Background
Recently, I put away away my 10 year old Nikon D70 with the 35mm F2 AF-D lens and tried a few but very different cameras. The tunnel like low magnification viewfinder in the Nikon D70 always bothered me and my primary reason to go back to film was to try some cameras with excellent viewfinders. These dated from the 1960s to some very recent ones:
- Leica M8.2 (2008) with a 35mm F1.4 Summilux (pre-ASPH) lens
- Hasselblad 503CW (~1990) and 500C (~1970) with a 80mm F2.8 Planar lens
- Leica M3 (1962) with a 50mm Summicron (recent). I actually bought the Leica M3 and then a older "Rigid" 50mm Summicron
- Canon AE1 Program with 50mm F2 lens (~1980)
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| Fuji X100S with fixed F2 lens |
Intrigued by good reviews of mirror-less cameras, I read about the Fuji X100S and rented it for 3 days. It cost around $50 at borrowlenses.com. I had to wait a few weeks before the camera was available for rent. The X100S must be selling well, as there seems to be a 1-2 months wait at amazon.com. I took about 300 photos in 3 days, mostly of kids. I took the camera on a early morning walk at the Rancho San Antonio county park.
This is not a comprehensive review. It's a report on the how I used the camera in the 3 days I had it while juggling family life. My hope is that you will find some useful bits of information here but it can't replace the experience of having the camera in your hands and the viewfinder in your eye. I recommend you rent it yourself.
Handling
I decided to take the light strap off because it was getting in the way of the rather light, small camera. I've rarely ever used a tripod and the photos you see here are hand held (other than the one of the camera taken with a iphone and the one of the curtain which is taken with the self-timer). I was able to use the X100S hand-held at low speeds like 1/25, but the smaller grip may take some getting used to. The aperture ring is very easily controlled with the hand. The indicator lamp changes from green to red and back and bothered my right eye. I did not use the exposure compensation dial but used the shutter speed dial and rotated the aperture ring while shooting.
Focal Length and Street Photography
I'm left eye dominant which means that the camera covers most of my face. Only with the Leica M3 viewfinder with its 0.9 magnification, I can shoot with my right eye, keeping both eyes open (I can't seem to be able to close the left one). I like the 50mm focal length and big viewfinders. With a 35mm lens you get more of what you see with the naked eyes into the frame, but the wide angle perspective starts to get in. Compositions are quite different. You need to be closer in to frame tightly. The street may become larger than the people on it. A person closer may appear much larger than one further away. I never got to do any street photography with the X100S but can easily see that it would be a great camera for this purpose.
The Viewfinder
The hybrid viewfinder is very clear. I checked the electronic view-finder (EVF) and the LCD but always used the optical finder (OVF). Frame-lines are clear and being able to see outside the frame-lines helps composing. Ability to switch the frame-lines for square composition (1:1) is awesome (I like the 6x6 Hasselblad).
Misc
The X100S has a lot of features and a large menu-based setting system, but I quickly skimmed the user manual to turn on silent mode and get to manual/aperture priority exposure control. The shutter is pretty much inaudible. In fact when the shutter was released, the only feedback seemed to be the springy mechanical motion. Fuji did retro things things like using a lever for OVF/EVF switching and building threads into the shutter for a cable release. I have no idea why. Quick menu (Q) with dial is great, which I used for changing ISO. I had no problems setting exposure manually using the lens aperture ring and shutter speed ring or using aperture priority. Auto-focus is very fast. This makes the X100s a very quick camera. I did try manual focus. Focus peaking with manual focus is hard to notice, but split-image manual focusing is clear. Anyways, auto-focus is so good, I used it all the time. Battery life is not great. You will need a spare. I recharged at least 3 times in 3 days. Maybe, using the EVF to review shots was draining the battery. In contrast, the battery in my old Nikon D70 is awesome. Auto white balance is good. My Nikon D70 does not do a good job of this and I have to manually select the light type, but the X100s did really well in incandescent and fluorescent light.
Image Quality
To test the limits of the camera under low light, I took this shot of a curtain under regular indoor low/medium top lighting at night with the self-timer at low ISO and used aperture priority with the lens stopped down. Long exposure noise reduction was turned on. The detail and shadow rendering is excellent and life-like.
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The X100S comes across as a compact camera with all the manual overrides and DSLR capabilities you could dream of. Of course its not for everyone, and not for everything. But this camera is very good. It makes me re-think the whole idea of "going back-into-film with the Leica M3", in-spite of the wider lens. I've long wanted the Leica M3 that I have now and the X100S is very Leica like for shooting. It evoked memories of the Olympus Stylus Epic. Its a near perfect travel/kids/street camera if the 35mm focal length works for you. It makes a good choice if you wanted only one camera and one lens in your life, because you could always carry it with you and not have to compromise image quality.
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