Fuji X100 :: Review by Ryan Muirhead

Fuji X100

Review and images by Ryan Muirhead

Pros:

• Fantastic Auto White Balance – The auto white balance of the camera does a very good job of rendering colors under almost every lighting condition.
• Excellent skin tones – This camera renders the most pleasing skin tones of any digital camera I have ever shot. Fuji has always been great at this.
• Small – This camera is tiny for the quality of images it provides. It is small and lightweight enough that you never give a second thought to bringing it with you, which is the point of a camera like this.
• Extremely quiet – This is the quietest camera I have ever shot. Without the arti?cial shutter noises the camera offers it can barely be heard, even by the photographer.
  Exceptionally Discreet.
• Fixed Lens – One of the best ways to improve your photography is to pick a ?xed focal length and practice with it. I never found the ?xed 35mm focal length to be a problem. It is ideal for a point and shoot camera.

Cons:

• Poor Focusing – The most frustrating thing about this camera is focusing. It?s auto focus is often inaccurate, especially in low light and there is no viable manual focus option. Electronic MF is featured but it?s extremely slow and clumsy.
• Not as well designed as it seems – On the outside it clearly mimics the design of a Leica but it is nowhere near that simpli?ed. The menus are a mess, changing most settings felt complicated and non-intuitive. Using a Leica feels like using a Mac. Using the x100 felt like using a PC. It has scores of unnecessary features that sound impressive in a list but just complicate use of the camera. It also has little irks that while not major issues
  are just annoying, such as the battery being able to be inserted any direction.
• Prone to freezing – I had many instances of the camera just freezing, several where I actually had to take the battery out to get the camera working again.
• Slow to shoot – Part of what makes a small discreet camera great is the ability to shoot quickly. The x100 does not excel here. If powered off it can take as much as 10 seconds to get a shot off and if anything needs to be changed, that too is slow.

Summary:

The x100 is tons of fun. It is small, easy to take with you and has great image quality. So much about the camera is great but it’s inability to accurately focus makes it more of a toy than a serious camera. While I would still like to own one I did not find it to be worth the price tag.

Editors Note: Ryan Muirhead is an insanely talented photographer with a four year degree in photography still hot off the presses his work is being featured and sponsored by a couple of companies you may have heard of… Kodak and Leica come to mind.  Ryan borrowed this camera, courtesy of B&H, for right around 30 days and gives an amazingly detailed review and beautiful sample images on this post. You can see more from Ryan Muirhead at http://www.ryanmuirhead.com/ or www.facebook.com/ryanmuirheadphotography

The x100 is a lot more fun than it is functional. The idea is great, a small stylish body with big image quality. While it has so many things going for it the lack of easily focusing the camera in either automatic or manual modes ends up being the bottom line.