Fuji X100 Firmware Update 1.21 Now Live…

Fuji has released another firmware update to the X100 today, version 1.21. The details of the update are below and you can update at Fuji’s website HERE. I am busy writing my X-Pro 1 review today so look for that ANYTIME now 🙂

The firmware update Ver.1.21 form ver1.20 incorporates the following issues:

When checking focus point by pushing AE-L/AF-L button in MF mode, following phenomena can be observed in relation to focus area settings. These phenomena are improved.

  • 1.When the focus area is set to bottom right end position, the camera may hang up.
  • 2.Even when the focus area is set to other area than above, focus may be hard to be established.

47 Comments

  1. I’ve never done a firmware upgrade before. Is the latest release(1.30) all you need to load, or do you need to load all past firmwares(1.20, 1.21, etc)? Does 1.30 contain all the fixes contained in the past updates?

  2. Hi everyone i just got my Fuji X100 Yesterday and While its not Perfect im in love with this Camera, i cant over how Great the Pictures come, very Close to my Canon 5d, fot the money just under $1000 its SUPERBER !.

  3. when a filmware update is announced/made available, is that filmware then installed in all cameras produced subsequently by that company? Do X100 manufactured after introduction of 1.21 filmware have that version installed?

  4. I have updated to 1.21 but after that I am not able to set o RAW anymore. I suspect that’s because my memory card is a really cheap and slow one. Has anybody heard about this problem?

    Best regards,

    Mauricio

  5. Mmmm. 1.20 placed ISO and Auto ISO adjustment as 2 submenus under ISO in the shooting setup menu.
    Has this changed? Of course everyone wants it accessible via the fn button in the fn ISO menu.

    • You’re right. Auto ISO is a submenu under ISO on the shooting menu.
      What confused me is that Auto ISO also appears (by itself) on the Setup Menu.

      My bad.

      But still wondering about the stopping-down-in-sunlight thing.

      • Hmm. How odd that Auto ISO is in 2 places! Hadn’t noticed that.
        I think my current over exposures are “operator error”. I had the ISO set at 1000 min (normally set at 200) plus I have been using wider apertures (f4 and below) than usual. I don’t always notice the shutter speed warning in the viewfinder and therefore can get an overexposed image. Pop on the ND filter setting (via RAW button) and it’s all better.

  6. This is an older thread now, so I don’t know if anyone will see it, but here goes:

    I’ve had my X100 for almost a year. I haven’t sold it because I REALLY want to like it, but along with all the “normal” issues, I’ve never gotten the great colors that others talk about. I normally keep the exposure compensation on minus 2/3 to minus 1; otherwise all the highlights are blown, colors washed out.

    But here’s the new problem: I installed 1.20, then 1.21, and now the aperture stops down to match the light, without half-pressing the shutter button, so in daylight the EVF is so dark I can’t see much of anything. Did it do this before? I don’t remember noticing, but I don’t think so.

    It’s possible that the firmware update reset a setting that I’m not aware of.

    Has anyone else noticed this? Or was the camera doing it all along and I just didn’t notice?

    Also, what are the symptoms of the “sticky shutter” syndrome? Maybe I need to send the camera to Fuji for repair?

    • Almost certainly you have sticky aperture issues if the camera is consistently overexposing.
      However I think the exposure and WB is less reliable with 1.20. Then again I recently changed to auto DR so it may just be that. Updating firmware resets the camera back to factory settings. All your tweaks need to be redone. I have thousands of great photos from the X100. I use Provia and Auto ISO 3200/ min 1/40 shutter speed and (usually) 100% DR and Highlight detail to med soft and Shadow detail to standard. Only bother with jpg.
      I would send your camera in. I did with mine and they replaced half the internals including the lens.

    • AND, the ISO and Auto ISO are back to being on different menus. I thought they fixed that.

  7. I do not understand the fuss about all the quirks. I bought a x100 second hand the day before yesterday, 800 euro for a special edition with all the goodies. Bought new 1-2-2012 for 1399 euro.

    Installed the latest firmware without a problem.

    I love the IQ at high iso, so I set the camera on auto iso 200-3200. The time at 1/30 second. (It is 23 mm lens) Use Raw. Only a beep at focus, the rest silent. Put my Shutter Priority at A. Set the raw dial as ND filter. I have to think where I set the FN dial to, a luxury problem. A child can do this.
    It is so easy to go through the menu’s. Feel at home with it in 5 minutes. No problem with the OK button, works flawless.

    The camera focus very nice, no problem. No missing yet. I am not interested in manual focus, I do not even tried it. The same goes for filming, not interested.
    The writing time is good enough for me, with a normal slow card. With Auto Exposure bracket a little slow I must admit. But he, Auto Exposure bracket is for sissy’s.

    I am waiting for a JJC LH-JX100 suncap and adapter. Bought new for 40 euro. Two spare battery’s for 20 euro.

    Love this camera!

  8. Brian,

    I wouldn’t write off the X100 completely. Who knows why mine temporarily went nuts? Maybe it needed a time out. It is a gorgeous camera, has heft, despite other views on this, and the pictures it is capable of are gorgeous.

    The reason I mentioned the LX5/Leica baby is that it focuses instantly, even in macro, and you rarely miss a shot, and options like the film grain setting are even better. There’s a reason some pros carry it as their small weapon of choice. But…when Fuji gets this focus thing right, and I’m confident they will, it will be hard to beat for its price. Why they couldn’t put a split-screen spot for macro is beyond me. It would not be a rangefinder, but it would work far better than squinting for 10 minutes. And I don’t think Leica would have anything to worry about as far as another “rangefinder” type option.

    It’s like Steve said, it may be a handful to focus, but when it does…man.

    Bottom line, I’ve found that the settings and options offer a ton of shooting options. Just finding them is the hard part.

  9. 1.2.1. Keep it coming fuji as I love this camera more and more. My walk around kit is now M9 with 50 summilux asph and the X100!!

  10. I hear ya Harry…the ups and downs posted here are making the decision very difficult. I just returned my Zeiss, but now getting nervous of the x100 plunge. Might just wait for another firmware update and see what the word is….

  11. Got update 1.21 for my new X100 yesterday and everything seemed much better; focus speed was very good, etc., but fine manual macro went from meh to non-existent. Then I took about 100 shots between last night and today. Now it seems like it won’t focus well on anything. But the weird part is when you hit drive to review a shot at first I got the shot alone, full-screen, and could punch in with the command wheel/button. Nice. Then it started giving me a small version along with all the shooting info; I had to click three times to get to a full-screen shot to review. Also ok I guess.

    Then the bottom fell out. Not only is focus for sh&t, but when I take a shot the review screen gives me a small review picture in the upper left-hand corner and says “working.” (prior to this the write speed was very, very fast, plus or minus.)

    Is it the card? Hmm. Also, in addition to the new bugs, now the review screen gives a post-shot three-second screen with one, two or three of the same shot…all shot in single shot mode, but very small and in the upper left-hand corner, and says working, but I can no longer punch in on anything in review.

    I’m stumped. I guess I’ll reset it, AGAIN, and see if it changes, but if anyone has seen this sort of weird going on, I’d love to hear of it.

    The card is a Sandisk 32 Extreme that I got when I got the camera last week. I suppose it could go bad, but it seems more like camera malfunction.

    Wonder if anyone at Fujifilm reads these blogs.

    As an aside, the tiny, cheap Panasonic Lumix LX5 trounces the macro focus, both manual and auto compared to the X100. Tested the X100 last night to practice fine focusing with a watch face. No contest. If Fuji could ever fix this (it ain’t the space inside that’s lacking) with a crack snap response like the LX5 they’d have a really nice product.

    Thanks, Steve, for all the advice, reviews, and the opportunity to seek help and vent. How do I contact Fujifilm the easiest way to speak to them?

  12. Steve,
    This site is the greatest site on the face of the earth! Look at all these people helping each other…they don’t even know each other…it’s a beautiful thing…Thanks so much for creating this sense of community.
    sori

  13. Just kind of don’t know what to think at this point. But I’m happy. DId the 1.20 just a few days ago. The AF-L button while camera is set to MF is my ONLY focus method, just like on my Nikon pro cameras. Noticed a different sound and texture to the focus, a SLIGHT increase in speed of the mechanism, but reliability wasn’t there at all.

    Come on Steve’s site and see that Fuji has already updated that firmware? Really. Okay. So I update and now the focus speed is just SICK. SICK. (meaning good) Point the camera at anything, hit the AF-L/AE-L button and POW, focus is so quick. Not Nikon D3 quick, but faster by orders of magnitude from any previous performance seen from this camera. This coming just a few days after the last firmware update.

    I guess what I’m wondering is what took so long for us to get this sort of focus speed out of this otherwise wonderful camera and what the HECK was going on just a few days ago when Fuji released a firmware update that didn’t contain THIS performance upgrade?

    Anyway. WOW. Happy! I’m focusing this camera on the printer (IN THE RELATIVE DARKNESS) under my computer desk. BANG. Instant focus. Good job, Fuji. A little weird but all’s well that ends well I guess.

    • Have to agree, the focus is now not only acurate but decently fast 🙂 focus was just as good in the last update BUT was not actually focusing in the focus box, which is why it was so inaccurate (only affected MF mode) and why this update came out so quickly, they only had to fix that issue

  14. Steve: time for me to eat some crow. Thanks to the perseverance of a wiser soul I’ve downloaded a second copy of the 1.21 from Fujifilm’s global site. Well, I can say in all honesty that the camera works a lot better this time around. In fact, it pretty much now does what it said on the box.

    Most peculiar as the first and second copies of the firmware were identical in size. Could have been a transmission corruption issue.

    Anyhow, the only fly in the ointment now is that when setting the Fn button to select ISO you no longer have the privilege of managing Auto ISO as one of the options. That was a really useful feature of 1.20 and they’ve taken it away.

    Also, the DOF scale remains as conservative as it was since the 1.20 upgrade.

  15. I’m having a hard time downloading V1.21. 1.20 went smoothly. I download firmware 1.21 to my SD card, load it to my camera, and the version that shows up on the screen is 1.20 again. I don’t know why. I tried it several times from the 1.21 update site. Am I doing something wrong?

    • You aren’t the first to have this problem. Quickest suggestion, change your download folder to somewhere else, because he file gets renamed if you have previously downloaded an update because they have the same file name in the same locatio. Othewise make sure you delete all previous updates from your download folder.

  16. Thanks so much for the replies! Purchased the Zeiss 24 about a week ago and have been going crazy trying to decide its fate. It’s a nice lens, but just not enough for the price. I’m really looking forward to the x100, my only major concern is its manual focusing ability (I enjoy manual focusing quite a bit). I don’t really understand the “focus by wire” definition and the problem which that creates when focusing? That big of a difference to the nex? Once again, thanks for the quick and very helpful replies. I’ve just made the dive into photography recently so I truly appreciate the help.

    • I tossed up between the Zeiss 24 for my nex and an X100. X100 was in my opinion a better buy as now it is my most used camera by far, but I bought it thinking that I was essentially getting a similar quality lens, but with a free extra body, OVF and EVF, plus much better external controls than my nex – ended up selling my nex shortly after because I simply dot use it. Nex is definitely best used with old glass that has n aperture ring on the front to give you an extra control dial. Also it was going o cost much more to get 5n and EVF as well as the ZE 24

      Couldn’t be happier with my X100:)

  17. Hi Steve,

    For those that haven’t updated to ver. 1.2.1 yet, all I can say is DON’T!

    I thought that the v.1.20 update made the X100 near close to perfect as it could be. Unfortunately, having updated to the latest firmware I am disappointed. Definitely a case of one step forward, 2 steps back.

    A) I’ve lost the focusing frame in AF-S and it also no longer shows the parallax compensation frame.

    B) Not only can you no longer identify where the focal point is. The AF now hunts all over the place rather than locks onto where it should have done in previous incarnations. So you end up with the green focus frame jumping all over the OVF every time you try to lock in.

    C) I use M-focus a lot and I feel that the focus ring was actually better in v1.20.

    D) Seems to be overexposing a lot more aggressively as well and too eager to race up the ISO scale.

    E) The level indicator keeps going AWOL.

    A few other gremlins: the conservative DOF scale introduced in 1.20 is still there. And the programmable RAW / ISO buttons took a step back as they don’t let you have Auto ISO as an option anymore.

    If anyone has a link to the previous 1.20 firmware please share it! I need it badly.

    Best regards,

    Anais

    • Your first few points seem to indicate that your settings have been reset, that you no longer have parallax correction turned on, AF is set to multi point and possibly your metering has been changed. Unfortunately all settings get set to default when you upgrade the firmware.

      • Hi Matt. No these symptoms were there after I had gone through and reprogrammed the camera to my preferred settings.

        Most of the issues were resolved after I reinstalled. Seems like the first copy of the 1.21 I downloaded got corrupted.

        Please see my comments below. Only real problem now is with the soft keys not giving Auto ISO access (as they did in 1.20). And the meter is still exposing more aggresively than before.

  18. Just upgraded to 1.21. Now the Mf ring (always with the help of AFL+magnification), is really usable if i want. AF with recent firmware releases become fast and reliable. I’m finally completely satisfied on this camera.

    @Brian. If you can “content” with a prime excellent 35mm (i’m very happy and take all my shoots with), IQ of X100 is stunning. Considering this parameter + the recently improoved usability + the lovable retro style i thing it seems to be a great choice.

  19. So hopefully I can get some opinions and help. Any opinions would be greatly appreciated. I currently o.wn an NexC3 with the 24mm Zeiss sonnar. A great lens but am wondering for the price would the Fuji X100 be a better purchase (I still have some time to return the Zeiss and have seen the X100 for the same price on ebay). The images created by the Fuji I have seen are beautiful, but have seen so many complaints against the user experience of it. So anyone, Zeiss e-mount or Fuji X100?

    • I use both ziess24mm with sony nex 5n and fuji x100.. I can say that I like ooc JPEG from x100 better than my nex.. Just decided to sell my nex 5n and zeiss and just stick with my x100 instead…

  20. AF seems faster than before. But when I upgraded to 2.0, I didn’t know the focus was an issue. On macro mode, I pointed the focus on eye, it kept on shoulder. I took again and again, same.

    Now I upgraded to 2.1. But still same. Auto focus still an issue for Macro mode. Hope they fix it soon.

    • I believe this update only fixes the issue with using the AEL/AFL button to obtain focus in MF mode and it has been fixed. Also found no issue with using it for macro this way (one of the advantages of doing this is that you don’t have to switch to a dedicated ‘macro’ mode – just focus on something closer).

  21. My initial views having had x1pro for 2 days: Terrific little camera.
    But, also disappointing:
    1) Autofocus is WORSE than x100, x100 with latest 1.21 firmware is MUCH faster
    2) IQ in center is comparable, edges X1 clearly wins but that seems a lense win nont a sensor win
    3) ISO >800 X1 is better

    • I don’t think I could handle AF worse than the X100 – still love my hundie, but that is a lot of money for an interchangeable version that is in some ways worse???

      This update is fantastic, MF is almost usable now, AF is heaps better and the MF AEL/AEF focus is spot on and nicely fast, macro using MF is back to what you would expect.

      In regards to file numbering, I always just chuck the card in that I have been using into my computer, copy the file over and run the update – this seems to keep all the numbering in place, you really don’t need a formatted card as the instructions suggest.

  22. Good fix for 1.20. Now it’s more like it should have been. MF+AFL method of focusing especially to avoid refocusing momentarily became a bit less reliable than it should have been.

  23. Haven’t noticed a problem. Trouble with the updates is that it zeros the counter so I don’t really know the shutter count. Next update Fuji please change the continuous shooting naming of files to be sequential with the single shot files. ie DSCF6352.JPG then DSCF6353.JPG etc not SOOF6353.JPG etc. Messes with my workflow. Also no need to group them. Just have as any SLR would have it. Please.

    • @Dougbm It is annoying , but you can find the newest image on your computer (from the x100), copy it to your memory card, then put that in the camera and turn it on. The x100 recognizes that as the starting point to start the shutter count from. After you turn it on and it recognizes that, you can format the card and shoot as normal.

    • I’m not sure if this is the problem you’re describing; if it is, this might help: Updating the firmware resets the file numbers. If, after you do the update, you insert a card containing the last picture you shot, (or I think, any raw or jpg with the file number of the last picture you shot) the camera will read the card and start with the next file number.

      That is, if you insert a card that holds DSCF1034, the next file the camera creates will be DSCF1035.

      Hope that is helpful.

        • Not that different but I use to format the card, take a picture, copy the update data file to the card root, perform the firmware update and when its over and data/time and other settings adjusted jut take a new picture and you will get the right numbering sequence.

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