sllɐqǝʎǝʎzznɟ

It was quite a wait to get the Fujifilm X-100 at a good price and recently when there was an opportunity to grab one at super good price (don’t ask me who, where or how … as I ain’t suppose to tell) … I didn’t think twice and here are some initial random test shots with it. Well … I have many other shots but they are mostly of my boy and I don’t wanna flood the entry with all of them (but you can see the first few I posted in an earlier entry here).

I’ve read many mixed opinions and reviews about this cool looking camera and after a few days of test run … how do I like it? Okay … I’ll put aside the fact that it looks pretty … and here are some of the things that I don’t like …

1. Settings like shooting mode (eg. panoramic, video etc) goes back to default after you go into preview mode or turn off/on the camera. A firmware update should be able to fix that easily.

2. You need to get an adapter ring if you wanna use filters on it. How much? It costs about $50 (Singapore dollars)!!! Forget about the hood (also sold separately) … I don’t need extra bulk.

3. The price. If not for the special price I got it for … I find the price a bit on the high side.

4. Switching to macro (though not too close) mode, you have to press the macro button and then select ‘macro on’. Why not toggle the macro on/off with a single press? Firmware update for this please? 😀

That is probably just about all the problem I find with it. Of course I ain’t like many of the masters out there who can do reviews on cameras or bother about doing 100% crops to see details … but it is good enough for me. Some might say that since it looks like a rangefinder … the lack of the rangefinder-like focusing patch is the biggest spoiler. Hmm … not for me. My old fuzzyeyeballs will never be able to focus well (using those patch), so autofocus is definitely my thing. 😀

Focusing speed? I’ve read people saying that focusing speed is pretty much like the Olympus E-P1. What does that mean? That means it ain’t too awesome but I’ve never had problem with the E-P1 and thus the X-100 auto focusing speed is perfectly okay for me. Basically … any camera that can let me autofocus and capture photos of my (ever moving) boy … the focusing speed is good. Hahaha!

All the images you see here are not straight out of the camera. However, they just went through some very simple post processing & resizing in Photoshop. Life is too short (to me) to spend on long Photoshop sessions. 😀

How does it perform in low light? It will definitely be better if it were a f1.8 lens but anyway … the ISO performance is pretty impressive. These 3 below were taken at ISO2000 and the below photos has no noise reduction applied in post processing. I’m satisfied!

Since I had lots of time to spare, I tried the panoramic mode too. This first one is the 120 degrees version …

Click on image to enlarge

… and this one is the 180 degrees one. Sorry I’ve yet to learn how to make QTVR movies with pano photos. 😀

For times when I can’t be bothered to lug my Pentax K-5 around, the X-100 will definitely be my #1 companion for some time to come. 😀