Dante Stella's X100 review

Indeed, amateurs have always been the majority market for fancy cameras.

I am dog-less in this fight as well, though I have handled a mutual friend's X100. Not for me, but the optical VF is very nice & the camera appears to be capable of producing fine results in the right hands.

Leica0Series said:
not a toy for hobbyists.

I have no dog in this fight, but nothing I've seen indicates this is a toy for hobbyists. And what's wrong with hobbyists? Amateurs push the bar in this field and many others. Professionals tend to buy something and use it until it's a shiny nub.
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bensyverson said:
I agree that it's not a bad price for a digital MF camera, but the $9700 Sigma SD-1 is an APS-C camera... hence my post
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I stand corrected. I assumed. Wow - just saw this thing on another thread... Hey, maybe Sigma has something interesting going... dunno, we'll have to see.
 
Nick, Adorama and Henry's still sell it for $1200.

But more important, there's just nothing else in the market that puts a package together like the X100. It would be nice if there was some competition for it. But to me, big black DSLRs (I have the D7000) just do not give me the size, ergonomics, and subtle-ness for street photography that the X100 brings to the game.
 
I think smallness of size is overrated in street photography, personally. No - you don't want to walk around with a giant FF DSLR with a big honkin' zoom... However, you do want to be discrete and the camera to be silent. I think compact DSLRs with articulated LCDs have it all over "small" as far as discrete goes because it's not the size of the camera that draws attention to yourself, it's the act of raising the camera to your eye that people see. This is why TLRs made good street photography tools - arguably as good as any 35mm camera. - People just don't pay attention when you're looking down at something. They will, however, note when you raise a camera to your eye... The reason why 35mm was chosen is because medium format is a film eater.

Just my take...
 
I read Dante's write-up on doing your own lens tests. I give up any plans to do future lens comparisons. 🙂
 
I very well written and fair review of the camera.

I've been reading various threads started by users of this camera. Based on the number of issues reported by X100 owners, I decided to wait until a major firmware upgrade came out before considering it. Dante's review is well-balanced.

Just wait until the X100 shows up in Men in Black III and is announced as advanced alien technology.
 
Another fine performance from the virtuoso uncontested pop culturally literate anti-gearhead's gearhead. You go Dante.
 
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loved this bit
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]"Since rangefinders have no groundglass to illustrate what is happening in the rest of the field, most rangefinder users are doing manually the exact same thing that single-point AF is. Sorry, guys, but if you're a slave to the RF, you can be replaced by contrast-detect or phase-detect autofocus"
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By the way I'm always the first one to whinge about terrible service, so I may as well give some credit when it's due.

My x100 died a couple of months after I bought it (VF curtain stuck halfway down), so I sent it to Fuji's repair centre in Sydney. Next day I got an sms with a reference number, a contact number and acknowledgment it's a warranty fault. 10 days later I got another sms that it had been repaired and shipped and in the meantime they had been really good answering queries on the phone. I received the camera yesterday with a note apologising for the fault and listing the work performed: VF repair, calibration and installation of firmware updates. It also included a spare battery and sd card. I had sent it without, I guess they forgot to remove theirs.

Nothing extraordinary really, just good professional service. But I thought I'd let aussie users know in case they have to send theirs in: dont hesitate.
 
Good to know Spyro! Mine is there as well getting it's sticky shutter button sorted. I've got the receipt acknoweldgement SMS. Hopefully the rest will go as smoothly as yours. I sent mine without a battery too.




Spyro said:
By the way I'm always the first one to whinge about terrible service, so I may as well give some credit when it's due.

My x100 died a couple of months after I bought it (VF curtain stuck halfway down), so I sent it to Fuji's repair centre in Sydney. Next day I got an sms with a reference number, a contact number and acknowledgment it's a warranty fault. 10 days later I got another sms that it had been repaired and shipped and in the meantime they had been really good answering queries on the phone. I received the camera yesterday with a note apologising for the fault and listing the work performed: VF repair, calibration and installation of firmware updates. It also included a spare battery and sd card. I had sent it without, I guess they forgot to remove theirs.

Nothing extraordinary really, just good professional service. But I thought I'd let aussie users know in case they have to send theirs in: dont hesitate.
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Quote:
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The X100 actually does the same thing in MF mode when you point the focusing spot at the subject you want and hit the AE/AF button. The camera focuses on the selected item and stops focusing when you let go of that button. That cuts the lag and prevents refocusing. It's the functional equivalent of using a rangefinder, but it just requires different hand movements.
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The split image rangefinder in the M and the manual focus ring provide much more than just that: the position of the tab on a tabbed lens, or cranking the focus ring to infinity and dialing back to your focus point based on feel, as well as the amount and direction of off-set of the split image are much more than pressing the AF/AEL button.
 
Gary true, currently you cant do that with AF. But this is not an inherent disadvantage of AF, just inherent to focus by wire systems. There is no reason why you cant have an AF lens with a tab and full time manual focus ring. There is currently no mirrorless camera that has one, but it is not technically impossible. I'd love to see one...
 
An insightful user review -- especially the section on parallax.

But "herniate"?? 😕

I expect his spill shucker couldn't find "hibernate". 😉
 
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