Fuji That's a lot of used XPro1's in Amazon

Armanius

Bring Jack back!
Location
Houston, Texas
Name
Jack
I counted 14 used XPro1's on sale by Amazon Warehouse, and another 3 from third party vendors selling through Amazon. Unfortunately, the used prices aren't all that great (yet), specially given that (I assume) there's no manufacturer's warranty for used stuff. Prices now are $150 off retail for "like new" and $170 off for "very good".

I think if Fuji had released the Xpro1 without the aperture chatter, the return rate would have been lower. Just my thought given that the aperture chatter was the reason I returned it. Now that the aperture chatter has been resolved thanks to the firmware upgrade, I'll be re-getting it at some point in time. But it'll have to wait, b/c I have the OMD in my hands.
 
What's the warranty on the new X-Pro1s?

I would feel better about buying an out of warranty X-Pro1 (2nd owner) than a X100, but I still think it would have to be a 20% savings, at least, on a body for me to go for a used version. Too much depreciation and risk on electronic bodies.
 
I bet its not the aperture chatter, at least not primarily. I think a lot of people bought that camera based on the idea alone, much like happened with the X100 a year before. For lots of folks who had a pretty good idea what they were getting, it was a perfect fit. But for a LOT of people who were coming from a DSLR or other modern camera that's pretty easy to learn to use, the X-100 and X-Pro both came as a real shock, and not a pleasant one. I saw exactly the same series of questions all over the Fuji Forum on DPR after the X Pro came out as after the X100 came out - TONS of questions about parallax and how do you focus this damn thing? What do you mean you can't use the OVF for macro shots? What do you mean it can't continually AF brilliantly at the fastest burst rate? Stuff like that. People with very little idea of the tradeoffs associate with the OVF and who may have been using CDAF for the first time. There was a wave of the same thing with both cameras and a lot of returns and for sale signs came up early. That combined with the high price of the X-Pro 1 probably means fewer people are willing to hang with it and put in the time to get really comfortable with it. The sales don't surprise me in the least. A year later, there's a big group of X100 owners who stayed with it who love their cameras. In a year, I suspect there will be with the X-Pro also, although likely smaller because of the system nature and the higher price of admission. I just think this is the kind of camera that's not for everyone and it takes some folks a while to figure out that its not for them. When they do, the cameras either go back or up for sale if the return period is over. And many of the used deals on Amazon may have been from returned cameras rather than FSBO just using Amazon instead of ebay...

-Ray
 
Oh yeah, and the X-Pro1 can't take a sharp picture to save its life!

I saw those posts. Except for the Ricoh forum, I normally stay away from DPR. But I stumbled on there today and ran across the sharpness-in-a-test-picture-is-everything people. Anyone who claims that the XP1 is not sharp clearly has never shot with one!

But I have it from a trusted source that the XP1 RAW files are proving very difficult to unscramble for third party support.
 
Ray is still there, fighting the good fight!

Ray - man, you have a lot of patience for DPR hijinks. Oh yeah, and the X-Pro1 can't take a sharp picture to save its life!
I'm still there but I don't fight that hard anymore. Usually just a post or two per stupid thread, just to remind folks the threads are stupid. Terry has really been duking it out lately, though, taking on the worst of the idiots, post by post. I don't have that kind of patience, but I still find enough useful not to abandon the place completely.

-Ray
 
I bet its not the aperture chatter, at least not primarily. I think a lot of people bought that camera based on the idea alone, much like happened with the X100 a year before. For lots of folks who had a pretty good idea what they were getting, it was a perfect fit. But for a LOT of people who were coming from a DSLR or other modern camera that's pretty easy to learn to use, the X-100 and X-Pro both came as a real shock, and not a pleasant one. I saw exactly the same series of questions all over the Fuji Forum on DPR after the X Pro came out as after the X100 came out - TONS of questions about parallax and how do you focus this damn thing? What do you mean you can't use the OVF for macro shots? What do you mean it can't continually AF brilliantly at the fastest burst rate? Stuff like that. People with very little idea of the tradeoffs associate with the OVF and who may have been using CDAF for the first time. There was a wave of the same thing with both cameras and a lot of returns and for sale signs came up early. That combined with the high price of the X-Pro 1 probably means fewer people are willing to hang with it and put in the time to get really comfortable with it. The sales don't surprise me in the least. A year later, there's a big group of X100 owners who stayed with it who love their cameras. In a year, I suspect there will be with the X-Pro also, although likely smaller because of the system nature and the higher price of admission. I just think this is the kind of camera that's not for everyone and it takes some folks a while to figure out that its not for them. When they do, the cameras either go back or up for sale if the return period is over. And many of the used deals on Amazon may have been from returned cameras rather than FSBO just using Amazon instead of ebay...

-Ray

I agree with you,all the way
 
The same seems to be quite common. Lots have people have ventured into advanced large sensor compacts and then retreated back to familiar territory. The expectation among some new owners seems to be that they should do the exact same thing as a DSLR, only smaller. The fact that they might do a lot of things better is often outweighed by anything (big or small) that they might still lag behind in. Quirks and idiosyncracies are hard to forgive when you've come from cameras and systems that have been refined for decades.
 
Fuji has a history of creating cameras that are 'not for everyone'--I have used an S3 and S5, and currently have one each of the X series: X100 (my first, X10 (used by my wife who wants the Fuji 'look' but doesn't have the time to aclimate herself to the inevitable Fuji idiosyncracies) and an Xpro 1, which I love with the recent firmware upgrade. My experience is that the Fuji always has personality, but that the image quality is unique and makes all your effort worthwhile when you make the time investment.
 
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