I figured by now there would be plenty of early adopters posting on the X100, so I went looking on DPReview
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Also, I've scoured through the image samples people have posted on DPReview, and so far nothing has really stood out with any sort of WOW factor.
We only have 1 local source here - Larry - so maybe he can chime in with observations?
Now I actually have the camera!
The DPReview forums were over-run by a lack of photographers, but everyone else was there. Measurebators who looked at the first samples from pre-production cameras and declared every aspect of the camera was imperfect. Trolls who latched onto anything. Lefties implied that Fuji was holding back on the camera to raise the prices and they caused the earthquake in order to do so—typical of corporate evil. Of course the same people were screaming that Fuji was price gouging. Tedious flame-wars erupted. Gear-heads squabbled over hardware minutia. Fuji hype was minutely analyzed, specially that Fuji called it a camera for professionals. Then there were long diatribes as to what a "professional" camera is.
What was lacking, was discussion of where the camera fit into a photographic workflow.
A bit of background. My job was photography. Like my colleagues, photography was never a nine-to-five grind. Getting a job in photography has never—ever—been easy. Thus those who did, worked very hard to get there, were intensely persistent, and were in every way dedicated to photography. You will find no person so enthusiastic about photography as someone working in the field. Photography did not stop at the end of the shift—just the pay did.
We had access to pretty much any equipment from 35mm to medium-format to large-format. During the working day, we lugged whatever the assignments demanded. After work, sure we would use the heavy metal when called for by our own projects, but when we just were going to the store we did not want to be lugging an 8×10 Sinar monorail, with a case of holders and a fifteen pound tripod. We always wanted to have a camera at hand, however, and the compact rangefinders of the film era were what we carried whenever we had nothing in mind to shoot. I had a Retina IIIc followed by a Konica S3 and Nikon L35. All were capable of publication quality photos. The Konica had an f/1.8 35mm lens built-in that was exceptionally good. The X100 carries the mitochondrial DNA of these cameras, but is in every way a 2011 digital version of them.
Last Saturday Diane—my favorite camera salesperson—called about 1:15 to say the camera was in. I walked over to the store and the whole staff and most of the customers gathered around to see it. Fuji did well-black box with embossed silver lettering opened to reveal the camera snuggled in a bed of black satin! Everyone seemed very impressed. I was to meet a bunch of friends at a café at 2:00pm a dozen or more blocks in the other direction, so I stopped off at home just long enough to insert a memory card and freshly charged battery, and I was off walking to the café. The manual stayed in the box, and I set it up by guess and by gosh as I walked.
Once I settled in to a porridge-thick bowl of clam chowder, I began playing with the settings, using my friends for subjects. Upon arrival, they all admired the camera, but quickly came to ignore it. Within a dozen or so shots, I was getting predictable results. I first tried it on manual focus using the button to quickly lock onto a subject, relying upon hyperfocal distance to avoid further focusing. It has an actual manual focus ring, but it is primarily for macro work and thus a bit slow. Since it uses contrast detection, it does not have the almost violent instant focus of my D700, but is still very fast in auto.
The café interior is a medium tone, very saturated yellow which reflects on everything. The interior lighting is compact fluorescent with daylight streaming in west facing windows. The mix changes constantly. I got reasonable white balances using both manual and auto. I had read that the RAW interpreter bundled with the camera was horrible, so I shot RAW+JPEG and did as much correction in camera as possible. Upon returning home, I did install the software, and while it is no where near Adobe Camera RAW in Photoshop CS5, it did the job as needed. I was able to fine tune skin tones, boost the gamma a bit and so on.
I was not after making timeless masterpieces, mostly learning the camera. None the less, I was also chronicling the lives of my friends as they lived it—playing with iPads, wolfing down food, chugging coffee and cooing over a new baby. The camera is perfect for this kind of decisive moment shooting. With operating and faux-shutter sounds, focusing light and flash turned off, it is silent and unobtrusive. In none of my shots is there any sign that the subject of the photograph was aware of the camera. 100% natural.
http://www.larry-bolch.com/ephemeral/x100_01/
I tried some at f/2.8 then moved to f/5.6 for more DOF. A base shutter-speed of 1/125th stopped the limited action. I let the ISO float and inside it was between ISO800 and 2000. Once the café closed for the day, conversations continued outside where the ISO settled upon 200, and the shutter speeds went up considerably. In all, sharpness and image quality that was indistinguishable from the D700 with my best prime lenses. Content was better, due to the D700's ability to attract attention with its size and noise.
The viewfinding design is also largely responsible for quality of content. There is an optical finder (OVF) which is the 2011 version of the compact rangefinders finder, a high resolution electronic viewfinder with a 1,440,000 resolution (EVF) and a reasonably large and clear monitor on the back (LCD). The OVF and EVF/LCD can be configured for whatever combination of information you want to see. The eyepiece is adjustable to your eye's needs and there is also a sensor by the eyepiece that automatically switches between the viewfinder and the LCD. I found this to be great.
Depending upon what I was photographing, I was constantly moving back and forth among the viewing methods. The leaf shutter can only be heard in a very quiet room, and everything else was turned off—so no physical feedback to tell me I had the shot. However, the moment the exposure was made, the EVF momentarily displays the shot. Very reassuring, and if it matched what I had seen, I knew I had nailed it. The exposure compensation is a knob on top of the camera and very handy, but at one point I inadvertently moved it into underexposure territory. Next shot, I saw the dark image pop up on the EVF, so immediately corrected it. Wonderful feature.
Digging through the camera with the manual, there are loads of goodies to uncover. It has an "artificial horizon", like in aircraft instruments to help keep the camera level and avoid perspective distortion. One can also project guidelines onto the viewfinders for further reference. A live histogram is also available. It will emulate Provia, Velvia and Astia films, as well as do B&W without filter or with red, green and yellow filters. Set the shutter knob on A and set the aperture you want, and you are in aperture priority. Set the opposite and you are in shutter priority. Set both to A and you are in program mode. Or choose both shutter speed and aperture manually. Very slick.
With the leaf shutter, you can use fill flash all the way up to 1/2000th of a second. For shooting with low shutter-speeds in bright light, there is a 3EV neutral density filter that can be toggled into the optical path. It is in the same area as the shutter, so away from any dust or finger smudges.
Obviously, it is not a camera for gear-heads or camera buffs as the DPReview forums show. It is no replacement for a dSLR system, strictly a supplement. As per a camera for professionals, it is the camera a professional would hope to have when off the job, the camera that is always there. It is not a dSLR in any way—radically different.
Comparing it to µ4/3ds cameras makes no sense. They are as different, having evolved from dSLRs, as rangefinders are. While this uses contemporary electronic focusing and not a mechanical rangefinder, it is in every way the legacy of Fuji's great rangefinder cameras. If you don't understand rangefinder photography, this is likely the wrong camera for you. Much of my personal photography has been done with rangefinder cameras, not just the compact variety. I have a Leica M3, a couple of Canons, Graflex XL, Linhof and a Plaubel Makina 67, and have owned or used many others. Single lens reflexes were primarily for work.
It is also a complex camera to set up, but a simple camera to use. Truly a poor choice as an entry level camera—no trace of training wheels. It is also in no way akin to fine cameras like the Canon G12 or Panasonic LX5. The X100 has an APS-C sensor compared to the fingernail sized sensors in these otherwise versatile cameras. When it comes to image quality in low light, size matters.
The choice of a 35mm equivalent lens for me is ideal—since that was what my compact rangefinders carried. By the way, the sensor was designed specifically for this lens, is built in-house and is in no other camera. Fujinon lenses are legendary with those of us with large format experience, and are used extensively for theatrical release movie-making.
Sharpness is everything I could ask for. The camera is everything I anticipated. It is like the return of an old friend, who somehow has become completely up to date. For anyone who is greatly experienced in rangefinder photography, candid, street and decisive-moment work, I would highly recommend it. For all others not. The DPReview vitriol was akin to slamming the new Porsche Carrera because it can not haul seven people and a load of lumber like a Subaru. It is easy to slam anything you do not understand. Having shot tens of thousands of photographs with cameras just like it, I knew what I was getting and so far am totally satisfied.
