I guess things are chaotic in Japan at the moment (if that is where they are being made).
The plant is about 20 miles north of Nikon's plant in Sendai, but some distance from the coast, so no tsunami damage. Still, very close to the epicenter. Fuji announced that they were hoping to ship the first post-quake batch by the end of this month. No idea if they have.
I'm keen to hear how you get on with it. Despite my initial enthusiasm (I and I still think that it sounds like a great camera), I have some reservation for me.
Purchase of any equipment is a matter of whether it solves a persistent photography problem and also gives a good return on investment. To a non-working photographer, the payback is in pleasure and memorable images, but the same criteria apply. My D700 still continues to do the heavy lifting. However, I have a small belt pouch that happens to fit the X100 perfectly, so it goes everywhere I don't want to lug the D700. 445g vs 2800g with two lenses.
The problem as defined, was that the D700 is huge and heavy, noisy and obvious. P&S cameras are light, versatile and inconspicuous, but have tiny sensors. The X100 is the solution I have been looking for since first beginning the transition to digital—a small, compact rangefinder camera like those I carried for decades once the working day was done, back in the film era, and capable of very high image quality. I had defined the problem and solution many years ago, so when I was shown at Photokina last September, I recognized it was precisely what I had been waiting for. It has fully met the criteria set way back then.
As it is 2011, the mechanical rangefinder has been replaced with electronic auto-focus, but the shooting experience is identical. As with my favorite back then—a Konica S3—I shoot two eyes open. The right eye sees the bright frame floating out in space and with it, I drop the frame around the subject area. Both eyes are watching the subject for reactions, and I take my "decisive-moment" cues from this.
As with your M9, you are looking through the camera, directly at your subject, not watching a little movie of the subject projected on the little screen inside the camera as with an SLR. Unlike an M9, I can move my rangefinder rectangle over a wide range within the viewfinder to focus on subjects near the edge and not just the middle. I use this constantly. The border of the rectangle turns green to confirm focus has locked on. In very dim light, if focus fails, the rectangle turns red.
The X100 will replace the D700 for informal photography of people, but scheduled people-shoots will still involve the D700. In film days, I had both a compact rangefinder camera and an M3 Leica. They served very different roles. In fact, I also had medium format rangefinders and still do. My Konica was light, with an excellent f/1.8 lens, with metering within the lens mount, so I could use filters and get accurate exposures.
I carried the M3 and whatever else was required during the working day, but after hours the Konica was always with me when I had nothing whatever in mind to shoot. Being self-contained, I had no need to carry a light-meter, and could very quickly and directly react to any photographic opportunity. The lens was excellent and many Konica shots were published.
It is not as easy on the pocket as my GR III and cannot match the M9 for performance.
Well, the X100 is certainly is faster than focusing my M3.
The lens and sensor are designed as a unit. The sensor was designed, and is being made internally at Fuji. The sensors are angled as one moves from the centre, to all be at the ultimate angle to the rays of light all the way to the edge. It is clearly the match for any of my Nikkor primes.
OK, it is a bit smaller and lighter but not to an extent that I would choose one over the other when out and about. A tricky call! What are your thoughts?
The first 35mm camera I was issued at the beginning of my career was a Leica, and I have used them ever since—along with just about every other type of camera. I still have a battle-scarred M3. The Leica has always been the instrument of choice when the assignment involved photography of potentially dangerous people and situations.
An M9 with a 35mm f/2.0 Summicron ($10,000US) would be a similar configuration to the X100 ($1,200US). A weight of 925 g vs 445g. The X100 is substantial enough to be able to hold easily, but in the pouch, the weight is not noticed.
It is two and a half weeks since I began shooting with the X100, and I now have a high comfort level. All but perhaps a dozen or so exposures so far, are of people. All have been candid, none posed. It fits perfectly into the roles defined for the compact rangefinders in the past.
It can be set to be nearly silent—the joy of a leaf-shutter. The second joy of the leaf-shutter is that it will sync all the way to 1/2000th of a second. The built-in flash is tight against the lens so it produces no perceptible secondary shadow. It is strictly for fill flash, not as a primary light source. (There is a hot shoe, and a couple of external units that integrate with the camera's auto-exposure if a primary flash is needed.)
Last Sunday I found myself shooting in a house where it felt like every shot was back-lit or harshly side-lit. Often I was shooting directly at people in front of windows. None the less, the resulting images still look available light—but with full shadow detail and well balanced to the environment. I never use flash, but the Fuji changed that. The fill is particularly lovely in its unobtrusiveness, both in the pictures and in the reactions of the subjects.
I greatly appreciate having the electronic viewfinder (EVF), optical viewfinder (OVF) and LCD monitor on the back like other compact cameras. When using the OVF, the EVF projects the bright frame-lines, spot focus rectangle and any information one wants into the OFV. I can see my histogram and exposure compensation scale, and can adjust for changing conditions without removing my eye from the finder. The exposure compensation knob is on top of the camera, and one can make visual adjustments without guessing.
There are sensors beside the eyepiece and the camera can be configured to automatically toggle between the finders and the LCD, something I like very much. It also has an “artificial horizon” like one would find in aircraft as a reference for holding the camera level. All this and much more can be configured to be on or off. I have it set so when I trip the shutter, the EVF will move into place and exhibit the result for a second and a half—just long enough to confirm exposure and content. Some find this distracting, but I find it brilliant. Like most everything else, it can be toggled on and off. With the silent shutter, it at least confirms the camera did the exposure.
Above all, the APS-C sensor is outstanding. At ISO3200, it is similar to the image quality of my D700—acknowledged as the available darkness king.
Highly configurable, silent and a perfect camera for photographing people without intruding on their space. Offer me your M9 with a 35mm 'cron as a swap, and I will turn it down. The Fuji has proven itself and much better fits the space I have long wanted a camera to fill. The level of keepers from the first five hundred or so exposures is very high. Last night, I installed Adobe Camera RAW 6.4, so now I can revisit the images but with all the advantages of RAW.
It is not the camera for everyone. The camera designers assume the buyers know what they are buying and know photography. There are no training wheels. There have been lamentations in forums about the menus, which I found to be simple and straight forward. To compare, there are 18 sparsely written pages in the X100 manual on the menus, compared to 109 densely written pages in the D700 manual. Once the camera is set up to taste, most functions are covered by external controls and the menus are rarely needed.
An M9 owner would find a lot of familiar territory, but people coming from P&S and µ4/3ds cameras seem not only baffled by it, but angered. Read the DPReview forums where insults have been flying from people who feel personally insulted by Fuji by creating the camera. I mentioned that I liked the camera and was getting excellent results—no exaggeration—and was labeled an apologist for Fuji. Ah, well...
What is the backlog like on these at the moment?
