Fujifilm X-Pro 1 EVF blurry image only when shutter not pressed (or half-pressed)?

Question

I am new to photography so please excuse me if my question is basic. I tried to find this issue online but couldn't.

I have just bought a used Fujifilm X-Pro 1, and everything seems to work just fine except for the EVF. The issue is when I simply point the camera at things, the image in the EVF is quite blurry. It's only when I half-press the shutter that the image on the screen becomes clear. When I look in the optical viewer, the image is fine. But I would prefer to use the EVF.

When I look at the blurry image, it just looks wrong. It's not blurry in that my camera settings need to be fiddled with, but blurry to a severe extent, like when you put in too many eyedrops. Usually, when I half-press the shutter, the photo is ready to be snapped, but this is adding the extra step of having to half-press and then waiting for the EVF to adjust in order to confirm the image looks alright and finally take the photo.

Any advice or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 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.