Fujifilm Finepix X100 First Impressions Review
It’s been a while since I posted. We’ve been busy moving and getting settled in our new place. Finally made a decision to sell the Nikon D700 and all my lenses and get a Fujifilm Finepix X100. Although the D700 is a great camera, it is a huge chunk of metal and glass to carry everywhere. The Fuji has the distinction of being able to fit in my jacket pocket and still deliver images that are almost as good as the mighty D700.
It is very like in size to my Canon Canonet QL17 GIII. In fact it is slightly slimmer. The lens is a little shorter than the Canon and this makes it very easy to slip in a jacket pocket. Besides the size of the camera, it has very good image quality up to 3200 iso, a fast, sharp f=2.0 lens and a hybrid viewfinder that let’s me choose between using the LCD, an electronic viewfinder or a real optical viewfinder. The X100 was the only camera that had all of these things in a size that I can carry everywhere.
I considered the Sony Nex-7, it has a electronic viewfinder and similar small dimensions without a lens, but the 24mm f=1.8 lens is another $800 and it is much larger with the lens attached. I also considered all the Micro 4/3s cameras, but they didn’t have high iso image quality that I wanted or an eye-level viewfinder integrated into the design.
Also, I admit to just thinking the X100 is very cool. I love the retro, old-school styling. I like having the aperture setting on the lens and a real metal exposure compensation knob under my thumb.
The images are where the X100 really shines and I think that’s what decided me more than anything else:
The X100 lens will focus up to 4 inches. You can either use the fussy little control knob or just flip the AF selector to manual focus. Oddly, when in manual focus mode, you can use the rear AF-L/AE-L button to auto focus across the entire range of the camera’s lens. In autofocus mode, you can only go down to about 2 1/2 feet. Using the manual focus ring on the front is an exercise in futility, just use the rear button to autofocus it close.
Ergonomically, the camera is a little small for my hands, but the Fuji leather case makes it big enough to hold comfortably and the edges of the leather give my hands a bit of a grip. I decided to use a wrist strap to keep the entire package small. When I go hiking, I’ll use one of my longer padded neck straps to carry it. The little leather strap that came with the case is too short for me. I like the camera to carry at hip level when hiking, not bouncing at tummy level.
The flash is small, but very effective for fill. Fuji has really got the fill flash perfect on this camera:
I converted the image to black and white to mask the color temperature difference in the subject and the background. The Fuji keeps the iso high for the proper exposure but just adds a little light to brighten the subject. For indoor pictures, if you don’t change to b&w the background will be yellow and your subject will be in the neutral flash color. Good thing I prefer black and white. This is one area that the Fuji actually does a better job of than the D700. The D700 would default to the lowest iso setting possible when using the flash and auto iso. I would have to manually boost the iso to get a decent fill flash. Even then the D700 would not do as good of a job. The Fuji just seems smoother and better balanced.
On the down side, the auto focus is a little slow and hunts a bit some times in low light. But for the most part it does the job. I also have found a little shadow banding when pushing some of the raw files. The files don’t have the latitude of the D700, I’ll have to be more careful in getting my exposures right.
Overall, I’m very pleased with my choice. I like the portability and flexibility. Here’s a couple links to some sample shots:
Test Shots
Dinner with friends
At the range
Canon Sure Shot Review
I got this Canon Sure Shot in a box of cameras that I picked up for $25. I found 5 cameras out of the box that I’ve enjoyed shooting. This is a pretty good one. It is auto exposure and auto focus, just point and shoot. It is very similar to the Canon Sure Shot Tele that I’ve already looked at, but it’s an earlier model, so you have to advance and rewind the film with a button instead of it happening automatically. Also you have to set the asa film speed manually, which you will see is something of an advantage.
It has a fast, semi-wide 38mm 2.8 lens. The lens is fairly sharp, but nothing amazing. It uses 2 AA batteries, instead of the expensive 2CR5 that the Tele uses. It is also smaller and lighter than the Tele. It auto advances the film between shots and does it in a pretty noisy fashion. The asa goes from 50 to 400 in 3rd of a stop increments and then jumps up to 1000 asa instead of 800 like a lot of other cameras. The Tele set the asa automatically using DX encoding up to 1600 asa.
The cool thing about having a manually set asa is that you can cheat a bit with some film. I wanted to try some Fuji Neopan 1600, but I didn’t really like the Fuji at the box speed of 1600, I wanted to try it a little slower. So I loaded it into the Sure Shot and rated it at 1000. I was very pleased with the results. Shot at 1600, the Fuji Neopan is too contrasty and doesn’t have enough mid-tones for my taste. Shooting at 1000, it still has good contrast, but the mid-tones are much more apparent and the grain is nice and not overwhelming.
This combo gave me a point and shoot with pretty decent low-light capabilities. So good in fact, that I never tested the flash. Unfortunately, Fuji has discontinued the Neopan 1600 film, so I only have 5 rolls left in the freezer and then it’s gone. I’m going to try shooting some Tri-X at 1000 and 1600 to see if I can use it as a replacement.
I took it to a New Year’s Eve party and took some snaps without a flash. It did a great job. Well exposed and in focus, easy to use, just the thing for a party camera.
The Sure Shot is a great, inexpensive way to take some snap shots, even in low-light with right film.
Read MoreWhy fool with film? Part II: Compact Cameras.
Today’s cage match is between the Olympus XA and the Canon A1000IS, film vs. digital, looking for the best carry anywhere camera. My muse and I went to Paducah for a day trip and I took 2 cameras with me. The Olympus XA, the smallest film rangefinder, and a Canon A1000IS, a typical point and shoot compact digital camera.
As you can see, the little Oly is about the same size as the Canon Digital. Both fit easily into a pocket and can be carried with little effort. The Oly is a true rangefinder with manual focusing and aperture priority exposure. You set the aperture you desire and the camera figures out the shutter speed necessary for the shot and displays the information with a needle on the left side. The Canon is an auto everything model, no manual controls at all. You get what the camera thinks is the best shot. The Oly is equipped with a 35mm f2.8 non-zoom lens. The Canon with a 35-140mm f2.7-5.6 equivalent zoom. Without using the zoom, it is a very similarly spec’d lens to the Oly. In the interest of fairness, all pictures have been tweaked to look their best using contrast, saturation and sharpening. No extraordinary measures have been used.
The first round is a interior portrait of my muse while sitting in a little bbq place in downtown Paducah. First the digital:
As you can see the portrait has a lot of detail and is very sharp. The lens has distorted her face a bit more than I would like, but that is because I was closer to her than with the Oly.
Now the film shot, I was using Kodak Gold 200:
See how the skin tone is much more flattering? There is much more depth and richness to the color overall. Also, see how much blurrier the background is? How it separates the subject and puts the focus on the subject? Compact digital cameras have a much smaller sensor, so there is a lot of depth of field and subject isolation is much harder to accomplish. Round 1 goes to the Oly and film.
Round 2 is a detail shot from a steam locomotive on display at the Paducah riverfront. First the digital:
The Canon has done a good job, it has a 10 megapixel sensor and it has captured a lot of detail. Now the film:
I like the warmth of the color better, but the Oly and the Kodak Gold have not captured the same amount of detail as the Canon. I estimate the detail available from this combo to be close to a typical 6 megapixel camera. If you need detail, digital is the way to go. Round 2 goes to the Canon.
The final and deciding round is dynamic range. How much color can be captured in a high contrast situation. So this shot is a landscape shot of the train and the sky. First the digital:
The black train is predominant in the image and so the Canon has correctly exposed the train, but see what has happened to the sky? The sky has completely blown out to white, there’s no color there for me to try and save, it’s gone. Now the film:
Really there is no comparison between the two, the film captures not only all the detail in the train, but also all the color in the sky. Round 3 definitely goes to the winner, the Olympus XA and Kodak Gold.
You can see all the shots here.
Read MoreFujifilm Velvia 50 Review
Just got back some slides that I shot with Velvia 50 in my Nikon N80. I was shooting these at the same time as I was shooting Kodak Gold in my little Minolta, so it is a good chance to see the differences between these two films. First up is a shot of a lake in Lone Elk Park.
With Velvia 50:
With Kodak Gold 200:
As you can see, the color in the Velvia shot are much richer and vibrant. The Kodak is a more natural color, but it is a bit dull. Here’s another pair:
With Velvia 50:
With Kodak Gold 200:
The results are similar. The Kodak Gold is a bit duller and less vibrant. Velvia is 50 iso, so it very slow film. This allows me to do some shallow depth of field like this:
The downside to this film is that it is very slow and so is not good for anything less that vibrant light. Also, it is very expensive, about $7 a 36 exposure roll from B&H photo. I just bought Kodak Gold on sale from Walgreens for $1.50 a roll of 24 exposures. Plus, my local lab charges $11 to develop a roll of slides versus $5 to develop a roll of print film.
If I’m going someplace where I know the colors will be great I will pony up the money for Velvia. Otherwise, I’ve got a lot of Kodak Gold around for general shooting.
Read MoreNikon D700 and Tamron 28-75 Review
I took this combo with me to Nashville last weekend. The D700 and the Tamron 28-75 make a good pair. The lens is lightweight and very sharp. The only problems with the lens are a little bit of vignetting (darkening of the corners) and auto-focus that tends to hunt around before eventually settling in the right spot. The major advantage of the lens is that it has a great range and it focuses very close. It focuses within 1 ft., good enough to be something of a macro lens.
Being able to change from wide to telephoto is a very nice feature. Usually there are some compromises along the way optically and there are some here, but it is not in sharpness, which is very important to me. I don’t mind a little darkening of the corners when the lens is wide open and at 28mm. This seems a reasonable trade-off.
This versatility is a boon to creativity and I think I should probably use this lens more often. It works really well, especially on close focus.
You can see all the samples here.
Read MoreMinolta Hi-Matic AF2 & Hi-Matic S2 Review
The Minolta Hi-Matic AF2 was Minolta’s first auto-focus point and shoot 35 mm camera. It was made by Minolta in 1981. The S2 is a scale focusing variation that uses a “scale” to focus. You simply look at the person and determine how much of the person will be visible in the picture and turn the focus ring to that scale to adjust.
I really like these cameras. The AF2 is especially nice. You just point and shoot and get really good results. It has a fast 38mm f=2.8 lens. With 400 iso film (the fastest it uses), you can shoot down to about EV6. That’s good enough for a well-lit interior room without flash. If you use a film with some latitude like Kodak BW400CN, you can even get something usable down to EV3.
The auto-focus was pretty accurate. It only missed focus on a couple of shots. It seemed to have more difficulty with infinity distances than with people closeups. The lens has good contrast.
The camera is made from sturdy plastic. It has a real advance lever rather than a thumb wheel or motor advance. Something about cocking the lever makes it feel more like a real camera. It is lightweight, easy to carry and much more quiet than the Canons of that era. The flash works well and doesn’t seem to blow out the highlights.
I like the rangefinder look and feel of this camera. I’ve mentioned before that my real rangefinder, the Olympus 35 SP, is kind of hard to focus. Well this camera is the same convenient size, but with the auto-focus I can snap a shot and be sure of getting the image.
I really like the sharpness of the images and the ease of shooting this camera. This will become my regular “carry-everywhere” camera.
You can see all the shots here.
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