Update on My Decision Not to Purchase a Fujifilm XE-2

In a previous post, I mentioned how much I wanted to purchase a Fujifilm XE-2 because of its form factor, size, weight, menu and controls layout, sensor and quality of image.  I deferred for a few reasons, one of them being lack of a raw converter that does the sensor justice.

Last week, in continuing my research on the camera and the X-Trans sensor, I came across a series of very interesting blog posts in the blog Chromasoft that highlight and reinforce the issues of conversion deficiencies with available raw converters that now exist for the X-Trans sensor. If you are interested, here is the first of the series of four posts.

Previously, in the The Sound Image Plus blog, the writer/photographer posts about his issues with raw processing when using the XE-2 and how, especially green foliage is smeared, and not rendered well.  Being a landscape and nature photographer, that is of great interest to me.  Here is that post.  He also wrote about how he has to use a different raw converter with a bit of a convoluted editing process to get around the problems with the X-Trans sensor demosaicing issues.  You can read that post here.  Finally, he has tried and likes Photo Ninja for his raw process, but that still requires several extra editing steps.  You can read that here.

If you have as much interest in exploiting the potential image quality from the XE-2 and its brethren, you should read these.  After all, the image quality is one of the major factors in purchasing into the Fujifilm system. From the writer's extensive evaluation of the difficulties of demosaicing the X-Trans sensor image files, I don't think any of the developers have yet hit the sensor's sweet spot in extracting all of its potential. Adobe's efforts and results are especially troublesome. Although these posts were written some time, ago, I am unable to find more current information indicating the issues have been solved.

As of this time, I have talked myself out of purchasing a Fujifilm XE-2 but will leave the option open in the future if Adobe (primarily, since Lightroom and Photoshop are my established workflow programs) improves their demosaicing algorithms.

Thanks for looking.  Enjoy!

Dennis Mook

Many of my images can be found at www.dennismook.com.  Please pay it a visit.  Thank you.


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