Monday, May 9, 2011

Fuji X100: lovin' and hatin' it (updated)

I jotted down my first impressions of the new Fuji X100 the other day - looking at the post now I can see it doesn't jive with most "first impressions" posts I've seen for this camera. I spent a lot of time pointing out the things the camera doesn't do well, at least in my eyes.

While I stand by all of those observations, I did figure one thing out - you can indeed wake up the camera from sleep mode, by holding down the shutter button for a second or so. Then a few seconds later, you're ready to shoot again. Everything the X100 does, it does deliberately.

However, the proof is in the pudding, and I'm loving the images I get out of this camera. It's just not snappy and responsive. Depending on what you're shooting, this is either no big deal, or a crying shame. That's what inspired the title of this post.

Here are a few more snaps - I'll keep jotting down notes as I go while I have an X100 to play with.

Update, 7/1/2011: Eolake raises a good point in his comment below. The X100 is actually plenty responsive, I was just trying to tweak too many things and dive into too many menus at the time I wrote this post. In the end, I just set the ISO, aperture, and shutter at auto and shot away most of the time. Don't make the mistake I did - just shoot away!






3 comments:

  1. I'm not sure why you don't feel it's responsive. It seems to that even indoors shutter lag including focusing is maybe half a second, which is well speedy for a camera with contrast focus.
    It is in about the same league as the Panasonic G cameras, which are praised for it.
    Maybe you have a bad sample or maybe you're comparing it to something faster than I'm used to.

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  2. I didn't explain that too well. Initially I was getting hung up on the fact I was diving into menus so often...until I got to the point where I just stopped doing so and shot pictures. Call it a knee-jerk (with emphasis on the latter) reaction. I also think I read too much about this camera leading up to its launch and had turned it into some sort of symbol of perfection in my mind.

    The truth is, I was gung ho about writing down every little stream-of-consciousness I had right at the beginning...then settled down and shot with it. In the end I have come to realize that Fuji has made an incredible camera here.

    I think I need to update some of these posts and write a wrap-up on the X100. Sadly, I am the world's laziest blogger, but I'll get around to it.

    Bottom line: I am a natural complainer and got momentarily distracted by the X100's minor faults, rather than taking time to learn its nuances before reporting on them. I love the camera, and am sad that I'll have to give it back.

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  3. Yes, I understand you well.

    BTW, I do think the four-way thingy is fiddly, but I haven't had the focus setting change on me.
    Sure, it can be refined in user-friendliness.
    I think they were taken with their pants down by the *huge* interest in this camera, but they didn't have time to upgrade everything to high-end quality.
    Be interesting to see future cameras.
    I'd like to see a portrait camera. For the Pentax there's a wonderful 70mm 2.4 lens. 105mm-equivalent, but its stil almost a pancake lens!

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