A while back I mentioned I was confused how to bring up or change certain elements in the viewfinder window of the Fujifilm X100s. Since then, I’ve made a few discoveries.
- The optical viewfinder power saving option turns off certain things, even though you might have selected them to display. For example, the aforementioned histogram. With power saving on, it displays only as an empty box.
- The things you select for viewfinder display by checking boxes in the custom display menu only appear when the display is set to custom, by using the display button (DISP BACK) near the lower right hand side of the rear LCD. Semi-obvious so far. However, less obvious is that this button only affects the currently active display, not all at once. It’s not a global adjustment. So, if, while having one of the rear LCD options active that allow use of the viewfinders,* you bring the camera down from your eye to look at the back or you pick it up to adjust by looking at the back (all natural things to do), you are only setting the rear LCD screen to ‘custom.’ You need to be using the actual finder or screen you want to adjust to invoke the custom setting for that finder or screen. That means you need to be looking through the optical viewfinder to set it to custom, and the same for the electronic viewfinder. This is actually very easy, as the display button falls very nicely under the thumb for easy use. The (kinda) exception to this system is if the rear LCD is turned off, leaving only one of the viewfinder options on. In this case, since the viewfinder is always active regardless of camera position, you can set the viewfinder to custom without raising the camera to your eye.
- At first the above seemed annoying, but now I find it very useful. You can have things set up the way you like depending on the viewfinder / framing method you are currently using, and then change them to another custom setting easily. For myself, this means an uncluttered non-custom optical viewfinder for the majority of the time. When I want more precise framing I also often want to use the horizon level, so I have that active for the electronic viewfinder by setting it to & leaving it on custom mode. Same too for the rear panel. Typically I use the camera with the rear LCD set to info view (with eye sensor activated for the viewfinder), but when using a tripod I often like to frame with the rear LCD, so I have the horizon level and histogram set to show here when I switch to rear LDC custom view. While using the optical viewfinder I have the horizon level and histogram set for custom view, so pushing the display button with my thumb can bring these up (& send them away again) on those rare occasions I want them. All very convenient.
- I still by far prefer the optical viewfinder, set, as I mentioned above, to non-custom to show the least clutter. However, I have found that the electronic viewfinder in a B&W mode is surprisingly nice to work with. Much nicer than when it is showing a colour view. For this reason alone, I find myself shooting more now at RAW + jPeg with the jPeg setting as B&W (with yellow filter usually).
- Still can’t seem to turn on the white balance indicator.
- Tripod levels – turns out that that circular bubble type level thingy is more effective than I thought. I have that along with the more conventional bar type one on my el-cheapo tripod and the circular one seems to have leaked empty. If it worked, I’d do much better at taking level panos!
Here’s a photo, apropos of nothing.
* ‘info view,’ ‘standard’ or ‘custom’ view plus the eye sensor active
Typed, for a change, in total silence
Fujifilm X-Series Thoughts 