Common fixes
What fixes the Fujifilm X100VI’s known surprises — dark frames, a missing teleconverter crop, vanished detection, off-center close-ups?
The forgotten ND
The ND FILTER is a persistent menu state worth 4 EV. Left on from yesterday, it makes every frame four stops dark while the camera compensates with slow shutter speeds and high ISO. Check its state first whenever exposures stop making sense; rotate-and-hold the viewfinder selector toggles it without a menu.
The crop that isn’t in the RAW
DIGITAL TELE-CONV. offers 50 mm (1.4×) and 70 mm (2×) — and auto-crops sizes as it goes: 50 mm takes L pictures to M; 70 mm takes L and M to S. But RAW pictures cannot be magnified: the RAW file always keeps the full 35 mm frame, and only JPEG/HEIF record the crop. Magnified copies of a RAW are made afterwards in playback: RAW CONVERSION → DIGITAL TELE-CONV.
Detection that vanished
Face/eye detection and subject detection switch each other off, in both directions, in the manual’s own words — enabling one automatically selects OFF for the other. The “vanished” system was traded, not broken. After any detection change, check the other system’s state. Face detection’s own limits, per the troubleshooting chapter: faces obscured by sunglasses, hats or hair, and faces too small in the frame.
Parallax, not a focus fault
The OVF’s window sits a slight distance from the lens, so at close range the finder’s framing and focus position differ from the recorded picture — parallax. The bright frame shifts at half-press to show the actual crop; CORRECTED AF FRAME adds a guide frame for the true focus position at about 50 cm, and shows nothing closer than 50 cm. The EVF sees through the lens at 100% coverage; the ERF window is the middle path, with SINGLE POINT AF only.
The wide-open ceiling, and the flash rule
The leaf shutter’s mechanical maximum varies with aperture, in the manual’s words: from 1/2000 s at f/2 to 1/4000 s at f/4.5 — wide open, 1/2000 is the ceiling. Flash adds its own rule: in S or M exposure modes, choose shutter speeds slower than 1/2000 s when using the flash (choose MECHANICAL or MECHANICAL + ELECTRONIC — the flash cannot be used with the electronic shutter). The built-in flash’s effective range is about 0.3–7.4 m at ISO 1600; there is no sync terminal, so external flash works from the hot shoe or by optical command.
Rehearse four checks now: the ND’s state, a 70 mm FINE+RAW pair, the detection swap in both directions, and the corrected frame at 50 cm in the OVF.