Tools - for a First Release - for a first release, I have to say the overall toolset is quite impressive. There are layers allowing you to create masks and overlay various effects, but other than blending mode and opacity levels, there isn’t much else to layers and how they work. There are 28 filter effects available, including all the usual basic ones (unsharp mask, Gaussian blur, etc) as well as a few modern-trendy photo effects (thankfully no “holga” that I can see, though you should be able to simulate the holga effects if you know what you’re doing).

There is an adjustments tool covering a lot of stuff, from black and white, to saturation to colour balance, and the more powerful levels and curves tools. Other tools include various crop and gradient effects that work for everything else you can do in the program - you can apply an effect across a gradient selection if you like.

My favourite thing in Photoshop Touch that I still think needs to be implemented better in Lightroom is the clone and healing tools. They work a bit more basic than desktop Photoshop, but better, IMO, than Lightroom’s version. Other tools on the left toolbar include some usual suspects: 3 different selection tools, a paint and pen tool, and the blur/sharpen brush tool.

Interface - I talked a bit about this above, but to expand just a bit - for a first effort, the interface is pretty good, and if you have any experience with Photoshop desktop, you should figure most things out pretty quickly with this touch based interface. It seems quite well laid out and while I find myself missing certain things (layer effects, for eg would be cool, and I’m not quite sure where the text options are in the program yet) overall, it’s good and very touch friendly on the main editing page. But…

Problems with Photoshop Touch

There are some issues with this application. None of them are deal breakers or ones that make me feel the $10 was wasted.

A photo editing program can be the best in the world at innovative editing tools, but none of that matters if you cannot easily save or share your work. And if you only lave limited ways to save, and crippled ways to share, it makes the program a downer. Most of my issues with Photoshop Touch for Android revolve around save and share.

The first one is a problem with Asus’ Transformer Prime and how their ICS upgrade worked, but the problem was magnified by a limitation in Photoshop Touch that Adobe really needs to address: In my first several hours of using the program, I could not save any image I worked on. I could not email any image I worked on. I could only upload them to Adobe’s cloud service (sigh, do I need another cloud service? ( l already have 3!).

The problem is, on the Prime after Android 4.0.3 was installed via OTA install, both the Pictures and Music folders on the Prime are munged a bit. You can’t save files into these folders nor can you delete files in these folders. Apparently a full system restore and reset will correct this, but I put so much time into setting up my Prime I really didn’t want to do a system factory restore.

This is problem for the native (and 3rd party) music apps because they cannot save new music files into the Music directory. And they kind of have to. But it is also a problem regarding the Pictures directory for exactly one application I’ve used so far: Photoshop Touch. That’s because one glaring problem with Photoshop Touch is it save file options. They are excruciatingly basic. You cannot choose the directory you want to save your work into. You are limited to jpeg or png formats only for saving. You cannot set the pixel size of the saved image (apparently it defaults to 1600px max width). You cannot set the quality level of the jpeg exported. And you cannot save your work as a psd or TIF file.

Because I couldn’t choose what directory to save my images to, and because Photoshop Touch saves files to the sdcard/Pictures folder, no files were being saved on my Prime. And no warning either that the files weren’t saved, which was even more disconcerting.

I fixed the problem the same way I fixed my Music folder problem earlier - I was able to rename /sdcard/Pictures to /sdcard/Pictures2. Then I created a new folder, calling it /sdcard/Pictures. And PS Touch was able to save the images after this change.

Other Problems

There are very limited save options, as mentioned above. But also very limited sharing options that shows Adobe isn’t playing very nice with other Android apps (something they should be doing). For instance, every other image editing program for Android that I’ve used (and in fact pretty much every app, from Pulse news reader to Currents) uses ICS’s built in sharing function to share with whatever tools you’ve set up, from Google Plus to Twitter to Email to Save it Later, to Send to Chrome, you name it. But Photoshop Touch doesn’t do this. It doesn’t display ICS’ very familiar 3-network arm sharing icon, and when you go to ways to share your document, you have the following choices:

Facebook.

Well that and Adobe’s own cloud service. And a wonky (didn’t work for me) email attachment sender. All within the app in a custom way. Android has a fantastic share system built in, and Adobe doesn’t make use of it. Boo Adobe. I don’t want yet another cloud service. Both Box and Dropbox are baked into my share options on my Android devices. I want to upload to flickr or Google+ - again, both baked into my share options on Android. No need for you to build custom upload apps. They are built in. Just produce the jpg (or png) and let the share options built into Android take care of the rest. I know Adobe wants to get you to use their cloud system (cuz they can make money and it works with the latest Photoshop) but don’t cripple the app in order to bake that into your own application.

This lack of sharing functions, tied in with the limited save functions are the biggest letdown of the program. And what pro (or advanced enthusiast) photographer uses Facebook for images? Geez. Is this Instagram Photoshop? At the very least they should have had a built in flickr tool (considering how very powerful Flickr’s API is).

Also, a lot of the UI outside of the main editing window seems incomplete and inconsistent. Images you work on are not called images, they are called projects. When I think of projects, I think it is multiple images and files. And the interface for setting up a “project” seems like you can add multiple images to a project, but you can’t. Saving, exporting and the limited sharing are not done inside the edit window either, they are done in the launch window of the app. Confusing.

There’s a few other things, but I initially thought this would be like a 8 paragraph review. I’ve gone on quite a bit. I’ll say that I would like more layer and mask editing options, more serious filters and effects, perhaps taking a lot from Lightroom’s editing tools, and I’d be even more happy with the edit system. But the file export / share system needs a complete overhaul. They got it wrong first time around.

Bottom Line

This app is worth the $10 purchase if you are serious about photography and need a good mobile tool for the quick (yet still powerful) edits. This is Android Gallery’s editor on steroids and then some. No other editor on Android even comes close right now to the power that PS Touch has. It’s also a serious creative tool. Again, it lacks some of Photoshop Desktop’s heavily used but powerful tools for creative work, but most of the essentials are there.

I do recommend this app. But if Adobe doesn’t update their file and export and share options and instead comes out with Photoshop Touch 2 with those included and wants another $10, I am going to be pissed. ;)

Here’s some photos of the UI of Photoshop Touch for Android Tablets.

Above you can see some of the basic filters in PS Touch - usual suspects mostly.

Above you see Photoshop Touch’s Photo filters. A bit basic in selection, but thankfully no obvious holga / instagram style filter here. Curiously absent though are proper vignette abilities (both removal of, and addition).

Above screen cap: How you grab images in Photoshop Touch; it will scan your local storage and find most images. Unfortunately, when you suck them into PS Touch, edit, and save new JPGs, they are scaled down to 1600px wide max. Fortunately, original images are unchanged.

In the above screen capture, on the left is a familiar set of Photoshop tools. Each has a few choices as well. Notice no eye dropper though (it might be elsewhere). Right side shows layers.

Above, you see built into Photoshop Touch is a Google Image search. It’s cool, but limited too - for instance, searching for Speedster Espresso Machine turns up a bunch of my images. But it only grabs low resolution (even if a higher resolution is available). It’d be cool if you could set pixel size as a search parameter.

Coffee Review: Coffea Roasterie’s Ethiopia Tchembe

I’m always on the hunt for fruity coffees that don’t have crazy acidity - it always seems that the more fruit, the more bright a coffee is these days.

Well, in early November 2011, I got to taste just such a coffee. It is the Ethiopia Tchembe from Coffea Roasterie.

(ed.note: I wrote this review in November, but left it in my drafts folder by mistake. I’ve updated it a bit to reflect the next roast date the Coffea Roasterie has for this coffee).

My first impression when taking a sip of the Ethiopia Tchembe? Sweet prunes. My second impression? Subtle chocolate. My third? The aromas hit me quite a bit out of the cup and were reminiscent of the flowers I had on my lemon tree this summer. I loved the low-medium acidity (just enough to make the cup interesting) and loved the sweetness level.

I had 12oz of this coffee, and it went extremely quick; I shared it with my neighbours and for at least one of them it was an epiphany coffee - she was amazed at the flavour reach. The sweet prune is so readily noticeable that she called out the flavour after a few sips and she is self described as “a complete non expert on tastes”.

I also found the coffee to be versatile: it brewed excellently on my first siphon attempt, and even became a highlight coffee for me on the manual pourover station (I’m not a big pourover fan). I did try some as espresso and, well, save it for brewing as coffee. ;)

This is a fantastic coffee, roasted in very small batches. It is sourced from one of the top importers in the US: Ninety Plus. It is not cheap - 12oz is around $25. But take my word for it, this is a boutique, “extra fancy” coffee and is a definite treat. Click the link above or the photo to order some. The next roast date is mid January for this small batch coffee.

Technical
Brewing Style: Pourover, 32g coffee ground to medium grind; brewed in a Coava Cone V2, 425g water used. Siphon: 28g coffee ground to slightly-finer than medium grind, brewed in 3cup Hario, metal mesh filter used; 340g water used, steep time of 80 seconds.

Ratings
I’m trying to come up with “every-consumer” ratings for these coffees. It is still a work in progress, but for now, I’m giving three ratings: approachability for newbies who normally take milk and sugar in their coffee; black coffee afficiandos who don’t care about cupping scores, and a basic cupping + pricing score where my scale is as follows: 80pts is a basic value, good tasting coffee; 85pts is an above average, good value coffee; 90pts and above is an exceptional coffee. My points rating also reflects on the coffee’s price - the better the price + better the taste = higher points.

Newbie Approachability Rating: A-. Newbies who normally put milk and sugar in their coffee must be convinced to try this coffee without either additive. It is naturally sweet, has low acid, and the fruit notes shine. If that fails, get them to try it only with milk: with milk, it becomes like a warm fruit milkshake and is fantastically sweet.

Overall Rating: A. Just a fantastic coffee. The only way I didn’t enjoy this was as espresso, where the powerful brewed-as-coffee flavours got harshed out. I liked it as a manual brew, loved it as a press pot, and loved it to death as a siphon. My first and last brews were as siphons, and I miss this coffee!

Cupping Score: 90.5. This coffee would be even a few points higher, but the price, at $25 for 12oz, factors a bit. Trust me though, it is worth every penny. I very rarely score any coffee over 90 points, either privately or publicly; this is only the 5th coffee of 2011 I’ve scored over 90 points. Taste notes: purple fleshy fruit, sweet, chocolate, floral on fragrance and aroma; low acidity, yet still clean and somewhat crisp. Rocks as a siphon.

- #coffee
- #review
- #roast
- #coffea
- #coffea roasterie
- #ethiopia
- #tchembe
1 year ago
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Social Coffee Co’s People’s Daily Espresso Blend

This is a ~~micro~~ (well maybe not) review for Social Coffee Company’s main espresso blend (they have a few) called People’s Daily Espresso or Espresso I. It costs $12 for a 12oz bag.

The coffee blend promises some pretty ambitious things on the label. The primary components are from Brasil, Ethiopia and Panama and the descriptor reads “Luscious melange of chocolate, black currant, dried fruits and vanilla with a nutty, creamy, syrupy finish. A monument to superior blending”.

That’s quite ambitious. Typically when I read blend descriptors like this, my critics hat comes on and I try my best to tear it apart. But first, I gotta get the espresso blend dialed in.

I found that the People’s Daily blend was quite easy to dial in. I had my Speedster and a Baratza Vario set up to produce some great results from another espresso blend, and did no changes when loading up the People’s Daily. After a few test shots, I found my temperatures were just right (199.5F on the Speedster) and my dosing was around between 17.5g and 19.5g into a VST 18g basket. My target shot pulls were in the 30-35 second range (including a long, slow, low pressure preinfuse on the Speedster - about 12 seconds) producing 25-40g of brewed espresso. Halfway through the bag, I settled in on the following parameters:

Temperature: 199.5F at grouphead
Dose: 18.5-19g via Baratza Vario (since grind settings vary between grinders, it’s useless for me to say what setting I used, but for those curious, 2nd macro position, 5th micro position from top)
Shot time, preinfusion: 12 seconds (1bar/Linepressure (3bar))
Shot time, full pressure: 22 seconds
Shot volume: 32-35g brewed

On Taste the most subjective thing really, and the most important thing for people who enjoy espresso. If I had to use a one word descriptor for this coffee, it’d be “sweet”. This is probably the sweetest shot of espresso I’ve produced in over a year. As crazy as it is to say this, the shot was almost too sweet. If it didn’t have the nice acidity the blend has, it probably would be - but the acidity, which is very medium strength, balances out the sweetness fantastically - perhaps even better than the body does.

And this blend has body. There is a definite syrupy texture to the shots even when pulling long (over 35g volume brewed). Shorter shots were in fact too much for my palate.

On flavours one thing I didn’t get from this shot was the black currant; whenever I hear that descriptor, I think of Ribena and that’s a pretty strong taste. I did taste something in the blend not found on the label - a nice mellow mandarin/cherry hybrid taste. Maybe that seems like blackcurrant to some people, just not to my palate.

Another I didn’t get was vanilla, but that’s okay too, because a flavour I did get - caramel - is what some people separate into vanilla and chocolate. I got caramel and chocolate. The residual aftertaste is completely dried fruit… think trail mix stuff. Extremely pleasing aftertaste. I’m still tasting it now, in fact, as I write this.

On cappuccinos I tweeted this yesterday: had one of the best cappuccinos I’ve had in a year or longer with this blend. Possibly top five of all time. My problem is, I couldn’t duplicate that pinnacle of taste. It wasn’t the coffee’s fault, it was mine - I somehow nailed the perfect milk steaming for one cappuccino - just the right amount of residual lactose sweetness left in the foam, milk temperature bang on, goodly amount of foam in the cup - and it was freaking fantastic. Then my other capp attempts (3 of them) - all amazing cappuccinos (I’d score them 4.5-5 on a WBC scoresheet) showing off amazing balance and complexity.

What I particularly liked was how the milk both enhanced the sweetness but maintained the espresso’s taste character, even in a 6oz cup. I could still get the dried fruits. The caramel and orange and cherry were gone, but the chocolate was super enhanced and the dried fruits still lingered. Even cut through the foam in the aromas. Awesome stuff with a bit of milk, this blend is.

Scoring I’m not scoring this (or any coffee I review on Tumblr / G+). I will say - buy it. At $1 per ounce of whole bean coffee ($12CAD / 12oz), it is a fantastic bargain. But bug Social to put this blend back into 1lb (or better yet, 500g) bags. 12oz / 340g is not enough. Mine’s already gone.

It’s in the Grain - Why the Fuji X100 is a landmark camera, Part II

I continue to be very impressed with the Fujifilm Finepix X100’s image capture ability. One area stands out more than any other for me: how the X100 handles noise in both JPG engine rendered images and in RAW.

If you have a lot of experience in photography dating back to the film SLR and rangefinder days, you probably know about the radical advances film saw in its quality, between the 1970s and the early to mid 2000s. By the mid 1990s, ISO 400 films had a finer grain, a better pop to colours and better overall structure than ISO 100 films from a decade earlier. We no longer had to push ISO800 filmstock to ISO1600 - there were plenty of amazing medium and fine grain ISO1600 films available. Even a few ISO3200 film choices were out there, with a medium to coarse grain but still a pleasing, earthly grain (especially on black and white stock).

Right up to 2004 in fact, film was kicking digital capture’s butt on resolution, grain vs. noise, and ability to capture continuous tone colour at almost all ISOs. The Digital Rebel from Canon changed that though, at least up to ISO400. The Canon 300D’s capture ability fooled everyone who thought film’s ability between ISO100-400 could never be beat. And though the 300D finally eclipsed film’s mastery at low ISOs, higher ISOs were another matter: even the Digital Rebel, at ISO1600 was a muddy mess; you could clearly tell the difference between its high ISO prints and a ISO1600 film print.

At higher ISOs, even the creamy smooth Digital Rebel, 20D, even 5D outputs exhibited the stuff we call “noise” in digital image captures: instead of a grain (which film has at higher ISOs as less of the image makes it to the film negative during capture), we had noise. Noise is a multitude of colours in single-pixel dots that try to confuse the eye into thinking you’re seeing one colour or a varying tone of one colour. That’s how CCD and CMOS chips captured images with their signals amplified and gain boosted to the max, and how the image processing units in the cameras tried to process the resulting RAW capture. But noise does not equal grain. Not by any stretch. And the 300D, the 20D, the 5D (even the Nikon D300) with their creamy smooth continuous tone, monochrome noise captures at low ISOs would lose that ability as you pushed the ISO higher.

Things have only gotten worse in this crazy megapixel race that Canon (in particular) and other companies have been running through.

This isn’t about pixel peeping. This is about a pleasing kind of noise that has added to the artistry of photography for over a century (grain) vs a digital, artificial and completely unrealistic noise created by amplifying the heck of a capture sensor. The artificial noise is muddy and ugly. And its muddiness and ugliness get amplified once you do post processing work.

If you’ve read through all this so far, I can summarize quite succinctly: grain is a monotone (single colours) effect on film that in effect creates darker and lighter dots of random patterns on the filmstock. It’s pleasing to the eye, even at ultra high ISOs (ultra high in film is ISO1600-3200; 6400 is really “pushed”). Noise in cameras at higher ISOs is not a grain - it is digital noise made up of many colours because not enough light made it through to each photocell’s capture spot on a CCD or CMOS chip; noise is an approximation of what the camera’s capture chip thinks it saw at that pixel and that other pixel, etc etc, and is further influenced by the camera’s DSP / CPU thoughts on what the colour should be. It ends up muddy and artificial.

ISO6400 sample from the Fuji X100, f2, 1/17th second exposure, unretouched save for tone curve and lens vignetting.

Cue the Fuji X100

The X100 is, for me at least, the first camera I’ve used that emulates a genuine film grain at almost all ISOs it can perform at. It does this in RAW, but does an even more fantastic job of it with its JPEG engine.

At ISO200, unprocessed RAW images from the X100 have a super fine grain, monotone colour influences, barely noticeable. Reminds me of Kodachrome 64 slide images I’ve captured in the past. I love it.

At the same ISO, JPG processed images from the camera are completely grain (er, noise) free. Velvet like butter smooth continuous colour transitions. As good, if not better than the captures from the 6mp Canon Digital Rebel. But with 4x the pixels produced.

At ISO800, THE X100 SHINES. Where the Digital Rebel started to give up and get muddy, the RAW images from the Fuji still exhibit a mostly monotone film-like grain, reminiscent of some ISO400 film images I’ve taken in the past. There is some digital noise in darker shadow areas, but still very smooth. Best ISO800, unprocessed RAW images I’ve ever, ever worked with.

ISO800 JPG produced images? Forgetaboutit. They are still continuous colour smooth with a nice (again!) film like fine grain. The jpg engine in the X100 is absolutely amazing.

Here’s a 200% blow up crop sample of the X100 vs an Olympus E-PL1 (which has a 2:1 sensor size, instead of a 1.6:1 sensor (bigger) on the X100. I don’t have the Digital Rebel any longer, but figured this camera would be a good comparison. The subject was a off-white leather couch’s corner with light to dark light shading. These are colour photographs, rendered in camera to the best possible JPG settings. I took care to make both camera’s settings and renders the same. Note there is a definite grain in the X100’s capture vs the colour (not sure where that came from) in the Oly sample. Click to view the full size version on Flickr.

ISO1600 RAW IMAGES FROM THE X100 start to show low to moderate noise in the shadow details, but surprisingly it is still mostly monotone - colour noise seems really minimized. I’d compare it to the ISO400 RAW images from a Canon Digital Rebel, and maybe possibly the ISO800 RAWs from the original 5D. But perhaps more like the ISO640 images from the 5D. That’s a full 2 stop advantage over the Digital Rebel, and a 1 to 1.5 stop advantage over the full frame 5D.

ISO1600 JPGs from the X100? Again, luscious, and definitely film like. the noise converts mostly to grain with very little digital colour noise. To my eyes, it looks like a ISO400 film pushed to ISO800 (or a 400 film from the early 1990s). I am in love with how this camera’s JPG engine seems to render a beautiful film like grain!

Here’s a 1600 sample again from the X100 and Olympus E-PL1. The E-PL1 is totally muddy with colour noise and jpg artifacts at this level (shot with the “superfine” setting on the Oly). The X100 is like a 800 ISO film reproduction. As always, click thru to go to Flickr where you can see the full size image.

LASTLY (IN DETAIL), ISO3200. RAWs in the X100 do produce medium colour noise in the darkest detail shadows, and in some harder-to-capture colours. But “medium” to me is the noise the 5D would produce at ISO800. In more medium colour tones, the noise in the RAW is still holding onto nice monotone colour variations. It’s not butter smooth but the images are still highly defined and quite pleasing to the eye.

JPG rendered ISO3200 images? They look closer to ISO800 film images (certainly closer to 800 than they are to 1600). Nice textured grain, plenty of detail, accurate colours, the works. What you don’t see much of is digital colour noise, and for me, this is a complete revelation. Frankly, I’d given up on getting usable ISO3200 images out of a digital camera without heaps of post-processing work. But Fuji’s given it to me.

Another sample comparing the poor micro 4/3rds camera to the X100. The 3200 sample from the Olympus is washed out, lacking detail (focus fall off too, but the muddiness makes it meh); the X100 is picking up traces of colour noise, but definitely granular and still very monotone.

(if you’d like to see the full images, I also uploaded the ISO800 samples for the Fuji X100 and the Olympus E-PL1 on Flickr).

ISO6400 IS DEFINITELY USABLE on the X100 - some critical detail is lost (esp. in JPG) but for artistic photography, 6400 is the new 1600. Even top end 12800ISO is usable in a pinch and to my eye, more usable than the 5D Mk II’s 3200 ISO.

Black and White

Things get even more interesting once you switch to black and white, in camera processing by the JPG engine. I never liked how my Canons did in-camera conversions of black and white at higher ISOs. The entire image seemed very muddy. There was no grain, just muddiness. I love some grain in Black and White photography - they go hand in hand.

The X100 produces an absolutely luscious, dreamy, texture-rich, detail-kept granular quality at ultra high ISOs (1600-6400). It’s ISO3200 output is better than I can do by hand in Lightroom. That kind of freaks me out a bit. You may be seeing a lot of black and white photography from X100 photographers because it’s all trendy and hip to do black and white with a retro looking camera, but in my case, I’m doing it a lot because it takes me back to my Ilford days and does something even more incredible.

You know how, as we get older, we tend to look back on “the olden days” with wistful memories of how much better things were? I certainly do that with film photography and grain. But what the Fuji has done is this: it’s producing a better grain in its output than I ever remembered getting from colour or black and white film. And especially better than any black and white film I’ve ever used. To me, that’s pretty incredible.

It’s in the grain. Another reason why the Fuji X100 is a landmark camera.

ISO3200 sample, B&W JPG engine conversion straight from the camera (slight tone curve adjustments in Lightroom). Check out the out of focus details.

- #fuji x100
- #x100
- #camera
- #review
- #grain
2 years ago
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The Fujifilm X100 - First Thoughts

So the day finally arrived that I’d been waiting for, for at least six months or longer. I got a call from London Drugs that my prepaid, pre-ordered FujiFilm Finepix X100 had arrived. This was only five days ago.

The Waiting Game

Six months back, I remember reading my first articles about this newly-announced gem from Fuji, a company I’d barely given a cursory thought about for many years since I bought my last roll of Velvia film in my old film-shooting days. I got excited. All of my working cameras these days are digital single lens reflex cameras - dSLRs - and even the smallest of them (the Canon T2i with a 50mm f1.8) is still bulky and noticeable in most shooting circumstances. You will know its around your neck after a few hours. Slap a more usable lens on it and you’ll know within a half hour.

So I was in the market for a “take anywhere” camera because after all, the best camera in the world is the one you have with you. I was tired of my iPhone being my “best camera”. I’d narrowed my choices down to three tiny beasts: the Olympus E-PL2 with a pancake 35mm or 50mm equiv lens; the Panasonic LX5; or the Canon S95.

Then Fuji announced the X100. And everything changed.

The initial announce price was “below $1000” (which meant $999.95). Okay, more than double the Canon and Pany, but only a few hundred more than the E-PL2. Within a few months, it became clear it would be $1200, and absolutely no markdowns: that made it a bit steep. I wasn’t put off by the fixed lens (I shoot primes like 90% of the time); wasn’t put off by it being Fuji (I didn’t know much about their digital wares, but by this time had learned a thing or two from forum reading). But I did have to save the money up. So I had a kit jar on my desktop - anytime I had money in pocket at the end of the day, it’d go in there. I’d avoid $75, $100 dinners and take that money and put it in the jar. Within 5 months, I had about $1600 in there. Enough for the camera, Fuji’s awesome custom fitted case, and the insanely expensive lens hood and lens adapter for filters.

So I placed my order with London Drugs in Vancouver, and started to wait. I was #23 in their waiting list. By the end of April, I got word that LD was getting 10 to 12 units every two weeks (or more frequent) so I knew I’d be getting mine by the second week of May. In the meantime, I read every single thing about the X100 in my spare time. And as the reviews started, some real negatives started to crop up:

Horrible implementation of the manual focus system. I remember reading on Fuji’s X100 site how the manual focusing system was fly by wire and would speed up the faster you spun it. I thought that was pretty cool… but the implementation was bad, according to many, especially at the macro end. A fast flick of the dial in macro mode did not make the focus change fast - it barely changed at all. A slow spin sometimes wouldn’t get any resulting change in focus.
Confusing menu system. Many (myself included) were confounded by Fuji’s menu system for the camera. One point as an example: setting the camera for automatic ISO selection is on one sub menu page (under settings), but selecting ISO is on another menu page entirely. Most cameras have ISO listings with an “auto” choice at the tail end - on the same menu.
Weird macro mode. This camera can only focus down to about 2.2 feet (about 70cm). If you want to focus closer, especially in the much hyped optical view finder (OVF) mode, you can’t. You have to do a two press switch to change the camera into macro mode, and poof, the OVF goes away, replaced by an electronic view finder (EVF); In manual mode, you can manually focus, using the OVF down to 4” (about 10cm or so) but relying on a distance meter in the OVF with no focus confirmation like most dSLRs have.
Buggy. This is a 1.0 product, and sure enough, there are plenty of bugs. People were reporting lockups, freezes, weird behaviours (like for eg, the histogram in OVF will be blank if you have the OVF set to powersave mode; the histogram has nothing to do with OVF’s power saving feature).

Okay. But I was still very enticed, intrigued, and anxiously waiting for the camera to arrive. And on May 10, it did. After a few days with the camera, I’m putting pen to paper to write up some thoughts.

I need to preface this with the following: this is not a review per se. In the world of coffee and espresso, I’m often called upon by companies to evaluate and troubleshoot their products. As a result, I usually do reports that address problems with usability, build, and function. My reports aren’t praised-based; instead, they focus on problems a product has. This article will be doing the same.

I need to make it clear that after five days, a) I still do not know much about this camera (as compared to my “like a glove” feel for my Canon 5D MkII or T2i) and b) I am not regretting this purchase one bit, and quite like the X100… in fact, I’m already very fond of it and wouldn’t consider selling it or not using it. I also highly recommend this camera.

Just need to get that clear. Now onto the bitchfest. :D

First Impressions

This camera is packaged nicely. Not as nice as say a Leica or perhaps some Apple products, but very nice, and certainly many steps ahead of anything Canon or Nikon do. But to be honest, that’s fluff, designed to make fanboys happy. That’s about all I’ll say about this.

Getting to the camera itself, this camera screams serious and retro all at the same time. I could get into detail here, but honestly, what could I say that hasn’t been said a bazillion times online already. Well, maybe I will say a few things.

The build quality overall is fantastic, though I did notice some minor issues right away. These are for the most part incredibly minor. On my camera, the “view mode” button’s text is a bit skewed. The battery / SD card door is by far the flimsiest piece of material on the camera - I can really see that snapping off. The faux leather is a bit of a letdown only because it has none of the characteristic, ever so slightly sticky grip that real leather (or even faux leather on other cameras) have. The faux leather feels like cold, textured plastic, which is probably what it is. Fuji calls it synthetic leather but it just seems like plastic to me.

The biggest negative I noticed almost from the moment I turned the camera on was the menu/ok button. But I’ll get to that later on.

That’s the initial negatives. Positives far overwhelm the above. This includes the amazing tactile feel of the dials (shutter speed, exposure compensation, even the slide-soft click feel of the aperture ring). Heck, even the flip lever for OVF to EVF feels good to use.

Tolerances in fit and finish are exceedingly tight on this camera. Nothing looks like it doesn’t fit precisely. All seams are, it seems, within a few microns of a perfect fit. The Die-cast magnesium top and bottom plates are luxurious in a way that cannot be described in print - you have to see it in person. The metal has a cold grey, almost approaching gunmetal colour to it that you just know is going to age well.

The viewfinder is… well spectacular. Very bright in OVF mode the rubber surround has posed absolutely no problems for my eyes. The eye detect system is there and works well for the most part.

The lens looks tight. It is unusual to see the aperture ring so front and centre in a lens. And I discovered a cool trick right away. Hold the camera up to yourself, looking at the lens. Move the camera into more light and less light - you’ll see the aperture ring open and close dynamically as you move the camera around (fingers on no button). The aperture blades for a very nice circle - no harsh angles or severe octagon or pentagon shapes.

The focus ring has a fair amount of tension (or torsion? what’s the word I’m looking for)… perhaps even a bit too much.

All in all, this is a serious looking piece of kit. But I didn’t have to tell you that.

Using the Fuji X100

It actually took me a few minutes to fire my first photograph with the X100. This is not a good thing. I had to hunt through the menu system and set up a lot of parameters first before firing my first shot. And my first shot was of my keyboard… and I couldn’t take the shot, until I switched over to macro mode and got the EVF in lieu of the OVF.

That’s about all I’m going to say about my first two days with the camera. Every camera that is a few steps above a point and shoot needs a few days to get used to. So I’m going to skip to my third full day with the camera, once I got used to its quirks and ways it does things.

I came to a quick realisation that this is not a dSLR, and I shouldn’t approach this camera as a dSLR. So that was definite user-error on my part. Once I got out of that mindset, I got a lot more comfortable with the Fuji X100. Still, there are some very crucial elements in dSLR design that the X100 could benefit from.

The two most important things regarding a camera are a) the image quality, and b) the user experience. If a camera can take literally the best IQ images in the world but has a horrible user experience to get those photos, it is not a good camera. Contrasting this, if the camera is a no brainer, intuitive platform, but the IQ is only so and so, it is not a good camera.

I think the Fuji X100 is a fantastic image producing camera - the IQ is absolutely stellar. But it is let down by the user experience, sometimes a bit, sometimes a lot.

I think my three biggest quibbles with the camera are focus, ISO issues, and the horrible menu system (IMO). Let’s get into this.

Focus

First and foremost, the manual focus dial is badly implemented. People who own X100s are generally accepting this and saying “well, just use the AEL/AFL button to prefocus!” but to me that’s a hack fix. A fly by wire focusing system should be capable of doing minor focus adjustments if you’re critically focusing a few mm at a time, but also do fairly large jumps in focus depth if you do a quick spin. The X100 doesn’t do this.

Second, macro mode. I am not liking that this camera can only focus down to about 2.2 feet (about 70cm) before requiring a shift to macro focusing. If that limitation was 30, 40 cm, you wouldn’t hear me say a peep. But with a wide angle lens (35mm), 2.2 feet is not good enough. You can easily compose and deal with parallax correction in the OVF right down to about a foot, maybe longer (30-40cm from the lens) and this should have been the limitation on the regular focus / macro focus jump you have to do.

Fuji says they implemented it this way because of parallax problems in closer focusing. But when you are in MF mode, you get a parallax correction frame in the OVF even down to 10cm, so I think changing the macro/non macro threshold to maybe 30, 40cm wouldn’t cause most photographers problems.

Third, and perhaps minor, perhaps not even possible: focus confirmation in manual focus mode would have been nice. Yes, this is a dSLR carry over and perhaps it can’t be done without a phase detect focus module inside the camera. But given that the OVF doesn’t visually show focus, a confirmation via a green focus box in manual focusing mode would have been nice as you spin the focus dial.

Those are my main three gripes about the focus system. I’m hoping the first point can be fixed in firmware; distantly hoping my second point about macro can be too.

ISO Issues

There are also three ISO problems as far as I can see with the camera.

First, there should be a dedicated ISO button on this camera. Not a programmed Fn button, but a dedicated ISO button. This should have been a no brainer. Digging into menus to change ISO is a pain, and even more of a pain because of something else Fuji does with ISO on this camera: ISO jumps around.

ISO jumping around? Yep - depending on what mode you are in (A, or Aperture Priority; S, or Shutter Priority; M, manual selection of A and P; or P, program mode where the camera sets both aperture and shutter), the ISO is set for each mode. Out of the box it is 200 ISO, but if you change the ISO while in P mode (to say 800), the moment you spin the aperture dial to anything other than A, the ISO jumps back to 200 (or whatever you had set). Ditto for S mode, Ditto again for M mode.

What this means is, the camera could have up to 4 different ISO settings depending on which mode you are in. Each time you change ISO, you change it only for the mode you’re currently shooting in. This causes problems:

I was shooting some late evening macros with the camera. I had the camera in A mode, dialing aperture to f2.8, letting the camera choose shutter speed. It was getting dark, so I jacked up ISO to 1200 and 1600. The next day, I was out on the street, shooting photos. I had the camera in P mode, and set the ISO to 200, no Dynamic Range boost. But I came upon a scenario where I wanted soft depth of field, so I quickly took the aperture ring off A, and moved it to f2.8; shot my shot, or tried to: the shutter was maxed out at 1/1200 a second and resulted in an over-exposed shot. WTF? ISO 200 in that light should have been fine, giving 1/200, 1/320 a second for the shutter speed.

Oh… the ISO is back at 1600. Because I switched to aperture priority mode. And I set that mode’s ISO last night.

So, shot lost, moment lost, and I have to dig into a painful to access menu a second time to set ISO again.

A dedicated ISO button would make this problem a bit less. But a firmware change where you can turn on or off the camera’s setting for ISO speeds for different modes would be even better. I know I’d have that setting turned off, permanently.

Third problem with ISO is that there are actually two ISO setting screens in the X100 menu system, and they are far apart: one is on the shooting menu (page 1 of 4 screens) where you set the actual ISO number. The second one is on the setup menu (lots of button presses to get to it) where you set ISO in automatic mode or not, plus thresholds for the auto function.

I know why ISO Auto isn’t at the top of the ISO choice menu: Fuji utilizes a system whereby the auto ISO selection is weighed towards what you manually set the ISO for (for eg, if you set manual ISO to 800, then later pick auto ISO, the camera will always try to get as close to 800 ISO as possible). But there’s got to be a way for them to include Auto at the top. Perhaps selecting AUTO in the ISO listing menu would put a checkbox beside it, showing it is enabled; you can still pick a manual ISO as well. Then, you can turn on or off Auto ISO whenever you want: the camera will remember, and weigh towards whatever manual number you’ve chosen.

Regardless, it needs fixing. Auto ISO needs to be on the full ISO selection menu.

First ISO menu - main one for selecting ISO level

Second ISO menu under “Settings” where you select auto ISO enabled, and thresholds

The Menu System and its access

This camera is not intuitive to me. I know I am spoiled and used to the menus and user interface on my Canon dSLRs, but I’ve picked up other cameras before (Leica X1, Leica M9, Nikon dSLRs, Canon point and shoots) and found using these cameras pretty intuitive after a very quick crash course.

Well after five days with the X100, I’m still finding myself frustrated and inconvenienced by its menu system and how it is accessed.

Probably the first big problem is a physical one: the main input button (menu/ok) is badly designed. It is too flush with the command dial and half the time you go to press it, you end up pressing up or down (or left or right) on the command dial and not getting the response you want. This is time consuming. It’s especially bad in the playback mode when trying to delete photos. You have to confirm the deletion and suggested workarounds for dealing with the crappy OK button don’t work in this mode (the suggested fix is pressing the camera shutter half way - in the main menus, this selects your current option and exits you from the menu).

This is a really, really big usability problem on the Fuji X100. Cannnot be fixed by firmware either since it is a physical problem. I’m guessing Fuji’s test groups were mainly populated by 95lb piano players with long, thin fingers. Mine are fat and stubby.

Second, the implementation of the entire menu structure (for playback, for live view, for shooting and setup) and how you access the menu structure (command dial, command rocker, left side buttons) is counter-intuitive, sometimes subtly, sometimes very bad. As mentioned above, ISO is badly handled from a UI perspective on this camera. But accessing Custom Settings is also a pain. Add in the bad OK button design and it makes it very frustrating to dig into the menu, make changes, and choose other menu items to change.

(sidenote: I’m sure my menu gripes would be minimized quite a bit if the Menu/OK button was better designed).

Third, things that should have one button access, well, don’t. I consider ISO to be a crucial-access item. It needs its own dedicated button. Custom Settings are a bit useless if you don’t have one click access to them. (Custom settings are good because they retain a bunch of camera settings in one spot, but accessing the settings could be better). Given the limitation on the leaf shutter (max 1/1000th shutter speeds at f2) the ND filter should have its own dedicated button. And movie mode shouldn’t be on the “drive” setting, it should have a dedicated button. Even delete, which is the “up” press (along with “Drive”) on the command dial, should have its own dedicated button since the command dial is not designed well.

Yes, there is the programmable Fn button on the top of the camera, but that is the only programmable button on the entire camera. Setting the RAW button to be programmable in a firmware update will improve this somewhat; but the camera needs at least one more programmable button, or at the very least should have had 2 programmable buttons and a dedicated ISO button.

The Lens Area

Okay, I know Fuji wanted the profile of the lens’ protrusion from the camera body to be as minimal as possible so it doesn’t show up (or shows up minimally) in the optical viewfinder.

That said, the design is a bit stupid because it really exposes the front lens to damage - the glass is quite close to the physical front of the camera and without the lens hood or filter adapter (both crazy-expensive optional accessories), your lens is very exposed. It also leads to a lot of flare in some shots.

A better design would have been more traditional - a bit of a built in hood in the lens design (to cut down flare, to allow for a filter to be screwed on even with the way the lens extends out a bit during macro).

I know Fuji did this to cut down on the lens assembly being visible in the OVF; however at the very least they should have included, in the purchase, the filter adapter ring with this camera. $50 for that is a rip off. $100 for the lens hood? Even more so.

Other issues

A few other issues have come up with this camera but they are minor.

The diopter adjustment next to the viewfinder has no indicator for middle or 0 adjustment. I have to guess what the best setting is when wearing my glasses, and the range of the diopter isn’t good enough for me without glasses (and my eyesight isn’t THAT bad). Minor thing, but also would have been a minor thing for Fuji to put a white indent on the centre mark for the diopter dial.

Flimsy battery door. I’m quite afraid I’m going to break this off one day. It seems flimsy and held on with barely a thin pin. Also while I’m at it, the unlock slider for the door isn’t spring loaded - it just opens and stays open. A sliding mechanism via spring would have been better. You can close the battery door thinking it is closed, but it is not locked.

Viewing photos magnified is a bit frustrating. Sometimes in the field, I like to critically examine details in photos just shot (magnify in on a particular point). Most cameras let you do this and then jump to the next photo, with the same magnification. The X100 doesn’t seem to do this. You have to zoom out before you can go to the next photo. It would seem natural that the command toggle (the left-right dial near the top of the camera’s back) would be natural for this in magnify mode, but nope - it just moves your magnified view left or right. Instead, let the command DIAL do this, and let the command toggle move between images in zoomed in mode.

I do like this camera

All this said, I really do like this camera. I feel let down a bit by the UI, but I also know time will soften this as I get more used to this camera’s quirks.

I bought this camera for three reasons: image quality, carry anywhere - shoot anywhere, and be my best camera.

The Image Quality of this camera can be stunning. The bokeh out of the f2 lens coupled with the APS-C sensor is fantastic. Colour depth is really good and the built in jpg engine is possibly better than the ones on my Canons. That’s saying something.

This could be my “Best Camera” because it’s light enough and slick enough that it will probably come with me on most of my excursions out of the house. The best camera is the one you have with you. I plan to have this with me a lot.

The middle point - carry anywhere, shoot anywhere. Well it is definitely take anywhere in its design. But I’m still struggling with the shoot anywhere. It is a one handed camera (gotta get used to not putting my left hand up to steady a lens!) but everytime I put it up to my eye, I’m wondering in the back of my mind: “okay, is ISO okay? Why is the OVF not displaying? Oh did I press that first? Oh, did I do this right? Oh, is that setting okay? Oh, I have to drill down into the menu system to fix that, hope I hit the OK button just right” etc etc.

A lot of my gripes can be addressed in firmware fixes; but a few (no dedicated ISO button, badly designed menu/ok button which, other than the shutter is probably the most important and most used control on the camera) cannot.

My point is, I’m hesitant using this camera. It doesn’t fit me like a glove. I’m not confident in it yet. It is early days (I’ve only had it five days), so perhaps that will change. In the studio, all of this is no problem. But as a street shooter, if you are a bit worried about what your camera has decided to do for you, it can be slightly unnerving.

Hey, by the way. You really should consider buying this camera. Despite all I said, it is quite fantastic :D