Fuji X-Pro 1 - First Thoughts

[Oliver Lee-Haswell]

We have just received 2 FULL kits of this camera consisting of: Body, 18mm F2, 35mm F1.4 and 60mm F2.4 Macro.

Having carefully unboxed all of them i put the camera together with the 35mm and held it..... I want it to be heavier!! it just doesn't feel quite right at the moment, not worth the £2000 i was holding so i put on the grip and hefted it again... Better but still a part of me wants it to be heavier (i am thinking of Contax G2 kit, maybe even heavier than that!)

I snapped a couple of shots of my colleagues in the shop and i was very impressed at how the camera coped in the myriad of lighting we have here, while i did leave all settings on the camera on "Auto" i did set the aperture of the lens as i am more comfortable working in Aperture priority, and as i put the 35mm on i set it at F1.4 because.... well because i can!

I have played.. i mean tested the camera for about 30 minutes just on auto, not that i dont want to go in to the camera settings more its just that it is a dream to use as is, giving incredible results with very little input from me. The glass is sharp, the colours are amazing and i had stopped noticing the fact i wanted it heavier after about 2 shots.

When i get some time i will post some pictures from it and a more detailed look at what it can do after i have gone through the menus.

For now lets just say i want to close the shop and go walking around town with it. I am impressed.

 

[Hamish Gill]

Id def be interested to see some photos and hear your ongoing thoughts on it!

 

[Oliver Lee-Haswell]

ok after using it for a bit more in shop, i am really enjoying the 35mm F1.4 ....

The 18mm and the 60mm Macro on the other hand i am disappointed with. It is probably to do more with the fact that the 35mm is a 1.4 and the others are F2 and F2.4.

With the 18mm was on the camera i felt that i wanted to get closer and crop in, it felt slow and un-responsive in the focussing but did yield sharp results.

With the 60mm Macro on i felt that the camera was continually hunting for focus on the close up, and had trouble focussing when i used it as a portrait lens. Again the lens was sharp and gave good results.

Manually focussing this camera is the same as the X-100 (those of you who have one will instantly know how this reacts/feels)
and so is sluggish and unresponsive (i hope that a firmware upgrade will fix the speed of focussing), i felt i was rotating the barrel of the lens to much for the small focus change, also traversing from one end of the focus scale to the other took a long tme.

I still feel that i would like the camera to be a little heavier, but i am strange like that and this probably also comes from the fact that i carry my D3 happily (those with similar camera will know the weight for that).

All in all i liked the camera and thought the menus well laid out. It does the same tricks as Fuji's smaller cameras for panoramic shots and film simulation and i think that it doesnt really need them.

For the panoramic mode you sweep yourself around in an Arc and the camera captures multiple shots and stitches together, with the smaller Fuji's this is quick and easy to get good results, with the X-Pro 1 the camera fires the shutter multiple times (at a max of 6fps) and this made me a little shaky when capturing the panoramic. (at least that is what i am blaming)

If i had the money spare, i would consider it but would probably end up buying a x-100.

Hope this was clear and not to full of waffle.

Oliver

(i will post pics from it soon promise!)

 

[Chris Dodkin]

I know what you mean about the weight Oliver, but yet it still feels solid...

So it's not a solid hunk of brass like a Leica, but more of an aerospace alloy component from a sport car - is how I see it.

Not even tried the 18mm and 60mm yet - too busy posting on the InterWebs!

Will stop typing and go outside some more...