I like to think all that cheering is for the X100 taking the photograph… That’s me on the right with some incredible company from a brief holiday into Washington’s San Juan Islands this past weekend

The X100 had to go back to Borrow Lenses on Tuesday and this post will conclude the few posts I’ve created to complete my review of the X100. The entire reason for the rental of the camera was to validate not how great this camera could be but will this camera function as a carry-everywhere camera with similar quality and ability of a DSLR? That’s the key difference here. If you want to read all the glorious pixel-peeping gushing over this camera, go check out a different review than mine. You won’t find that here.

The question this experiment was designed to answer is simple – will the X100 fit in the everyday camera niche for me?

There’s no questioning the build quality or image quality in the camera – it’s quite remarkable what Fuji have achieved with such a small-form camera. What I found from using this camera exclusively for an entire week was a resounding joy and renewed sense of how much fun photography can be.

A few of the highlights:

Practicality

No doubt about it – the Fuji X100 is small and compact enough to fit inside any bag in any pocket. It’s light enough to chill in the bag with a laptop, iPad, and maybe even a spare jacket and not be a noticeable weight breaking your back. Carry this puppy everywhere with you – it should be one of the items you grab as you leave the house each day.

The ViewFinder

Toggling between the electronic and optical viewfinder on this camera is an easy flip of a lever. You can instantly flip from a rangefinder-like view with overlay of data or a 100% electronic view. Very smooth, very simple, very effective. There’s also the “live view” SLR-style shooting from the LCD on the back. I love having my choice of the three, and the camera is smart enough to sense when I’m looking through the viewfinder and shut off the LCD screen.

Shooting Manual

Pick your ISO / Shutter Speed / Aperture for your subject and light. The X100 rocks at making shooting in manual mode a dream. I can’t take the credit for this little nugget of information, photographer Zack Arias left a valuable comment on my blog the day the camera arrived:

Switch to manual focus. Hit the EVF. Use the back button to lock on, recompose, shoot. It’s quirky but if you get the muscle memory going you can do it quickly.

Beautiful. Kudos, Mr Arias. Truly a beautiful way to shoot. Especially if you need to wait for “that” moment… get all your settings juuuust right, lock and wait. When you click the shutter, your image is taken instantly. It’s deliciously responsive.

High ISO Quality

The Nays

So what didn’t I really like? For all it’s praises, the x100 has some work to do. Without harping on it too much,

• AF-assist focussing kind of sucks. In low light, it won’t focus properly. This isn’t the camera for you if you need lots of low light images.
• Only one Function button. You need the function button to basically be your ISO adjust. This is frustrating because I want the same accessibility to the built in ND filter on/off option. Instead I need to dig through menus.
• Focussing is soft at f/2. Back at f/2.8 or f/4 it gets much sharper.

All of these are drawbacks far outweighed by many many far greater highlights.

Verdict?

I’ve found the walk around town camera for me. I’ve got an order in on the waitlist at Amazon and can’t wait for it to ship. In the week I had the camera, I was able to grab what I thought were some pretty awesome images with very little difficulty and I want to say that’s due in part to some quality engineering from Fuji. In the words of Wayne Campbell… It will be mine. Oh yes, It will be mine.

To cap off the review, here are a few other images I shot with the X100 during the time I had the rental. Thanks for reading.

[Aug 6 2011] Update: If you haven’t seen his review yet, Zack Arias has a great review of the X100 on his blog. Go read it.

“No” – This one goes out to Brian Matiash and Chris Lazzery – say it with me fellas

“After The Rain”

“The Busker”

An image of my dog, Laney, enjoying a treat while I was away over the past weekend.