About my New Fujifilm X-E3 and About JPEG only in Full Auto Mode

Fujifilm X-E3… All Good :)

As you might know, back in December 2017 I purchased a silver X-E3 as well as two Fujinon lenses. I have explained in a first impression article why I picked the X-E3 and not the X-T20, X-T2 or even the Fujifilm X-H1. You can read it here.

I also told you, though, that I was having 2 issues with my X-E3

• sticky joystick
• SD-card not recognized sometimes

Of course I didn’t make a big drama out of it. I just went to my local store and asked for replacement.

Sadly, it took them almost a month to get a new X-E3, because of the holidays and also because they said the X-E3 is selling well, so Fujifilm is a bit slow in delivering and fulfilling the demand.

But now it’s here, my new Fujifilm X-E3, and this time it comes all in black.

I promised you an update, as soon as I get my new X-E3, and here it is: I am happy to report that, at least until now, everything seems to work just fine. The joystick isn’t sticky and the SD-card has, so far, always been recognized by the camera.

X-E3 Review?

I will see if I can find some time to write a comprehensive review, but time is not really what I have at the moment, since basically almost every spare minute of my life goes into FujiRumors, due to the imminent announcements of the Fujifilm X-A5 and XC15-45 on January 31 and the huge announcement of the Fujifilm X-H1 on February 15.

The weeks after that, will be even more busy, in order to cover properly all the Fujifilm X-H1 news and reviews here on FujiRumors.

But I’m excited by the good stuff coming from Fujifilm, so I’m 100% motivated to give you guys the best Fujifilm coverage in the known universe ;) .

Auto Geotagging

The review might come later… but for now…

… I have written a detailed article about one of the new features of the Fujifilm X-E3, the auto-geotagging.

I have received great feedback about it and many readers told me it helped them to make it work not only properly, but also quickly. Feel free to read it here.

Full Auto Shooting why JPEG only?

Does it happen also to you? I am so used to be the guy who takes the pictures, that I often miss it to be on the images myself.

So, when this weekend I met my nephews, I wanted to have a few images of me playing with them. So I handled my Fujifilm X-E3 to my girlfriend and switched it to the Full Auto Mode to make her life easier.

And to be clear: I am not talking of setting ISO, Aperture and Shutter speed to “A”. This is something you can do with all Fujifilm cameras. I am talking of the Full Auto Mode switch available only in cameras like the X-T20, X-E3, X-E2S, X70, X-T10.

In the full AUTO mode, the camera decides everything, even if it should activate for example face detection or not.

So my girlfriend started taking pictures in full Auto Scene Recognition mode. On the way home with the train, we looked at the images, and I saw one that I thought could look great in ACROS. So I wanted to immediately convert it to Acros using the internal RAW converter, but nothing… also on the X-E3 the Full Auto mode records only in JPEG, hence no RAW conversion possible.

Does this make sense for you?

Some say yes, because…

the Full Auto Mode is here to make your life as easy as possible, and is for people, who simply want a good image out of the box, letting the (actually very good) auto-mode of the camera do the job. It’s not a mode ment for people, who like to be in control of their settings and who maybe even post process images. It’s a limitation you take into account: let the camera do the job, and whatever comes out, that’s it. Keep it simple, keep it easy. And in fact, other brands’ full Auto mode also just saves images in JPEG, probably for the same reason.

Some say no, because…

cameras like the Fujifilm X-E3 or X-T20 are not really for people, who have no idea about photography. The owners of such cameras, may them be just amateurs or enthusiasts like me, or even professional photographers, will not often use the full Auto mode. It is, however, very useful if you handle the camera to somebody, who has no idea about photography. But I am the owner of the camera, and I would like to have the RAW file, even if somebody else takes pictures with my camera.

Yes or No, I see good points in both. At the end it just helps to know your camera.

In my case, I could have set ISO, Shutter and Aperture to “A” and activated face detection (which is also a metering mode, because with face detection enabled the camera automatically adjusted the exposure to the detected face – read also Using Face Detection), so my girlfriend could have taken images of me and my nephews without problems, and I would have had the RAW file to convert the image I liked into Acros. I have learned my lesson ;) .

On the other hand, if even the “Advanced Filters” save images in RAW (after a recent Firmware update), maybe Fujifilm could add RAW recording also to the full Auto mode.

So I thought to ask you guys what you think about… is it ok as it is now, so JPEG only, or should Fujifilm add also the RAW file when shooting in full Auto mode?