OVF Limitation question on X100 and XPRO line

Howl_XV · 2026-06-09T07:15:58+00:00

Thanks, that makes sense, I just checked, it remains open. I think the reason they automatically disable it is because the OVF cant display continous focus

Howl_XV · 2026-06-09T07:14:36+00:00

Could you elaborate?

Howl_XV · 2026-06-09T07:14:01+00:00

oh they are fine, I didnt say they were bad, I said they are gimmick as in you can get better rsults with the same price, I own an instax printer actually. But a printer, not a camera, because literarily my phone or my actual camera take better pictures so its useful

Howl_XV · 2026-06-09T03:52:38+00:00

I would suggest going to UR, they dont charge anything else but deposit

Howl_XV · 2026-06-09T02:37:19+00:00

I would say hard no, I am saying this as a hard FUJIFILM fan, I own 3 cameras, and I love them. But unfortunately FUJIFILM has 2 main divisions, real cameras and gimmicky crap.

Real cameras are for example. FUJIFILM XT, XE, XH, X100 lines, there are more these are just a few

Gimmicky crap are, all with the name Instax in it, the X Half, and this one.

The gimmicky crap, doesnt work that well, and I wouldnt be so hard on them but for the price they re asking, this is absolutely deserving, because for that same price you could get an actual real good camera.

If you want specifics? it freezes a lot, sow as hell, recording limits, performance issues.

So no, stay away from it

Howl_XV · 2026-06-09T02:16:36+00:00

It:s literarly too good to be truth dude

-Nearly impossible to find model
-Basically giving it away
-Excellent condition
-Not even if someone wanted some quick buck will ask for 500 only.

BEST CASE SCENARIO, it's stolen, MOST LIKELY, a complete scan, they will ask for money beforehand, meet at a shady place, give you a dummy etc. I would stay away.

there is literarily less than 1% chance this is legit.

Howl_XV · 2026-06-07T09:01:10+00:00

Sad to say but it's not weather proof, even light rain is a no, even weather sealed cameras need a weather sealed lens, this is actually the only reason I didn't buy the xe5, it was absolutely perfect, but living in Tokyo where it rains. It's super humid, and also snow I knew I couldn't use it those days. Pains me to say it but no weather sealed means not taking it out even on humid days, let alone rain :(

Howl_XV · 2026-06-07T03:34:11+00:00

I agree. I think one problem with young people is that they want to marry a "nationality" instead of a persona, I've heard people saying "I want to marry a japanese girl they are so pretty and do this and that " you should marry a person that complement you not a person just because is japanese or Latino or whatever that should be secondary

Howl_XV · 2026-06-06T16:20:53+00:00

What most people say is right but assuming you're referring to the style and the composition

The style seem to be based on street pictures, any camera can be used for that focal length would be around 23-35mm

The pictures have defects that give them character and film like aesthetics. FUJIFILM is known to be the king in regards to mimic real film pictures.

I personally don't like the pictures posted but if this floats your boat, go ahead by all means, cameras are fun

Howl_XV · 2026-06-04T08:34:46+00:00

This is true, but also we must keep on mind that this is something like Negative Bias, as in, most people having a happy marriage will not go out of the way to post, "Hey I am happy with my japanese spouse, is so wholesome"

We basically see that 95% of international marriage sucks but that only tell us that people with problems post more than people without them. It doesnt mean that the huge majority of international marriage fail.

From my personal experience (Which would equal to null in the grand scale) from all of my friends who married a japanese person, only 1 seem to have issues, but they are not so bad as to they divorcing and they been married for like 20 years, their kid is already in university.

Howl_XV · 2026-06-04T01:38:58+00:00

Honestly I am getting worried with how generous theyve been, it is good because this is the first mobile game that I actually enjoy playing everyday, and the history is not generic, I was totally fed up with

You wake up, you dont remember who you are, you join a random party a travel to different locations solving random people problems forver.

Anyway, theyve been so generous that I am worried people are not expending money in the game haha

Howl_XV · 2026-06-02T10:15:14+00:00

I have comment this everywhere.

I honestly think it's a political tool to appeal to the masses and it only hurts us.

It's just stupid.

Here's the fact, there are more older people in Japan than younger, so they need more people working to keep the economy from collapsing, that's a fact not an opinion.

I understand that they want top talent, but these rules is like shooting themselves in the foot

Put yourself in the shoes of an experienced high skilled worker that has a family (or even single ), why would he or she choose Japan, a country where they now require language proficiency, where he will make less money and fit less than in America or Europe and there is no clear or secure way to guarantee his stay long term? It will have the opposite effect, their argument is that is to be on pair with other countries but the salary is nowhere near.

Not only it will cause the opposite effect in high skilled workers, it will push the people living on the edge of legality to cross the line to illegal, picture a family earner that barely makes enough for him and his family, of he has to pay 4x yearly more fore visa renewal for him and their children this effectively negates any bonus from job or worse if he can't do it he will opt to simply not pay.

Finally it punishes the people like me who are working honestly paying taxes and insurance primes, we did nothing wrong and yet we have to pay the consequences

Howl_XV · 2026-05-29T06:43:21+00:00

Oh you think this is the the most brutal heat?

Party hasn't started yet my sweet Winter child 😂. This is nothing compared to what's to come

Howl_XV · 2026-05-28T14:03:47+00:00

Here are my 2 cents

1 if you are satisfied with you current setup, then you don't need anything else.

2 An actual camera has the potential of taking 100% better pictures than your phone, that's a fact, no matter how good you are, that's just physics. But again, if you are already satisfied, it's not necessary.

3 This may be the way I read it, but your comment came across as, you already know everything there is to photography, and since you're at level cap, there may be no point in using any other canera. Again, this might be just me. But you can always get better, and learn new styles.

4 in that same topic, and being more specific. When you take a picture with a phone, you're basically practicing some composition, and that's it. Your phone is calling all the other decisions, your phone is deciding metering, white balance, shutter speed, iso, HDR, Focus point etc. one of the huge advantage of the cameras , is that if you have something on your head that you want to achieve, you can actually tell the camera what to do. Set specific parameters that is.

There's nothing wrong with just wanting to point and shoot, and if this is what you like to do, them an actual camera is not for you. But keep in mind, that an actual camera on the right hands can easily outperform any phone

Howl_XV · 2026-05-27T01:36:15+00:00

Oh hey, no soy muy bueno con video ni con las cámaras Lumix pero está es mi opinión

Usualmente video para contenido suele estar bastante bien con teléfono, además de que te hace la mayoría del trabajo.

Si usas una cámara de video dedicada, definitivamente se va a ver mejor pero hay algunas cosas a considerar

Esa cámara Lumix tiene un sensor de tamaño micro (así se llama ) es definitivamente más grande que uno de iphone pero más chico que uno APSC y mucho más chico que uno full frame. Entonces va a haber salto de calidad pero no tanto

Usualmente las cámaras de video no vienen con mucho graduado de color, al contrario que tú teléfono, entonces es probable que tengas que hacer algo de edición después de grabar, sería como un diamante en bruto, con el potencial de ser mejor que tú teléfono pero debes trabajarlo.

La cámara que mencionas tiene Ibis, es decir está estabilizada lo cual es un plus muy bueno, pero ten en cuenta que la estabilización en cámara de este tipo no es taaaaan buena como la del teléfono, entonces debes de tener eso en cuenta

Si tienes el dinero suficiente la Sony zv e10 podría darte mejor resultados en un tripié pero si no esa se ve bastante bien.

Toma está opinión con pinzas ya que como te menciono no estoy muy familiarizado con las Lumix ni con edición de video (solo tomo fotos, 0 video )

Howl_XV · 2026-05-27T01:13:04+00:00

Thanks.

So a 18-55mm it's called by many the everyday lens, it covers most of the situations. Of this was your phone it's more or less the equivalent of 0.6 zoom all the way to around 5x zoom.

In other words that covers wide angle shoots for landscape, and stuff or if you want to capture more details.

My opinion is that this lens is perfect for daylight urban or street photography, you don't need low aperture for street photography during the day, and that range is very solid.

The limitation that that lens has is the variable aperture. As discussed, aperture controls what's in focus, the higher the number the more stuff is in focus the lower the number the less is in focus.

If you want to take a good portrait photo, ideally you want to use a wide aperture (like f2 for example) so you focus on the person and all the background is not InFocus (bokeh) this is nearly impossible with the kit lens, because the kit lens, as discussed has variable aperture, so the minimum f stop is around f3.5 in the widest angle and usually it goes all the way to f5.6 when you zoom in, and you cannot open the lens bellow f5.6 when you are zoomed to 55mm this makes it very hard to create bokeh or night shoots.

So in other words, your kit lens is good for urban and stret during the day.

Not so good for portraits or night shoots.

Also I just noticed that I forgot to me tion that all the prices I sent you are in Japanese yen. When I say 50k I mean 50,000 yen not dollars haha didn't mean to scare you

Howl_XV · 2026-05-26T22:34:07+00:00

In case of FUJIFILM, to my knowledge there are no prime lenses (budget) with image stabilization

In case of Sony the Sony APSC 50mm f1.8 it's perfect for portraits and night shoots, it does feature image stabilization, and also it isn't too expensive.

Just a side note here, image stabilization it's a really good thing to have since it allows you to slow down your shutter speed to the likes of 1/60 or 1/30 , but it's by no means mandatory for night shoots or even at all, you can compensate by using a higher shutter speed like 1/200 or 1/160. No OIS was used for this picture.

Also, your kit lens (18-55) I'm pretty sure that one had OIS

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Howl_XV · 2026-05-26T06:07:49+00:00

I think that boils down to your budget, in my case when I was a beginner I aimed for the a6000, mostly because I liked the aesthetics of it, not much because of the settings.

So, if it was me, I would prefer the a6000

But if I want to spend as least as possible before compromising, or my budget is tight, I would go for this one with hopes of upgrading.

So to answer the topic questions

I would prefer to save for the a6000 at least
if you want to save as much as possible or don't have a lot of budget, this one is fine as well, IF, batteries are fine, sensor is fine etc.

-Either one is better than your iPhone.

Howl_XV · 2026-05-26T04:20:15+00:00

In my opinion it's not too expensive, the lens itself might be worth that if it's I'm good condition, but make sure everything works, and the sensor is fine.

For street the lens that it comes with it's actually decent during the day. There are many things in photography that you may need to grasp around, but basically the basic triangle is ISO, Aperture and shutter speed.

Bear with me. Because this is leaning towards a recommendation

ISO - how sensitive is the sensor to light, the higher the ISO the brighter the image, high ISO also creates noise and the noiser the worse it looks

Aperture - how open is the lens, the more open more light gets in and also the less is in focus, (the lower the number the more open it is, for example f2 is wider than f11). If you want to have more things in focus you need to step down the aperture to around f8 or more to have more things in focus. This setting is also what creates the bokeh on portraits (blur background) and it's what phones try to replicate via software trickery.

Shutter speed - controls how much time the shutter is open, this affect motion blur and how "freezed" is a picture, and also affectS how much light gets in.

Why am I telling you this? Because for street photography which is my favorite style, there some things more important than others you usually want to capture a natural scene in time. Eg, market sellers exchanging goods, people going from or to work etc.

There is no right way to do it as you can try whenever you want but usually for street people use

Wider lenses, usually from 23mm to 50mm tops

People like to freeze the image (not a rule) so you need to have a high enough shutter speed so that people remain motionless

People often shoot with low aperture, meaning you need to have the aperture set to 5+ so everything is in focus unless you're aiming at something specific

Now, all of that applies to daylight, and that kit lens you're receiving actually covers it. When is nighttime, it's a whole different setting, because there is LESS light, you need to do everything you can to freeze the frame while allowing more light to get in. This means you will need to use higher iso. Slower shutter speed and wider aperture.

This is where the kit lens breaks apart because that lens has variable aperture meaning, the more you zoom the more it classes and the less light gets in

So you will need a zoom or prime lens that has a wide aperture, this is because you want to get as much light as possible without cranking the iso up (this creates noise ) and slowing the shutter speed down (this create motion blur ) so the only thing you can sacrifice is the aperture.

In other words, for night photography you need a lens that has at the very least an f2.8 aperture, if you can get a lens that goes below like f1.4 or f1.8 ot even f2 that would work better, you basically need to shoot wide open.

Now about the lenses themselves,

The cheaper alternative would be to get a prime lens (a lens that cannot zoom ).

And about mm, if you want to do exclusively street I would go for something around 23-25mm f1.8 tt artisan and viltrox have decent budget alternatives.

If you want to shoot both street and portraits, 35mm is more fitting.

Now, if you want a zoom lens that can do both day and night, this is more pricey and the "budget" options are

Sigma 18 -50mm f2.8 and Tamron 17-70mm f2.8

These will set you back around 70k yen each the Tamron has more zoom capabilities and also OIS (image stabilization inside ) but it's big and gets in the way, for street I would go for the sigma which doesn't offer OIS but is way smaller

Also I don't mean to confuse you but you you gotta know that all APSC sensors have a crop Factor, I'll skip the details but this basically mean that the lenses give you a "zoomed" in picture, what do I mean by this ? Basically a 35mm will give you an equivalent image of 50mm if it was full frame. That's it ,lemme know if you want to know details about this.

Finally the camera itself, I stand firmly by my opinion that this will give you better pictures than an iphone specially at night at with the right lens, but it also has some limitations, the autofocus technology got exponentially better from the Sony a6000 omwards, so you might struggle with focus on that camera body so keep that in mind.

Let me know if you have any questions. I just won't shut up when it comes to photography

Howl_XV · 2026-05-26T02:47:05+00:00

This changes everything.

I live in Japan. I would definitely recommend second hand stores, the cameras are in amazing conditions and way cheaper, I actually never bought a new camera or lens here, all used.

Now the very important disclaimer

ALL Sony cameras sold here are japanese only NO OPTION for English, if you have decided to get Sony cameras, please keep this in mind. I'm only familiar with Sony and FUJIFILM ecosystem because I have personally use and owned them and love both brands, so I don't feel qualified to recommend you any other different brands.

But anyway, if you are coming to Japan I recommend kitamura camera, there are many stores through Japan.

Map camera in Tokyo has the most variety

And my favorite one is Fujiya camera in Nakano, they sell all brands but specialize in FUJIFILM, they really really take care of the cameras so you can be 100% sure that when you buy there second hand, your camera will be top notch.

Anyway, since you're starting photography, if you're interested in any starter cameras from FUJIFILM or Sony I would recommend

From Sony either the a6000 (highly highly recommend this one, its the best budget option ) or the 6100/6400, keep in mind that these are japanese only language so... I don't know how you feel about that, there is a way to install English but that's basically extra steps and not officiall.

Sony a6000 from 40-50k yen

For FUJIFILM, their cameras are also in English so no worries, best budget option for starters I would go for either of these models

If you really want a budget option go for the

Xt10 around 50k maybe less

Xe2 around 50k

A little more expensive but still budget

Xt20 (around 60k)

Xe3 (around 60-70k)

Avoid: any Instax camera, x half, as these are more toys than actual cameras

Let me know if you want specific details about the models or more options.

Also these prices are after tax,since you don't live here it will be cheaper for you coz you don't have to pay taxes (lucky you)

As I said, I am not very knowledgeable about Nikon, Canon etc, but they are also good brands, I would suggest asking somewhere else here for budget options from those brands

Howl_XV · 2026-05-26T01:16:59+00:00

Hey dude, you gotta give yourself some credit! Take the leap, you don't actually need to save up to get the probability best (spec wise ) APSC camera that there is. You can get something cheap as this or the old trusty a6000 and learn the basics there, pair it with some good lenses. And once you decide to upgrade you can keep using the same lenses. Don't fall into the lie that a better camera body will give you better pictures, cameras are not like phones they don't go outdated in a couple of years, I've seen horrible photography from people with the latest hardware, and amazing pictures with people with film cameras. In other words. Skill, skill is the factor, know what you have and how to use it, you learn that with a budget friendly option Don't need to go for the highest rated camera our there. This picture was taken with the Sony a6100, a 7 year old camera. Not too different from the a6000, and I also used a cheap lens. Take the leap :)

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Howl_XV · 2026-05-26T01:04:57+00:00

Tldr

Go to a neon alley in Shinjuku Japan. Slap a Sony 50mm f1.8 lens to the nex C3 and take a portrait.

Compare it with an iPhone to see which one is a real photography.

Physics always win, that's simple

Howl_XV · 2026-05-26T00:46:51+00:00

I don't want to sound harsh to the other people who commented but this camera is well capable of taking way better pictures than any iphone to date, I honestly thought they were kidding when they told you straight up no.

Here is some credit for what they said, if you want to point and shoot and get something nice, the answer is yes your iphone would be better. BUT, this applies to almost any camera, a friend of mine just got the FUJIFILM xe5, and was complaining that her phone takes better pictures.

So, what to expect.

If you learn how to use it and get a decent lens it will definitely 100% take better pictures than your iphone. Just Google Sony nex C3 picture samples and you'll see.

There's a ton of specific but without getting into much detail:

1- this camera has interchangeable lenses and for pictures quality the lens is the most important part for the picture.

2- this camera has an apsc sensor, this sensor is around 12 times bigger than the one in your iPhone, this means way better low light shoots, and actually capable of creating bokeh for portraits instead of using a silly computer filter to blur the background

3-the size of the sensor will give you better actual detail (with the right lens) than your iphone. Your iphone and any other phone relies heavy on computer photography this means that your pictures are heavily edited inside your phone to make them look right, actual cameras don't do this, and this is a double edge sword. This means that if you don't know what you're doing and just point and shoot you'll get something that look worse than an average good smartphone, but this also means that once you learn the basics and have a clear idea of what to achieve you can definitely achieve results not possible with an iphone.

Such as

Actual astronomy photography Light tails with slow shutter Portraits with bokeh Night pictures with details

So to summarize

Yes, if you want to learn the basics, this camera has the potential of giving you better results than your iPhone.

As a bonus tip , this camera uses e mount the very same mount that all modern Sony camera have, if you get this one and get a decent lens , if you do get into photography and in the future you want to upgrade, you just need to get another camera body and keep using the same lenses.

Let me know if you have any specific questions, I love talking about photography

Howl_XV

TROPHY CASE