Photography Gear News

The X100T is the third iteration of the ever-popular X100 series of cameras from Fuji - an APS-C sensor compact camera with retro-chic looks - and the successor to the X100S. But what?s new and is this a worthy upgrade? The team went to the Occupy Central protests to test out the camera......

Remember when you bought your first digital SLR camera? You thought, “What a piece of engineering!” You opened the box and took the first glance as excitement and joy ran through your veins. No more film, no more limitations and the ability to take as many photos as you want. The world was your oyster. You went through the manual and the number of options, menus and settings left you gasping. While the battery was still charging you were already planning your first photo endeavour. Then you ran outside with your shiny new camera and started shooting like mad. After all, with digital there are no limits. In the evenings you hit the Internet. You were sure you had the best camera on the market. You read all the reviews that were proving your point. But wait, you thought, “Maybe I should get a better lens, a better-rated lens.” You scratched together all the money you could and bought a huge, beautiful pro-rated lens. “Now I can take really stunning photos!” you cried. You drove to the nearest park and photographed everything around you: benches, trees, leaves, people, even hydrants. You uploaded your photos, looked at them at 100%, and admired sharpness and dynamic range. Again, you went on the Internet, hit the blogs, forums and ratings and thought, “If only I had a telephoto lens, I could take even more amazing photos.” The next day you visited your local dealer and came back with a massive telephoto 2.8 pro-rated. WOW!

But wait! Another question hit you. “How I am going to carry all this equipment?” You ran back to the store and picked the largest and best camera backpack you could afford. Daily you carried the backpack with your expensive SLR and superb lenses and took hundreds of photos. Sure the bag was heavy and the camera overwhelming but you told yourself, “This is the price I have to pay for top quality.” You justified an inconvenience. You kept uploading your photos to the computer, then processing and uploading them on the Internet. Next, you repeated your mantra about your camera’s superiority. You followed this sequence religiously every day. But despite your best efforts, photography had become an almost robot-like endeavour. Then it hit you. Something was not right! You noticed that others were taking much more interesting photos that were more engaging, more powerful. You went through them, you counted every pixel and you compared. Sure their photos were not as sharp as yours, the resolution was lower, the dynamic range was nowhere near yours but somehow their images were so much better and more interesting. You grumbled to yourself, “It is not possible! After all, I spent thousands on my equipment and I feel I am going nowhere!” You nervously studied the 300-page manual and asked yourself, “Maybe I am missing some settings? If only I knew how to set up…” You fell asleep with the manual as your pillow. Next day in the field you set up a tripod, put your brand new, huge, super-fast lens on your camera, went through your settings, played with all the buttons and you came back home… with even more mediocre photos. Your frustration was growing. Where is the joy? Where is the passion? Should I buy a better lens? Should I change my in-camera settings? Weeks and months passed and you left your heavy backpack at home more often. You became unengaged and uninspired. You started avoiding photography. What a chore it had become! You think, “Maybe that’s just how it is. Maybe I am overreacting. Maybe this is the new normal.”  The following day you bumped into a kid next door and he showed you a few photos he had taken with his iPhone. You immediately dismissed the quality and told him to buy a real camera but deep down you admired his images, creativity and passion. You went home depressed and discouraged. Then, one day you came across your old friend who was holding a small and interesting camera. Out of respect and curiosity, you took it, looked through the viewfinder and played with the controls. At first, you felt hostile towards this tiny camera. After all, at home you had whole backpack of expensive gear. But deep inside you had a strange feeling. Something drew you closer. It was the strange but familiar feeling you had when you shot Leica or Contax film cameras. You could not stop thinking about the little camera you held in your hands today. After a few days of internal struggle you decided to go for it. You realized what had been missing.

How many of you have had a similar experience? I did.........

Final Words

I liked the X-Pro1. I like the X-E1 just a tiny bit more, mostly because of the slightly smaller size and diopter on the EVF. In shooting with the X-Pro1 I found that, over time, I relied upon the optical side of the hybrid viewfinder less and less. Lenses poke into the frame in the optical view, and getting precise framing with the optical view is not possible. Given my personal preference for getting framing dead on in camera, if possible, I flipped the switch to the EVF an awful lot on my X-Pro1. With the X-E1 I'm not really missing the optical viewfinder; I don't find myself trying to flip out of the EVF view. Given that we now have a very capable zoom lens in the XF mount (the 18-55mm f/2.8-4), the reliance on an EVF goes up a little more. I do wish the EVF had a higher refresh rate, but I can live with what Fujifilm gave us, especially at the price point. Since I try not to keep cameras around that I'm not using, I can also speak to the ultimate decider: I've decided to sell my X-Pro1. I don't need two XF bodies, and I value the compactness of the X-E1 more than the hybrid viewfinder of the X-Pro1, so it's an easy decision. Aside: I'd guess that Fujifilm will update the X-Pro1 in 2013. In so doing, I also suspect that they would try to add a few features to differentiate that model from the X-E1. There aren't a lot of obvious such features, but a positionable LCD might be one. Both are good cameras, and you need to make sure that none of the small list of differences tilts you one way or the other, but in terms of performance, they're essentially equal. The great JPEG quality Fujifilm is known for is present equally in both cameras. The handling is the same, though slightly miniaturized in a couple of places on the X-E1. The raw files are the same. The build quality is in the same league with both. In short, near identical twins, with only a couple of small feature differences differentiating them. The lower price helps tilt things the X-E1's way, too. At the US$1000 body price, it's going up against the NEX-6 and NEX-7, the Olympus OM-D E-M5, and not much else. And it holds its own on the image quality side. Indeed, the X-E1 would be the best low light camera of that group. It would also be the slowest focusing camera of that group. The X-E1 has the most straightforward and understandable controls and menus of that group. The OM-D E-M5 has a wider range of lenses and accessories, but the existing Fujifilm lenses are all quite good—there's not a truly weak performer in the bunch (at least so far). Note that the X-Pro1, at US$400 more, has only the hybrid viewfinder to further stand out against those competitors. So kudos to Fujifilm. They took a fine camera, did some careful liposuction and one feature cut, and didn't harm the patient at all. If anything, they created a slightly more compelling product due to the lower price point. One last point: if you're into Leica lenses, the X-E1 is like the X-Pro1: with the Fujifilm M-mount adapter and the built-in lens corrections, these X-Trans cameras are the best crop sensor Leica M-mount option out there.

I’d like to apologize in advance: if you were hoping not to feel the urge to part with some of your money, I don’t think this review will be much help. As I told my buddy Morten Byskov in an email when I first got my hands on this lens: damn. When I originally reviewed the X-Pro1 I defined it as something that was clearly “part of a system”, as a camera that by its very nature felt much less intimate than the X100 (the only other X camera at the time). Much has changed since I wrote that review: more X bodies have appeared, the entire ecosystem has exploded with stellar Fuji offerings as well as Zeiss and other third-party lenses added to the mix for good measure; it’s rather phenomenal when you think about it — it hasn’t been that long. But while I came to love the X-Pro1 just as much as the X100 — albeit for different reasons — it still always felt like an extremely refined cog in an ever evolving system. Until now. With the introduction of the XF 23mm f1.4 R lens (B&H), Fuji finally brings the long-awaited 35mm field of view to the X-series, something that was previously only available with an X100/S or via an adapted lens. We could certainly argue about the why’s of such a long delay for an indisputably classic focal length — marketing conspiracies et all — but I doubt anyone will be faulting the execution: saying this was worth the wait is a serious understatement There are many intangibles about using a camera, the way it sits in our hands, how different pieces come together and fall into place. At the risk of sounding way too hyperbolic, here’s the short version of this review: I feel as though the X-Pro1 has just found its long lost sibling – The balance, the size, the weight, the focusing, the build… Everything about this lens feels exactly right to me. Soul mates, baby.....

What I like about the Fuji X100s

- Wonderful design, excellent build quality

- The aperture ring on the lens, the shutter speed dial like old film cameras

- The hybrid viewfinder

- Amazing quality of the RAW files

- Beautiful colour rendition, especially with the Astia Film Simlation mode

- Great dynamic range

- Tiny, lightweight, quiet, it is a perfect tool for street photography

What I don’t like about the Fuji X100s

- Autofocus still needs some improvements

- Poor battery life. I highly recommend buying a second battery if you plan to be out all day.

- Video mode only automatic, quality could be better given the great X100s sensor;

- The lens isn’t extremely sharp at f/2 (but is still usable) and has some distortion. I had hoped that Fuji would have improved on it.

Despite a few weak points, I really enjoyed using the X100s and it is definitely a camera that I will bring with me for day-to-day photography. It is fast, silent and discreet, and you can even choose to silence the shutter button. No one will notice you when you use it. However, at the same time, it will never become my main camera system. The reason is probably personal, but if I were to visit a place for the first time, I would probably miss a wide angle lens and a medium telephoto lens as I like to diversify my shots and represent a place from different angles and perspectives.

I liked shooting with it in Venice as I had already visited the city. Moreover, thanks to the Fuji X100s’ fixed lens, I was able to concentrate on one single type of photography (street photography), and this proved to be a very good exercise. As I said before, it is a niche camera – you have to know why you are buying it and for what you intend to use it. If street photography isn’t your genre of choice, the x100s probably isn’t the best camera for you. I have to admit that I am not an avid street shooter, and sometimes all I wanted was to be closer to my subject (I did some cropping in a few pictures). The RAF (Fuji RAW) files are another aspect that really impressed me. The dynamic range is huge and the amount of detail you can recover in both the shadows and highlights is stunning. I rarely work with such good RAW files coming from a camera like this one. You can really see the quality of the X-Trans sensor. High ISO images have little noise and an overall filmic “look” that is quite pleasant to the eye.