X-e4 Manual

[Dardo Hameed]

Igot an X-e4 recently and what I have done is set the AEL/AFL button to AFL only and whenever you press that and then turn the focus ring the camera is automatically in manual focus mode without the half press until you shoot or press afl. I assume you need af+mf also selected.

The wrench icon indicates SET UP and features settings including Power Management, Button/Dial Setting, and Screen Set-Up. Choose DISP. CUSTOM SETTING from the SCREEN SET-UP menu to select what information shows on the EVF/LCD.

The AEL/AFL button allows you to lock either the exposure or autofocus in a specific part of the scene, allowing you to recompose while maintaining that exposure or focus area. You can assign the AEL/AFL button to AE LOCK ONLY, AF LOCK ONLY, or AE/AF LOCK, depending on your preferences. These can be turned on/off when the button is pressed, then pressed again, or set to activate only while the button is pressed down. The functionality is changed from within the SET UP > BUTTON/DIAL SETTING menu.

The white balance setting allows you to select WB options that match your light source. Press the Q button to enter the Q Menu, then find the WHITE BALANCE option and use the front command dial to cycle through options such as DAYLIGHT, SHADE, or INCANDESCENT. You can also create your own shade of white or select a specific kelvin value, which is a measure of the color temperature of light. If you prefer, white balance can also be set from the IMAGE QUALITY SETTING menu, or assigned to a function button or touch screen for fast access.

To change the view mode, where you can decide how the electronic viewfinder and LCD respond in both shooting and playback, find the VIEW MODE SETTING option under SET UP > SCREEN SET-UP. For instance, you can change view from LCD to viewfinder only or EYE SENSOR + LCD IMAGE DISPLAY (for using both), which senses your eye at the viewfinder and instantly switches from LCD to EVF.

Did you know that 25p and 50p frame rates are best for European countries, while 29.97p and 59.94p are more suited to the US? This is because of the different frequencies of mains electricity in these territories, which can cause lights to flicker slightly at 50Hz or 60Hz, respectively.

You can choose from two focus areas via the AF/MF SETTING > AF MODE menu: Multi, which uses the whole frame, and Area, which lets you be more selective. Only after selecting AREA or switching to manual focus will the FOCUS AREA setting in the AF/MF SETTING menu become active. Now you can move the focus area around using the Focus Lever, like in stills mode.

Your X-E4 can communicate wirelessly with your smartphone or tablet computer via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, so you can transfer pictures to your device, where they can be edited and shared with friends and followers online. You can also use your smart device to shoot remotely, controlling the camera and even looking at what the camera sees with remote live view.

It depends on who you ask, of course. Street photographers would likely say freedom. The reduction of decisions in this genre is positive; the fewer choices to make, the more focus can be dedicated to spotting interesting moments in public spaces that happen over a matter of seconds.

A backpack full of lenses is a physical burden for a street photographer but it can also be a mental burden. Oftentimes, minimalism is beneficial most in the mind. The lightness of mind can open more doors to ideas and creative thinking than one worrying if it should change lenses for this shot or this street, etc. Too many decisions to make can become dizzying and inhibitive.

To do this, I put my camera in aperture-priority mode with as low an ISO as possible, and a minimum shutter speed of 1/250s. Turning the focus to manual and using the digital scale on the LCD screen, I set the focus plane and distance to about three or five metres away. With an aperture of f/8 or f/11, most subjects within that plane will be in focus. Depending on the day and location, I may adjust the focus plane to be a little closer or further away.

The focus setting I mentioned above is for a Fujifilm X digital lens. For a manual, focus-only lens, such as a third-party X mount lens (from TTArtisan for example), the focus can be set on the lens itself making it even easier to zone focus. This is the way I prefer and perhaps this also comes from my familiarity with shooting film on the street. The zones are clearly marked and easy to change if you do want to switch up your focus plane.

Thanks to my friend Ivan Wong for giving me the opportunity to play with his latest lens, the Voigtlnder Nokton 35mm f1.2, for a week. Unfortunately due to my unforeseen workload, I only get to try this lens for 4 days before I have to return the lens to him. So this is a pretty short hands-on experience compared to the usual one.

Voigtlnder has been a long time manufacturer in the market, they have been manufacturing beautifully crafted lenses for M mount, E mount, Z-mount and m43 mount. Now they have extended their portfolio to craft lenses for the X-mount. Their first lens in the X-mount portfolio is nothing but one of the popular focal lengths among the photographers, 35mm (50mm in full frame equivalent).

This 196 grams lens has a solid metal constructed body and I can actually feel how dense the weight of this lens is when I hold it in my hand for the first time. The aperture ring clicks give me very satisfying feedback and the manual ring rotates smoothly with a bit of friction without much force needed.

At wide open, this lens gives you a kind of glowing and soft look where the blur falls off quite beautifully and is comfy to my eyes. It also provides a characteristic flare if you face the sun or strong light directly. Unfortunately, I fails to create one that is as beautiful as I saw on the web.

I have a high expectation (later on this) with this lens when it comes to chromatic aberration and vignetting. Luckily, I am not disappointed. They are very well controlled as I did not observe them from my shots.

This lens comes with a 30 cm MFD which is the same as the XF33mm f1.4 and Sigma 30mm f1.4. At this distance, you can get stronger glowing and softer results. Not forgetting that the depth of field is very shallow when you shoot wide open.

I mentioned about me having high expectations about this lens. Allow me tell you why. According to the official suggested retail price, it costs USD 649. It is rather expensive for a manual lens. For reference, XF33mm is selling at USD 799 and Sigma 30mm f1.4 is at USD 339. If you want to justify the high price, what I can think of is the brand itself, fast aperture, compact, made in Japan and unlike other manual lens manufacturers, it does equip with electronic contact. I think it should suffice to justify, I guess?

If you are a photographer who wishes to gain some experience with pure manual lenses and you do not mind not knowing your aperture setting, there are many other manual lenses for your consideration. The price between Voigtlnder and other manufacturers is a huge gap. From a money perspective, I personally do not recommend you to buy this lens unless you know what you are doing.

Assuming you want to buy this lens, but you have no idea what genres is it suitable for. I think you do not need to worry about this. Because this focal length is very versatile and it covers generally most genres such as documentary, journalism, street and portrait.

Having said that, I am still glad that Voigtlnder is joining the Fujifilm community and not forgetting that the 23mm f1.2 is launching soon. All in all, I hope to see more lenses from them and benefit the photographers.

Disclaimer:

1. The lens is from a friend of mine and I have returned it to him by the time this article is available online.

2. Most of the shots are straight out of the camera with some shots edited via In-Camera Raw Processing.

3. The opinions are based on my experience. If there is any mistake, please kindly drop me a message and I will gladly make the amendment.

4. All the shots taken here are shot by me. I reserve ownership of these images, if you wish to use my images, please notify me.

Does the lens support an auto-aperture adjustment for manual focusing? i.e. when set to a smaller aperture, will it open to f/1.2 for focusing and then stop back down to the selected aperture for capture?

Briefly breaking from my photographic posts on travel, here is a post on how I set up a Fuji X-E4 camera I just bought. The purpose is to demonstrate how by applying yourself to setup, you can get a very simple camera that can perform complex tasks.

I got my partner Jools a Fujifilm X-E4 as a birthday present and after it arrived I decided to get one for myself as well. It will replace one of my X-T2s (a top model in its time) because it has full current Fuji functionality. It will also replace my X100s, which is a sophisticated coat-pocket fixed lens camera, as the X-E4 is about the same size with the kit lens.

The point is you can have it both ways. You can have a very simple and compact camera that is very easy to operate and yet can do all the complex things with little effort. You just need to spend some time setting it up to your own requirements. What I have to say will also apply to other current Fuji models as well, and much of it to previous models and even other camera marques.

One of the first things I did was to change the default setting for Touch Screen Mode (AF/MF SETTING > TOUCH SCREEN MODE) from TOUCH SHOOTING to OFF. The default setting meant that every time you accidentally touch the LCD screen it takes a photo, which is just crazy. (Another potential option is to set it to AF but then if you touch a point on the screen to autofocus, you have to turn the camera on and off to get AF back to the shutter button).

After that I went through the manual and identified all the settings I might want to change while operating the camera and wrote them down. I then identified which I could specify in the various ways to customise the camera.

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