Camera test 31
Photography News | Issue 58 | photographynews.co.uk
Performance: exposure latitude
-4EV
-3EV
This set of exposures was shot on a bright sunny day and manually bracketed from a base exposure of 1/500sec at f/8 and ISO 200. The Raws were exposure corrected in Lightroom CC. The usual scenario is that overexposure is handled less ably than underexposure and that was the case with the X-T100 and its Bayer sensor. Shots at +3EV
and +4EV had unrecoverable highlights in the case of our strongly-lit scene. The +2EV and +1EV shots fared much better, with the former recovering to give a result close to the correctly exposed frame but with a minor but easily editable colour shift. Latitude performance was much better with underexposed Raws. Tonally the -4EV shot
looked fine. Close inspection revealed some fine graining in smooth areas of midtones but that didn’t impact on fine detail. The grain got less at -3EV and by -2EV had gone completely, and the recovered result looked the same as the correctly exposed shot. In sum, the Raw exposure latitude performance was well up to the standard expected.
-2EV
-1EV
Original image
0
+1EV
+2EV
+3EV
Images The X-T100’s Raws coped better with underexposed scenes, delivering acceptable results even at -4EV. While latitude performance suffered at the other end of the scale at +4EV, but it had recovered well by +2EV.
+4EV
Its upright (it is actually very slightly angled) positioning is explained when you try selfie shootingwith themonitor positioned to face forward. Rotating the dial adjusts the power zoom while pressing it in takes the picture. It does make one-handed selfie-shooting easier and you’re less likely to drop the camera. For normal shooting, however, its positioning takes a little getting used to but it did prove useful especially pressing it for a magnified image for focus checking, inmanual focus or in single point AF use. Our brief tour of the X-T100’s control layout ends at the four-way cluster on the rear panel which covers four key camera functions: autofocus, white-balance, self-timer and drive. The AF and drive options deserve some more explanation. Push the AF segment and rotating the sub command dial alters focus point size, zone options or takes you to the wide option where all 91 AF points come into play. If you just want to adjust a focus point or zone position use the AF control and then use four-way cluster or touchscreen. The drive segment takes you into the usual options of single or continuous drive, with a maximum of six fps. You’ll also find here the HDR feature where the camera takes a series of shots, up to 3EV, with its electronic shutter and merges them together in camera and you can choose to save or delete the result. This is HDR in the conventional sense and designed to help you
cope with extreme contrast, and not produce cartoon-like results. It is also worth noting that the camera AEB (autoexposure bracketing) option lets you take from two to nine shots at up to +/- 3EV, which is impressive given the camera’s price and handy for proper HDRwork. Also in the drive menu are two interesting features that are thanks to the camera’s 4K video skills, 4K Burst andMulti Focus mode. The first, 4K Burst, takes a sequence of shots – about 15 in a second and silently – and you can then choose the best shot in camera and save it as a separate JPEG. You get more versatility if you set Pre Record mode. Here the camera starts buffering images as soon as you partially depress the shutter release. When you fully depress the shutter release you get the shot sequence as normal, plus you get those in the buffer within the previous one second. Thus, you get many more pictures to pick from. The Multi Focus mode is similar but this time giving focus stacking effects. The camera shoots 4K video as the focusing distance is automatically adjusted from minimum to infinity. I tried the mode with a variety of lenses including the 15-45mm powerzoom, 23mm, 35mm and 55-200mm. With the last-named the scanning through the focal length range took about 15secs. For good results you do need the camera on a tripod otherwise you get some strange effects and, of course, you need a static scene too.
It does make one- handed selfie shooting easier and you’re less likely to drop the camera
Top The unmarked Main Command dial is for exposure compensation while Fn is to assign to options such as ISO or flash mode. Above Access to key functions is via the rear-mounted four-way cluster. This cluster is also used to move the AF point/zone around – there is no focus lever.
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