The Turn Of The Screen

on July 16, 2018
A gothic mystery story by henry James with heroines and villains. Creepy mansions and ghostly figures. And nearly all of them in the Fujifilm design bureau... Nothing has changed in the last few digital years as much as the LCD screen. Starting out as a blotchy moving postage stamp on the back of the first 1990's cameras - and a marvel of the time, I hasten to add - it has blossomed into the 2 zillion-dot screen of today that shows every parameter of the camera and lets you poke, swipe, and twist many of the controls that used to be buttons, dials, levers, or rings. Why, at this rate they'll be putting them on mobile phones next... The other thing about the LCD screen that has burgeoned is the suspension systems for them that allow them to swing away from the back surface of the camera. Once they just went sideways, then they went sideways and twisted. They dropped down like the writing surface of an escritoire. Now they can go down, up, sideways, and twist on themselves to present to the front of the camera. I should not be surprised if the next generation did not become fully detachable and act as a controller in its own right. I can see many uses for that, and the design bureaux are always looking for novelty - if they can have Bluetooth operating continuously they can have a detachable screen do the same. Well, here's the comparison between my X-T10 and the new X-T100, as far as the screen goes. The selfie feature is for you, not me, but the fact that it can be run up in a vertical mode when the camera is also vertical is a real boon for tripod shooters. I love the X-T2 for just this reason and use the feature nearly every day to make studio shots. The other thing I love about the X-T2 - the joystick that lets me steer the AF point about the screen - is missing from the X-T100 for reasons of economy. Instead, they have substituted touch screen control for the AF points and, quite frankly, it is just as good. The only ergonomic problem is when I am trying to poke the little green box about the screen to the point of focus and my hand goes in front of the eye-sensor lens. The screen blacks out. No problem if the screen is out to the side, though, or if I turn off the eye-sensor feature. Not much difference here. Both good. Swingin' out to the side. This is good for portrait shooting, Whoa. There we go - full selfie mode. Decide for yourself whether that is a good idea, but be aware that a screen out the side can be a screen that whacks into the furniture. The articulated screen starts out as a silly feature that quickly becomes essential - I depend upon it in the studio and at dance shows for over-the-subject shots. At car shows it is my waist level viewfinder that lets the lens see the cars from headlight level for less distortion. It makes photo copying so much easier. The only thing you need to remember is to shift the viewfinder mode to " LCD only " to prevent the eye sensor cutting you off every time your belly gets too close to the back of the camera.
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