Fuji EXR

Previously I borrowed a Fuji F200EXR from Duncan Turner of DLT photographic , the point of which was for me to evaluate the technology that Fuji refers to as EXR. What this technology essentially does is capture two separate exposures at the sensor level at the same time by using half the total photo sights for each exposure. The trade off of this is a reduced resolution, to half of the total. The benefit is a greater dynamic range. In the case of the F200EXR the resolution drops from 12mpixels to 6 Mpixels when used in EXR dynamic range mode.

This isn’t a lab or a studio test of EXR for this camera but as close to a practical real world usage as I could make it. What I found was that the difference was subtle and it was really only necessary to go into EXR mode under harsh lighting, such as a shaded forest with bright sky in the back ground. In EXR %400 mode a similar exposure allowed for some retention of highlight detail where in full resolution mode some highlights were clipped. As there is no RAW shooting mode for this camera all images where jpegs. And here is the thing, I don’t think that the EXR results would be superior to a similar camera that allowed RAW shooting. With a slight under exposure bias to preserve highlights followed by some image adjustments during RAW conversion I think that all the stated benefits of EXR could be duplicated. In fact even the high resolution jpegs from the the F200EXR can be adjusted to produce similar results with the right exposure (again a slight under exposure to preserve highlights)

There are subtle differences between the two modes but is it enough to justify the drop in megapixels? I will answer that “No”. Both modes produce good results with the trade offs mentioned. So what do I think this means in relation to the new Fuji X10 that is being released and soon to be available? I think that the camera will need to stand on it’s other merits such as it’s fast F2.0 lens and it’s optical viewfinder because if you need to look this hard to see a real difference, your time could be better spent taking pictures. I hope I’m prove wrong when the X10 arrives as an advancement in camera technology is worth a bruise to my ego.

High Resolution mode, notice the clipped highlights on the histogram