I've purchased many cameras over the years, always looking to find just the right tool that would make me the better photographer, always naively telling myself that "if only I had this camera then...". Of course every photographer romanticizes that they can walk the streets of say, Paris with some exotic old camera, perhaps a Hasselblad, and that because of this magical camera, they will become a master photographer and every frame will come out ready to hang in a gallery. Every photographer deludes themselves with this idea because the technology that makes photography possible is part of the appeal of being a photographer in the first place. So why not dream big?
I caught the camera bug early in my college days. In fact, my first big camera purchase was a Hasselblad 501cm with 3 lenses and 2 film backs and a Polaroid back -the works. But in the end, guess how that camera spent most of its time. Yep, on a shelf, collecting dust. The dream that now that I had the perfect camera I would be on my way to being a great photographer turned out to be exactly that: just a dream. That's not to say I didn't shoot my fair share of film through that camera. I certainly did. But as my photography output increased, the fact of the matter was that I could no longer justify the time or resources it took to shoot film, and sadly this beautiful piece of photographic technology became the last choice when it came time to grab a camera and go. It's a digital age and I needed a camera that can give me the immediacy that digital photography affords. The problem was (and I suspect many other photographers feel the same way) that carrying a digital camera around with you everywhere just wasn't cool. I hate to say it, but when your only choice is to grab your big, heavy, dorky digital slr or an expensive and antiquated film camera, you often left the house with no camera at all. In fact, I found myself becoming less and less a photographer because I simply had my camera with me less and less of the time.
So when the Fuji X100 was announced in 2010, I, as did so many other photographers, took a knee and thanked the photo gods for answering our prayers. Here was a piece of technology that seemed to be designed by Cartier-Bresson himself, had he only lived in the age of iPods and HDTV. The romance of photography was back, as this camera married oldschool style with cutting edge performance. In short, this was the camera that would make carrying a camera around your neck cool again. But I wouldn't let myself buy another camera just for camera's sake. I had neglected too many good cameras and determined that in order to take in a new camera, I had to sell another I already owned. So after much agonizing and suffering, I sold my Hasselblad kit (a decision any photographer would understand I did not make lightly) and bought the Fuji X100.
Was it the right move? In a word: yes.
In more than one word: yes, yes.
There are enough reviews of this camera out there for you to read if you need to geek out over specs and features. I recommend starting here. For me, I only need the camera to tick off a few things. As I already said above, it needs to be convenient enough to carry with me anywhere, while providing me the convenience and performance of today's current digital sensor technologies. The X100 does this in spades. Sure the camera is too big to carry in a pocket like an iPhone, but the camera has a full aps-c size sensor with amazing low-light performance, a beautiful 35mm (equivalent) lens, and a gorgeous hybrid ovf/evf which makes the act of photography feel so much more authentic than using an iPhone. So in a way, this camera is more about making me feel more like a photographer than anything else. And while I've finally grown out of the dream that having the right camera will make be a great photographer, this camera makes me feel like every time I use it I'm becoming more and more the photographer I want to be. That experience is something that I don't think is stressed enough when you read online reviews.
I've been settling in with this camera for a few weeks now, and I'm loving every moment with it. Not only does it feel and look like the camera I've been waiting for, but the performance is simply unmatched. Sure, there are some issues with it. The manual focus sucks, and in low light, the AF can hunt a little. The menu isn't great and I also don't like that I can't seem to turn the image review off which sometimes hurts my ability to get the photo in a clutch moment. But my god, this camera does so much else right, how can you possibly whine about any of that other nonsense? The lens is amazing (I don't miss not having a zoom, in fact I love the discipline that comes with using prime lenses) the image quality is superb, and using it in silent mode people don't even know I have a camera with me. It is hands down my favorite camera and am happy to say that it's the first camera I've ever purchased that doesn't spend most of its time gathering dust on a shelf. Here's to being a photographer again. Thank you Fuji.
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