Why is my Fujifilm X-Pro1 EVF blurry until I half-press the shutter?
Asked 5/24/2021
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I’m new to photography and recently bought a used Fujifilm X-Pro1. The camera seems to work fine, but the electronic viewfinder looks very blurry when I’m just pointing the camera at a scene. As soon as I half-press the shutter, the EVF image becomes clear. The optical viewfinder looks normal all the time.
Is this a fault with the EVF, or is it normal behavior? I’d like to understand why the EVF only looks sharp after half-pressing the shutter and whether there’s a setting or technique I should use.
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
5y ago
2 Answers
1
You are experiencing the limits of the hardware.
The optical viewfinder of a rangefinder-type camera is constructed in a way that it produces a sharp image (fixed focus). No matter what the setting of the camera are.
The EVF however shows the image as recorded by the sensor. This means through the lens. If the lens is not focussed, the image will be blurred.
What you see, when half pressing the shutter, is the focussing action of the camera. So you can use the EVF to see if the image is achieving focus or not. What you see is what you get. So this "limitation" is actually a great help in taking sharp images.
If you are using tiny sensors, a small aperture and a wide angle lens as in many very cheap point and shoot cameras you will always get a somewhat sharp-ish image. However, as soon as you improve the optics and getting a big enough sensor, you will need to focus the lens before taking a shot.
In many mirrorless cameras there is a setting to let you prefocus to some extend, however this will greatly reduce battery life as the lens is constantly focussing.
It takes a bit of getting used to it.
As a tip: You can set the Auto Focus to C to constantly focus as long as you half press the shutter. This is useful for moving subjects. Or use S to only focus a single time. This is more useful for non-moving subjects.
Originally by user88965. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user88965
5y ago
0
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This is most likely normal, not a fault.
The optical viewfinder is a separate fixed-focus viewing system, so it will look sharp regardless of the lens focus. The EVF, however, shows the actual image coming through the lens and sensor. If the lens has not focused yet, the EVF will also look out of focus.
When you half-press the shutter, the camera performs autofocus, and the EVF becomes sharp as focus is achieved. In other words, the EVF is showing you the real focus state of the image—"what you see is what you get."
So the blur you see before half-pressing is usually just the lens not having focused yet, not a defective finder. This can actually be helpful because it lets you confirm focus before taking the shot.
If you want a sharp EVF view, half-press the shutter to trigger focus before composing the final shot.
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