New X-T1 Arrived! But Not Good News; It Has To Go Back; Huge Disappointment!

Last evening, UPS delivered my replacement Fujifilm X-T1.  Yes!  I have been waiting impatiently as I have been excited to use this much talked about camera.

Immediately, I set it up and wanted to test the image stabilization.  As you know from the previous post, the IS was not working properly in the Mode 2, which is the one that activates IS when the shutter button is pushed or an exposure is taken.  Mode 1 had worked fine.

I went outside while there was still plenty of daylight and made several images, with and without the Mode 2 image stabilization.  Hooray!  It worked as it was supposed to work!

Some of the images I made, at different shutter speeds with and without image stabilization turned on, were of the tops bare branches of distant oak trees.  The fine detail of the bare branches would allow me to assess whether or not I was getting sharp images when using the image stabilization and as the shutter speeds decreased.  I was.  This camera worked properly and I was able to get sharp images two to three shutter speeds difference.  Great!  I was actually able to see the image stabilization kick in when I pressed the shutter button halfway.

BUT! When I was looking at my images (the JPEGS) in Lightroom 5 at 1:1 to assess sharpness, I started to notice bright white squares in the clear blue sky.  As I looked through several images, the pure white squares were in the same location.  I then went back outside and made a couple of images of just the blue sky, in order to get a consistent tone across the entire image.  A consistent tone, with nothing in the image but clear blue sky, would allow me to look at the entire frame and see if there were any other "dead" pixels.

Extreme crop of one of five dead pixels I found on the sensor

I brought those images into Lightroom and used the "Visualize Spots" feature, circled in blue image above. When I did, the the dead pixels jumped right out at me.  I thought, "Maybe they are artifacts from the JPEG files?" I then looked at the RAW files in Photoshop CS6, which I had downloaded the new release candidate for the Fujifilm RAW file converter.  Same thing.  Doggone it.  I was really anxious to get this replacement camera body as I was the first camera.  The first had IS problems and now this one has dead pixels on the sensor.

Could I keep it?  Yes, but why would I? I would have to "fix" every image where there was a monotone in the areas of the dead pixels.  Also, there shouldn't be any dead pixels in a brand new camera sensor.

I was, and still am, very disappointed.  Maybe I'm just not supposed to have one of these cameras?  It is starting to look that way.

So, it will go back today.  Right now, I'm so frustrated that I don't know whether I will get another replacement or just send the camera and all the lenses back and just stick with my E-M1, with which I have had no issues whatsoever.  Is "the third time the charm", as the old saying goes or should I just cut my losses and go back to M4/3?  I haven't yet decided.

More later.

Thanks for looking. Enjoy!

Dennis Mook

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


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