Fujifilm X100 for pro photographers
– what it is, and what it isn’t
Simon Towler takes a first quick look at the new Fujifilm X100 camera, considering it from the point of view of the professional photographer.
We rarely feature cameras on NewPhotoDigest, and when we do they’re usually professional systems over £10,000. But we’re making an exception for the new Fujifilm FinePix X100, for a few reasons. The main one is that professional photographers are waiting for this camera, and are considering buying it as their always-with-you compact, so it just about falls within our editorial remit (at a squeeze). And Fujifilm are marketing it as a “professional” compact, so it should be examined in that light.
Recently, Katrin Eismann, author of a number of Photoshop books, returned her new Fujifilm X100, commenting that it should have been “a sleek digital camera that didn’t try to be retro”, and saying it is “too quirky for serious use”. So, she didn’t get what she was expecting when the X100 box arrived.
What it is
Addressing working professional photographers, I think it’s important to think about what this camera is, and what it isn’t.
“The Fujifilm FinePix X100 digital camera is a retro-styled compact for the mass market. There may be professionals out there wishing, hoping or expecting it will be something else, but that’s what it is.”
The Fujifilm FinePix X100 digital camera is a retro-styled compact for the mass market. There may be professionals out there wishing, hoping or expecting it will be something else, but that’s what it is. The pro market is a very small market; Fujifilm haven’t made the X100 just for pros, as some kind of compact Leica M9 alternative.
The X100 will produce images of professional quality though; in fact, it will out-do some of the semi-pro cameras photographers have used quite happily for press work and weddings in the past.
Today was the first day I saw a functioning production X100 in real life. I haven’t had time to learn how to use it, and I haven’t done any serious image taking with it. But I’ll give you some opinions on it anyway.
The only reason NewPhotoDigest is covering this camera is because it’s a candidate for inclusion in the list of non-DSLRs that professional photographers favour as their take-anywhere, always-with-you camera — the role traditionally filled by rangefinders and advanced compacts. Online surveys tend to indicate that quite a few camera models make it onto this list, and it’s not dominated by just two or three stand-out models. Canon G and S series models feature, as do micro four thirds cameras, and several other types.
The only reason I personally am interested in it is because — probably like a lot of photographers — since the advent of digital I’ve been waiting for a digital compact to come along that has genuinely usable manual creative controls.
You could write a book on this camera. In the remainder of this article I’m going to touch on only two features: the manual focus, and the hybrid viewfinder.
Manual controls
In my opinion, where a compact does have manual controls, they’re often there purely for marketing reasons, to be features on the feature list rather than to be used routinely. They have gadget value in the first few days after you get the camera, but once you’ve learned them and finish playing with them, you rarely use them in anger. Most digital compacts with a full manual option are almost impossible to use in anything other than point-and-shoot mode.
The Fujifilm FinePix X100 has some immediately obvious advantages over these cameras. Its retro styling puts the manual controls under the command of a traditional layout of analogue rings and dials on the camera itself. These are familiar and intuitive to use, and it’s very satisfying to be able to change settings almost instinctively, without having to take your eye from the viewfinder.
And they have the other advantage of the traditional manual layout, which is that they’re arranged so a quick look down at the top of your camera allows you to read its complete current settings from all the rings and dials at a glance.
Manual Focus
One of the things that have always frustrated me in the manual modes of digital compacts up to now has been the manual focus. This usually has to be set with reference to a distance scale displayed as a bar on the camera’s screen, and adjusted by buttons, or (much better) by command wheel.
The Fujifilm X100 improves slightly on the command wheel with its implementation of manual focus control. It has a traditional-looking focus ring on the lens. It’s not a real, mechanical lens-focus ring; it’s a fly-by-wire thing, just as a command wheel is. And it doesn’t have a distance scale marked on it, so you can’t pre-set the focus before a shot by reference only to the focus ring, you have to look at the camera’s LCD display for that. The focus distance can’t be read from the focus ring.
My brief time with the Fujifilm X100 wasn’t long enough to convince me that, overall, it had any really significant advantage in manual focus over compacts that have come before. But realistically, how important is that?
Hybrid viewfinder
Viewfinders can be digital, with shooting information, or they can be optical. But many digital compacts no longer even include a built-in viewfinder, and some of those that do have only a vestigial one, too small to be routinely usable.
Why would you want a viewfinder when today’s compacts have such high quality, large, bright, high resolution display screens? Well, I still like to have the option of using a viewfinder in bright sunlight. And I like the way a viewfinder held to my left eye screens out my vision of everything outside the scene I’m framing.
I’ve never liked the electronic viewfinders on compact stills cameras. I haven’t liked their lack of colour fidelity, their imperfect colour registration, and the noticeable image lag when they try to update as you move the framing around. I’ve never felt they’ve had enough resolution either. These electronic viewfinders had a long way to go, and they’re still not there yet.
“The Fujifilm FinePix X100 has a unique hybrid viewfinder.”
The Fujifilm FinePix X100 has a unique hybrid viewfinder. At the flick of a lever you can make the electronic viewfinder disappear, and view your framing directly via the fair sized optical viewfinder, through the same window. Vital shooting information — including framing-lines matched to subject distance — is still indicated, on a kind of heads-up display superimposed on the optical viewfinder, and there’s even more info on show when you flick back to the electronic finder.
When you take a shot, the viewfinder can display the digital image you just took for a few moments after each exposure.
Conclusion
Playing with the Fujifilm X100, I got the impression that the combination of the innovative viewfinder and traditional analogue controls really would work well in tandem, and allow you a shooting style that other compacts would deny you. So there’s more than styling going on here, the ergonomics may actually be better for some shooters than other compacts.
Looking up its DxO Mark sensor ranking tells me the Fujifilm FinePix X100′s image quality is well within the domain of what’s considered professional — as you’d expect from a current model with an APS-C sized sensor. You can take serious professional images with this camera.
In professional situations, the retro styling may aid credibility, particularly if you add some of the optional accessories, giving the little compact more gravitas and presence. This might stop people asking you why you aren’t using the usual DSLR brick with a 1200mm lens — like their local photographer does, or like the one they have at home.
This is not a no-nonsense, no-compromise, thoroughbred professional camera. It’s not a purely professional camera at all. No manufacturer can afford to make compacts just for the tiny pro market. But it is a camera that could be used for professional purposes.
The retro features are just styling, but they do actually work, and do open up, to some extent, a more traditional way of using the camera, that may enable some pros to leverage their knowledge of manual creative control.
“Despite appearances, this is not a Leica M9 that shrank in the wash.”
Despite appearances, this is not a Leica M9 that shrank in the wash. That is just appearance, it’s not what you should be expecting. And it’s not a sleek leading-edge compact either. It is a quirky blend of innovative premium compact and retro styling, not intended for ruthlessly serious use.
This camera is in short supply at the moment, and there are very few demo models in the UK. What worries me about this is that many of the pros who’ll buy one over the next few months may not have had a chance to get hands-on with it before putting it on order. They’ll be buying on specification, and hype. Like Katrin Eismann, they may be expecting something other than what they’ll get.
It is what it is. It’s a lovely little camera.
(Oh, did we mention, the lens hood is extra?)
[for an in-depth review, we unreservedly refer you to DPReveiw.com]
Canada’s Fuji Guys answer some of the world’s frequently asked questions about the Fujifilm X100 camera, covering many of the manual control options: