Fujifilm X-E2 review – Metering and dynamic range
Metering
The X-E2 inherits the 256-zone metering system from the X-E1, which is itself adopted from the X-Pro1. It’s a metering system that can be relied upon to produce accurate exposures, and unless you’re shooting in exceptionally bright conditions, such as towards the sun, exposure compensation will rarely be needed.
Dynamic range
An alternative to using exposure compensation is to use the X-E2’s expanded dynamic range settings, referred to as DR100, DR200 and DR400. The idea of these is to preserve greater detail in the brightest highlights of JPEG or raw images and the results are impressive, with considerably more highlight detail retained in the DR400 mode. There’s also the option to set the dynamic range mode to auto if you’d prefer the camera to automatically judge which mode it thinks is best for any situation. With the film simulation set to standard, a wide range of tones can be captured. In particularly high-contrast scenes you can dial in -2EV to ensure that maximum detail is recorded in the highlights before successfully returning detail to the darkest shadows without it having a detrimental effect on image quality. Added to this, the noise reduction that’s applied to shadow areas when shooting JPEGs is highly impressive.
