A Non-Professional Review From A Professional Photographer: Expert Shield Screen Protector

This is my second "A Non-Professional Review From A Professional Photographer" blog post. No BS, no specs given and very direct. Just the personal opinion from someone cares about the result more than the process. Writing is not professional for sure. My review may/may not help you to choose the product.

This time, I will tell you what I think about Expert Shield Screen Protector from UK. The company sent me some samples for this review. I think they chose the right person to review if they want to know the real user opinion for future improvement. Why? It's because we don't babysit our cameras much, especially my lovely wife, Jessie. No matter a $250 camera or a $5000 camera, she abuses it at work and leisure time.

This well made thin screen protector is "Made in Japan". I like this kind of screen protector more than the soft/flexible one (We used on our iPhone 5 and I don't like it because dirt and dusts stick on surface). Expert Shield is thinner than the one we used to use on our 5D Mark II/III. I think it's good for portable devices when the screen protector is not thick like a visible layer on top of the screen.

I bought a FujiFilm XF1 for Jessie to use during the trip to Alaska. It was a great deal from Black's Photo: $250 only! Behind the good photo quality and features, XF1 has a few things that I don't like. I will tell you after this review.

Same as before, I cut badly but Expert Shield is easy to apply on the screen and easy to pull out too. You can see it's very transparent. Not like those $2 one from dollar stores for sure. Good.

Take a closer look at the edge. No difference from the bare screen and the area with Expert Shield on. Good.

Those aren't the air bubbles. You can see the real air bubbles trapping dusts on the right side. Mm... It's my problem? Or the plastic's problem? I've never seen any screen protector with this weird reflection. HOWEVER... It doesn't affect the LCD quality, I have to tell you.

OK, after 10 days use... She put XF1 with her keys and stuff together. Expert Shield is broken and air comes in. The bare screen under it has a very tiny dot. If you ask me if Expert Shield is a good product or not... I can tell you it is not bad. Not many people will put their phones and cameras with the keys and press them together. Just Expert Shield is not made for very extreme situation. You can see other area is totally protected. I hope Expert Shield will fix the weird reflection issue then it will be a perfect product.

Back to XF1... Love and hate. It has very good photo quality and features (like RAW + Jpeg and f/1.8). However, the screen is not "Live" in M-Mode (Full Manual). When you change the aperture, shutter speed and/or ISO, the screen stays the same. It will not show you the actual result but it will show the result when you change +/- EV in other auto modes. Obviously, it's not about hardware limitation. Some people would say... "Hey, it's a consumer camera. What do you expect?"... If it's the case, then please take away M-Mode on the dial.

The camera comes with an instruction to teach you how to turn on the camera. Yes, it's not "press a button and lens pops out" camera like Canon S110. You have to turn and pull the lens out to standby mode. Turn again, the camera is officially on. If you pull it out from your pocket, you will need at least 1.5 sec (After well trained by XF1 for days) and two hands to shoot the first shot.

Jessie shot a few videos near (only near) the swimming pool at 29 degree water temperature for about 20 mins. Water vapor condensed inside the lens!!! I think the gap between the lens tube is larger than other small DC. It took 2 days under a/c to dry it. Jessie's XF1 is working perfectly afterward.

Other than those, I can't complain anything on a $250 camera. I hope FujiFilm will give us a new firmware to fix the M-Mode issue.

Again, I'm not a pro writer and not a pro reviewer. Just a person works with camera everyday. Forgive me if you think my review is bad.

Raymond
www.raymondleung.ca
info@raymondleung.ca
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