Thursday, April 18, 2013

Adding to the family

NO, this is not a post about babies. At least not the human kind.

I might consider my cameras my babies...they get treated with special care and I know them the way I assume I might someday know my children. I've heard it said that children feel like an extension of your person, and I must agree that my cameras feel much the same way when I hold them. I love them about as much as you possibly can love an inanimate object.

Last weekend, I decided to rent a camera for the three events taking place between Friday and Sunday. Instead of picking up more of what I already know I love, I decided to try something new and completely totally different from the norm. There has been a lot of buzz in the photography world about the rangefinder-style cameras that Fuji makes, and after reading this review from Zack Arias about how much he loved the X-Pro1, I decided to give it a try.

And once I tried, I knew there was no giving it up. Sorry, LensProToGo, you can't have your camera back.

I placed an order for one of my own before I even returned the rented one. That's how much I loved this camera. Too bad human children don't work the same way, with try-before-you-buy and when you find a model you like you just place an order. Who wants to get on that? Until it happens, I'm sticking to cameras.


One of the things that I really and truly love about this camera is that it is so simple. There aren't a thousand programmable buttons or fancy mechanics. It has exactly the controls you need to make a good picture, no extra complications. And it does take great pictures. Whatever special sauce they put in this thing is certainly a winner. It does amazing things in low light, for sure, on top of being much less heavy to carry and relatively unobtrusive compared to a DSLR. I'm using it with an 18mm F/2 lens, making it a perfect wide-angle, photojournalistic camera to contrast the portrait lenses I use on my D700. And, I think it goes with out saying, but the thing is so darn cute and retro, I can barely stand it (because I totally am the person who will buy something for form over function, but thankfully, this has both).

And since we're on the subject of children, it would be against my nature not to include a photo of my furry babies. Sometimes I think they just lay on the floor and have silent conversations...probably about the stupid things their parents told them they couldn't do.



Posted by anna at 3:44 PM
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2 comments:

  1. MailinhApril 18, 2013 at 9:39 PM

    Does this mean you're no longer using your D700? I read the same exact review about the X-Pro1, and I just read the new review about X100S from him. He's saying we could use this as the Pro camera to go to.

    I ask the question because I still use my D3000 as my DSLR and have been wanting to upgrade. But have held back because I'm just not sure if I want a huge DSLR that my hands cannot handle. But if it's true about the X-PRO1 & X100s, this is music to my ears because it's so tiny perfect for my hands. ;)

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    1. annaApril 18, 2013 at 9:50 PM

      i still totally love my d700 and use it primarily! for weddings, i shoot with two cameras, so the x-pro1 is my wide angle and i switch out my longer lenses (50, 85, and 70-200) on the d700.

      until they make additional lenses for the x-pro1, i'd hold out on using it as my only camera. aside from the lack of a really good portrait lens, the apertures on the lenses available for the x-pro1 don't yet go as wide as the ones i can buy for my d700. there are third party adapters you can buy to attach other brand's lenses to the fuji if you want, but then you run into autofocus not working, etc.

      image quality-wise, the fuji is absolutely up to dslr standards...if not better. so it could end up being a pro camera to go to...i just can't use it as my primary one...yet :0)

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