Fuji X-T3 released

J.Brown said:
but as I compare it with my other still camera A7RIII image quality and auto focus for stills is far from the Sony.
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I'm interested about video features of X-T3, are you sayin' it's usable with autofocus? I've read all the posts complaining about the last firmware that seems to cause problems with autofocus. The last firmware is 3.0.1 are you using it?
 
For stills the A7RIII beats the hell out of the X-T3 as the X-T3 just can't keep up with the Sony. With the Sony almost everything ends up in focus but with the Fuji it always misses a few shots in constant intervals.

For video I haven't done a comparison. I'm not sure which FW I'm at on the Fuji but it's at least FW3.
 
Danilo Del Tufo said:
I'm interested about video features of X-T3, are you sayin' it's usable with autofocus? I've read all the posts complaining about the last firmware that seems to cause problems with autofocus. The last firmware is 3.0.1 are you using it?
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Danilo:

I've been using the XT-3 for the past nine months, exclusively for video. The image for video looks wonderful. As far as video specs for the Sony, the Sonys have better AF and a larger imager. But the Sonys all have circa 2015 data and bit rates.

Sony A7 variants = 4:2:0 8-bit maximum 100 Mbps data rate
Fuji XT-3 = 4:2:0 10-bit 400 Mbps data rate

Sonys, being FF, will be better in low light.
Sonys, in many users opinions, are hobbled by subpar color science, especially skin tones but that's an aesthetic judgement.
The Sony footage, if it's shot right, can be CC and graded to have decent skin tones, but it's 8-bit so you had bettter get it right in camera or it will fall apart in grading.
SOOC, no contest, the Fuji footage looks better as far as color science.

The Fuji's AF used to be at least usable (FW 2.0) but since they updated it to FW 3.0/3.1, the AF became worse, there is now a lot of micro focus twitching and hunting.
We are hoping Fuji will quickly respond and "fix" the AF. The system has proven it can work fine, they tweaked it badly for the latest FW updates and messed it up, it
now never stops focus hunting no matter what your AF focus settings are on the camera.

For stills, I don't disagree with J.Brown, I've seen lots of good stills from the Sonys but the video, IMHO, is a big compromise with lousy skin tones and low data rate 8-bit.
 
Thanks Puredrifting,
it's little confusing reading all the thread and understanding the complaints about autofocus.
I will take in consideration again if they fix the autofocus.
 
Danilo Del Tufo said:
Thanks Puredrifting,
it's little confusing reading all the thread and understanding the complaints about autofocus.
I will take in consideration again if they fix the autofocus.
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I agree, it is confusing. At first glance, the AF works fine. It's not making huge leaps to radically OOF, then into focus. It's more like your main subject stays in focus, but the camera is constantly tweaking and micro-adjusting the focus.
When you shoot an interview and the BG is somewhat defocused, you'll notice the background shifting and moving, even though the subject seems to be staying roughly in focus. I have found that for doing some gimbal shots where the camera
and the subject are moving, it's barely noticeable. But same shoot, when I have the subject stop moving and shoot a 10 minute interview with them, standing still with a stationary BG, you can totally see it. Also I use the XT-3 on a motion control
slider as a B camera for an interview and same issue, you can see the subject and the BG micro shifting constantly. It's very, very frustrating as it has nothing to do with the camera's focus sensitivity settings. In my tests, it does it all
of the time the camera is on, on some lenses you can feel the internal focusing by putting your fingers on the lens and it never stops. It has to be decreasing battery life and increasing wear on the focusing mechanism of the lenses as well.

If you were just a casual hobbyist shooter and didn't look very closely, you might not even notice it. But when you shoot for clients and look at the footage full screen on a large monitor, it's very noticeable all of the time. The tough part
is, it's too subtle to see on the cameras tiny LCD screen, you barely notice it on a 5" on-board monitor screen. But take it into your editing software and you see it and output and view on the large screen or TV and it'll drive you crazy.
Both of our Fuji XF lenses do this on our XT-3 and our Canon lenses used with the Fringer Pro do it as well so that means that it's not a lens issue, it's a body AF issue.
 
puredrifting said:
it now never stops focus hunting no matter what your AF focus settings are on the camera.
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FWIW I've found it entirely depends on the lens / camera settings. I upgraded to 3.x and had no issues for months until I moved out of my typical shooting environment (indoor / controlled lighting / low aperture / AF-C with eye detect / on a slider) and went outside.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting the camera is recommendable in its current state -- it's absolutely not. But part of the reason I think this issue made it past the QA team is because it doesn't manifest in all situations. I'm guessing Fuji tested the AF in similar environments to mine and noticed no issues.

I went through a call with Fuji tech support and they were able to reproduce the problem with my same settings. Even though I didn't ultimately get a resolution to my issue (the only way to roll the firmware back down to 2.10 is to send the camera in, and it's not enough of an issue for me to warrant that), I was pleased with the call. Zero hold time, someone there with access to a physical camera/ lenses and an efficient approach to reproducing the issue. Gave me confidence in buying one of their more expensive cameras should I ever need it.

Hopefully a new FW comes in that resolves this for everyone because it really is a shame to not be able to recommend the camera at the moment.
 
I had a positive tech support experience with Fuji when I called them about the AF problem a few months back, too... but ultimately they've done nothing about the problem and they've had 6 plus months to resolve the issue. Sold my Fuji and moved on...
 
I find the AF issue very interesting, if only for the fact that so many people are evidently relying on the AF abilities of the cameras for their paid work. I had no idea so many people were shooting primarily with autofocus.
 
Grug said:
I find the AF issue very interesting, if only for the fact that so many people are evidently relying on the AF abilities of the cameras for their paid work. I had no idea so many people were shooting primarily with autofocus.
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Have you tried focusing yourself while moving a gimbal, following a moving subject in 4K or greater resolution? Very difficult to nail it. If you have an AC with a good screen, great, but if you are shooting gimbal solo, especially in bright sun, AF is a lifesaver.
Same with an unmanned B or C camera on a motion control slider. How else you going to track a slightly moving interview subject on a compound move where the client has requested, "make the BG soft"? Other than these two situations, I have been using
manual focus on the XT-3 but all of the lenses are focus by wire, which is awful for manually tracking focus. I recently bought a Nijon F mount to X mount adapter and have even been using my old Nikon Ai lenses from the 70s because they are a joy to
manually focus.
 
scorsesefan said:
I had a positive tech support experience with Fuji when I called them about the AF problem a few months back, too... but ultimately they've done nothing about the problem and they've had 6 plus months to resolve the issue. Sold my Fuji and moved on...
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Well, you haven't moved too far if you're still checking this thread :)

I agree 6 months to fix a big issue is a problem, and underlines one of the glaring issues with combined stills/video image makers -- wouldn't be at all surprised if this was a result of a tweak made by the photo guys, unnoticed by the video guys, and now they're probably scratching their heads to figure out how to get the video performance back without compromising the stills.

Grug said:
I find the AF issue very interesting, if only for the fact that so many people are evidently relying on the AF abilities of the cameras for their paid work. I had no idea so many people were shooting primarily with autofocus.
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AF on stationary/slider/gimbal cams is pretty much one of the only times I consider the use of the word "gamechanger" appropriate. Whole new ballgame, especially for smaller teams/individuals.
 
I just finished shooting on a gimbal and the face tracking worked great. I'm not experiencing these AF issues I'm reading about here. Used the 18-55 kit lens at f4.
 
Erik, when you get a chance, shoot a sit down interview on tripod with it and see if you see any focus twitching. It's not nearly as noticeable when the camera or talent is moving, although once you know what to look for, you'll see it.
 
Erik Naso said:
I updated to Ver.3.01 a couple of weeks ago. I didn't do any extream tests but it all seems to work with the limited lenses I have.
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Erik, I'd like to see some tests from XT-3, with recent firmware. As Puredrifting says there are a lot of problems with the camera that stopped me to buy it, if the problems are with some lenses and the autofocus works with the majority of them I'd like to know. Thanks! :-)
 
Fujifilm to release firmware update for the FUJIFILM X-T3

Enabling video shooting control from Gimbal / Drone and offering other feature enhancements

November 13, 2019
FUJIFILM Corporation (President: Kenji Sukeno) plans to release a series of firmware updates for the FUJIFILM X-T3 (hereinafter “X-T3”), starting in mid-December 2019. The updates reflect requests of additional features and operability improvement, received from users of the X Series of mirrorless digital cameras.

The upcoming update will enable controls for video recording from Gimbal / Drone via USB communications. You can combine the X-T3 with a Gimbal / Drone that supports this function to significantly broaden your shooting options. FUJIFILM is in communication with SZ DJI Technology Col, Ltd.* and ZHIYUN** (listed in the alphabetical order) about their plan to release compatible products. Fujifilm also plans to deploy this function to the FUJIFILM X-T30 and other models. Further firmware updates in the future will bring autofocus enhancement and other improvements to the X-T3.

Main features:

■ Firmware update for the X-T3, due to be released in December 2019
Firmware version: FUJIFILM X-T3（Ver. 3.10）

Gimbal / Drone support***

This firmware adds the following function to complement the current support for still image shooting via USB communications:

Starting and ending video recording
Adjusting exposure settings (exposure mode, shutter speed, aperture, ISO sensitivity, exposure compensation) for video recording
Making manual focus adjustments
■ Firmware update for the X-T3, due to be released in January 2020
Firmware version: FUJIFILM X-T3（Ver. 3.20）

1. Enhanced autofocus

Improving the tracking performance of the eye AF frame, making it easier to attain accurate autofocus on the eyes
Improving face-detection performance when there are faces of different sizes within the same frame, making it easier to attain accurate autofocus
Improving autofocus capability on a foreground subject even when there is a mixture of foreground and background subjects within a frame, causing the foreground subject to go out of focus, e.g. when shooting flowers against a busy background
2. Capability to save up to 9,999 pictures in each folder

Until now, the number of pictures that can be saved in a folder on an SD card was limited to 999. This update will raise the limit by ten times to 9,999 pictures.
 
Damn, we have to wait until January 2020 to get our AF fixed? Oh well, at least we have a date, have to live with this limitation for another three months. The gimbal/drone control means nothing to me, being able to shoot without AF hunting means everything.
 
puredrifting said:
Damn, we have to wait until January 2020 to get our AF fixed? Oh well, at least we have a date, have to live with this limitation for another three months. The gimbal/drone control means nothing to me, being able to shoot without AF hunting means everything.
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If the gimbal updates allow for the manual focus control that I've experienced in the stills mode connected to the Ronin-S, then that will be a bit of game-changer for me. The face tracking is nice to have, but there's so many shots that autofocus simply isn't viable for, and being able to simply plug the camera in (rather than having to rig/power external focus motors) will make it so much more useful.
 
"FUJIFILM is in communication with SZ DJI Technology Col, Ltd.* and ZHIYUN** (listed in the alphabetical order) "
--
Let no one be triggered!
 
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