A brief review of the Fuji X-100

The Fuji X-100 – Opening the Box

One of the first things you notice when opening the box is the feel of quality. The Fuji x-100 camera is beautifully presented in the black lined box, and picking it up for the first time not only shows its quality retro look, but a nice heavy feel of a quality item. Given that this now retails at £849 or thereabouts, its a reassuring thing. In terms of the retro look, it reminds me of some of the gorgeous Leica rangefinders, and the finish itself takes me back to my first ever film SLR the Fujica STX-1. The black rippled surface I’m sure is the same. Everyone who’s seen this beauty, photographer or not, without seeing the LCD screen, will ask if its a film camera.

Why did I buy the x-100

I guess at least half of my reason were the other favourable reviews by wedding and portrait photographers alike. Damien Lovegrove being my greatest influence as I borrowed his Fuji x-100 as we sat through lunch on an Into the Light course. He’s even given up his 35mm lens as the Fuji now substitutes it. There are also favourable reviews by Zack Arias and wedding photographer Kevin Mullins. All of which talk about the camera’s ‘quirks’ some of which take some time to get used to.

The other half of the reason is that as with many professional photographers, lugging round a big ‘in your face’, SLR with battery grip and 70-200mm lens generally is a little more than unobtrusive. My previous compact camera, the few I could find with manual mode, the Canon Powershot A620 rarely leaves the shelf as its just not responsive enough, doesn’t shoot RAW and, well, just doesn’t cut it in terms of a reasonable SLR substitute. The image quality just isn’t there.  The Fuji x-100 has all of the control you need, and doesn’t get you noticed.

First Use

Getting the hang of the controls really is a doddle. Simply set the aperture on the lens, and the shutter speed on the speed dial. Setting either to ‘A’ gives aperture priority, or shutter priority mode. There’s a really handy exposure compensation dial on the top, and the two screens are easily selected by the view mode button. The hybrid viewfinder is crystal clear and is a really nice touch for those of us who don’t want to be ‘camera zombies’ sticking our arms out and staring at the viewfinder. Given its retro feel, and my own love of Black and White photography, I’ve set the display to black and white mode.

My first set of images were, in fairness, disappointing. There was quite a lot of motion blur, both from the subject and from hand-holding in low light. The focus is undoubtedly slow, and I’ve found myself switching into macro mode regularly to get a quicker response to focus on close subjects. Zack Arias wrote about this in detail, as I think earlier models were far worse and subsequent firmware updates have made vast improvements. Having used this for a number of weeks now, learning the ways of the camera, and tweaking the settings, I’ve arrived at images I love.

Ongoing Use

One of the great things, and certainly a real leap in terms of my happiness with the final photographs, was getting the auto settings correct. I learnt about these from Damien Lovegrove’s Blog and I’m sure he’s found the same issue that I have in that I find 1/60th sec is still a little slow in terms of minimum shutter speed for general use. My settings are now: Auto ISO with a maximum of ISO 3200, a minimum shutter speed of 1/80th sec and I always shoot at f2. You do of course need to be careful of the lens distortion when shooting portraits close up. The effect of the 23mm ( 35mm equivalent) can make people photographs less than flattering.

I remain using this in Black and White mode, and I would guess that 90% of my images stay this way. I’ve created a few Lightroom Presets to add noise, vignette and a cream tone to give it that real film look. Once a film shooter, always a film shooter perhaps, and having thought about it, its been a while since I’ve brought out the Ilford FP4 film. The built in ND filter is a great addition for using the lens wide-open in bright light.

Conclusions

Its slow to focus, a little quirky, the battery life isn’t that long. But once you get used to it, its an awesome little camera. I’ve found I’m using it more and more for my personal work, and the great thing is, you can pop it in your pocket or rucksack and take it pretty much everywhere and remain unobtrusive. Its every professional photographers opportunity to be just like everyone else for a change.