My FujiFilm XT3 has a nice diopter knob which is pulled out to adjust and then pushed in to lock my setting in place. The XH1s have a knob too but it's exposed, unlock-able and moves at the puff of one's breath.
The XH1 diopter setting seems to change every time I pull one of the cameras out of the backpack or camera bag. Last night at a live theater shoot it was starting to piss me off so I grabbed a piece of white duct tape that I'd stuck on the front of my backpack and tore off two little squares; one for each camera.
I carefully adjusted each diopter and then taped over the control so nothing would move it. I usually keep a big strip of white tape on the front of my black camera backpack so it's more visible when the house lights go out in the theater. I'd be unhappy if one of the crew accidentally sat on the pack because they couldn't see the black backpack on a seat in the dark.....
The tape did the trick. The knobs didn't move. The cameras performed well. And now I am considering starting up a company to sell customized swatches of duct tape for XH1 diopter knobs.
Hey, Fuji guys! If you are going to make a pro camera body let's make sure ALL the controls lock, not just the ISO and Shutter Speed dials....
I've hit my 10,000th frame with the XH1 cameras. How good are they? I'm thinking of buying a third one....just in case they become discontinued. But with my luck they'll replace the older model with an even better model that has......you guessed it......a locking diopter adjustment knob. How depressing would that be?
Well, since this is one thing Fuji is NOT going to fix in firmware I guess I'll just stick a strip of tape on the bottoms of both XH1s' battery grips and get on with the process of making photographs.
Imagine, my one complaint is the diopter adjustment. Not the imaging, not the performance, not the color science. Just one knob. Okay. I can live with that...
7 comments:
I had the same issue on the Olympus VF4 (think it was that one) the eyepiece adjustment wheel constantly moved, so I ended up taping it in place with electrical tape. You have to ask how on earth they did not notice this massive design flaw.
Why duct tape instead of gaffer tape?
Gaffer's tape is great stuff, especially for stuff like painted walls where you are trying not to pull of the paint. But duct tape is plentiful, cheap and the residue is easy to clean off a camera when used and removed every once in a while. I've given up caring about the difference for most uses...
Somehow, at first blush I misread this as "Why duct tape instead of glitter tape?" The ensuing visual still has me giggling.
Actually, Kirk, whenever I've bought a new camera, one of the first things I've looked at was the adjustable diopter and how well it corrected my vision and, to your point, how easy/hard it was to change accidentally.
While it is a seemingly small glitch, I'm sure it is maddening to frequently make the same adjustment. The tape is a quick an easy fix, but for a camera company that has recognized and solved the same problem on other bodies, I'm thinking--WTF? There's no space for a locking mechanism on the biggest damn body they make (excluding GFX bodies)?
I've not got one, but the XH1 is on my radar. This glitch won't deter me from getting one to try out, but it shows how an otherwise highly competent camera company can slip up and create something extremely annoying.
My guess/hope is they'll fix this glitch on the next update---IF they get enough noise about it.
Cheers
Fuji shouldn't get all the grief. The Panasonic g9 has a code problem. When you're looking at a picture on the memory card, you have a number of viewing options. One is a quasi exif info view w/thumb size picture. When you are shooting square, it doesn't get the correct equivalent focal length right, unlike when you are shooting 4/3. Small but irritating.
Jay
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