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I had a wander into London Camera Exchange today where, much to my surprise, they had a new Fuji X100 in stock and available to purchase. I've had my eye on the X100 since it was announced some months ago. The belnd of rangefinder + electronic viewfinder + large sensor + physical dials is extremely attractive to me.
As it happens, the shop had a Leica M6 on the counter at the same time, and it's immediately obvious what the X100 has been modelled on. They've even coloured the metal body to be exactly like the Leica.
The X100 comes packaged beautifully. It reminded me of the iPhone packaging - solid box, other boxes within, nice satin liner holding the camera. Nice.
It's smaller than I had thought - a tad bigger than the Panasonic GF1, but smaller than a Leica M6.
The big manual controls are a delight. Aperture ring is on the lens. Shutter speed is on a big dial on the top along with exposure compensation. Super.
The hybrid viewfinder is stonkingly good. You can look through the window and see the scene directly, but with all parameters overlaid such as aperture, shutter speed, metering etc. Really very innovative. You can flick a lever to get the electronic viewfinder "through the lens" view as well. I really like it.
The feel of the camera is extremely nice. Very solid, beautifully made, and very nice to hold.
Now the bad stuff. The small control wheel and menu/OK button on the back are not very nice at all. They are too small and feedback to pressing them is not positive enough. You may get used to it, but I much prefer the simpler arrangement on the GF1. I'd like to have a longer go with the camera before I'd commit to purchase it to see if this is
I didn't find the autofocus very intuitive when looking through the viewfinder window. When looking to focus close-up on something, it seemed like the focus point indicated in the viewfinder wasn't correct due to the offset from the window to the lens. Switching to electronic viewfinder was much better and seemed to perform normally. I'm not sure what this is about - maybe just me, but it didn't seem very intuitive.
Some of the menu control actions were a bit strange. Using the aforementioned teeny control wheel it was quite difficult to navigate around the menus easily. Again, you may get used to it, but I just didn't find the control easy to use. One nice thing though - you do get the menu display in the viewfinder when you are using it.
Some other nice touches - ISO is easy to set using what I think is a configurable function button on the top. Selection of manual/auto focus is easy with a switch on the side. Lots of good simplification to make it easy to use.
So, jury still out from my perspective. I'll have another longer play with it, and probably also await a wide-angle converter. In the meantime I'll stick with my GF1 which I really do love.
Oh yes, the price. £999.99. This is in my view approx £300 too expensive.
As it happens, the shop had a Leica M6 on the counter at the same time, and it's immediately obvious what the X100 has been modelled on. They've even coloured the metal body to be exactly like the Leica.
The X100 comes packaged beautifully. It reminded me of the iPhone packaging - solid box, other boxes within, nice satin liner holding the camera. Nice.
It's smaller than I had thought - a tad bigger than the Panasonic GF1, but smaller than a Leica M6.
The big manual controls are a delight. Aperture ring is on the lens. Shutter speed is on a big dial on the top along with exposure compensation. Super.
The hybrid viewfinder is stonkingly good. You can look through the window and see the scene directly, but with all parameters overlaid such as aperture, shutter speed, metering etc. Really very innovative. You can flick a lever to get the electronic viewfinder "through the lens" view as well. I really like it.
The feel of the camera is extremely nice. Very solid, beautifully made, and very nice to hold.
Now the bad stuff. The small control wheel and menu/OK button on the back are not very nice at all. They are too small and feedback to pressing them is not positive enough. You may get used to it, but I much prefer the simpler arrangement on the GF1. I'd like to have a longer go with the camera before I'd commit to purchase it to see if this is
I didn't find the autofocus very intuitive when looking through the viewfinder window. When looking to focus close-up on something, it seemed like the focus point indicated in the viewfinder wasn't correct due to the offset from the window to the lens. Switching to electronic viewfinder was much better and seemed to perform normally. I'm not sure what this is about - maybe just me, but it didn't seem very intuitive.
Some of the menu control actions were a bit strange. Using the aforementioned teeny control wheel it was quite difficult to navigate around the menus easily. Again, you may get used to it, but I just didn't find the control easy to use. One nice thing though - you do get the menu display in the viewfinder when you are using it.
Some other nice touches - ISO is easy to set using what I think is a configurable function button on the top. Selection of manual/auto focus is easy with a switch on the side. Lots of good simplification to make it easy to use.
So, jury still out from my perspective. I'll have another longer play with it, and probably also await a wide-angle converter. In the meantime I'll stick with my GF1 which I really do love.
Oh yes, the price. £999.99. This is in my view approx £300 too expensive.
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