Larry Bolch
Well-Known Member
Exactly what I had expected—no surprises. After a year with the X100, I was instantly in the comfort zone—no learning curve. The camera is slightly bigger, but feels not much heavier. Very nice to handle. Focus is not as violently fast as the D700—and not expected to be—but a half-press of the shutter nails it. It will manually focus, but why—other than macro? While the camera can shoot macro, it would not be my choice except in serendipitous opportunities when I did not have the D700 and a macro lens along.
Never in my life have I expected one camera to do everything, and I have always tried to select equipment that would be superior in a situation. While I shot 35mm, I also shot medium and large format. I used special cameras like the Brooks VeriWide, a 47mm SuperAngulon lens over a 6×10cm roll film format, and a WideLuxe panoramic camera that shot a 24×56mm format on 35mm film. With digital, it has largely been a choice between P&S and dSLR. Now a few more types of camera are trickling onto the market.
Perhaps a word—or several—on the roles of my cameras:
• The D700 is the ideal camera when working from a vehicle when traveling, or when shooting in a fixed location. Ultimately versatile at the cost of weight. The camera body alone weighs 995g without a lens, and with lenses, the kit can top three kilos by a bunch. My knees scream louder every year when I stroll a city, hauling the load. During film days, I carried both 35mm and medium format cameras that did the job the D700 is doing today.
• The X100 is just 445g, and is with me always. It is silent, unobtrusive and lovely for people, street or decisive-moment shooting. With a fixed 35mm equivalent focal length, it demands a bit from the shooter. It has the best fill-flash capability of any camera I have ever used. It will sync up to 1/2000th, making it very useful in the sun. The flash is just slightly off the optical axis, with almost no detectable secondary shadow. I shot at -2/3EV and the camera holds that precise ratio. In film days, when the working shift was over, I wanted a light self-contained, high-quality camera to carry everywhere. If walking to the grocery store, I did not want an RB67 around my neck. My Konica S3 was the best of the lot—so good that my writer ex- claimed it in the settlement. I really missed the camera. The X100 is in every way the 2011 equivalent of the Konica and plays the same role.
• With all three lenses, the X-Pro1 is only 967g, making it an ideal urban, walkin'-'round, shootin'-stuff camera. The three lenses are the classic photojournalist kit, and that is how I plan to use it. I used both Leica and Canon rangefinder cameras, and had my eye on the much more modern Contax G2 when digital happened along. Kyocera killed Contax, so a digital G2 never showed up until now. It is the camera I have waited for since the beginning of digital.
The G2 was also regarded as a rangefinder by every shooter, even though it too was primarily autofocus. Only nitpickers fail to understand this and harp on the historical name, rather than the design-concept and shooting technique of the camera. "Optical viewfinder camera" would have solved the name problem, though of course SLRs also have viewfinders that are at least partially optical. No one imagined a 2012 camera in the 1930s when rangefinder cameras got their name, any more than the makers of early computers had any concept of the iPad in the 1940s. They initially computed ballistics tables, taking over from people who did so manually. The people were called "computers", which seems absurd today, but that was their job description. Technology changes—old names stick. It looks like a rangefinder camera, shoots like a rangefinder camera, requires rangefinder camera technique, even though it lacks the internal contraption.
At the moment, I have only the 35mm f/1.4 normal lens, and it appears to be spectacularly sharp over the new-technology sensor, with its lack of low-pass filter. Again, all I can view are JPEGs but they are beyond any JPEG I have ever viewed. I gave in to 100% pixel peeping, and at every aperture the sharpness and detail are spectacular. In real world photography, prints, monitor slide-shows and web are about as good as it gets. Detail on my 2560×1600 monitor with the image set to fill it, is amazing—the equivalent of a 25×16" print. Clearly, images could be printed to any size. Even at ISO6400, the images are clean and sharp.
The three viewing systems are the same as they are on the X100, and I find myself moving freely among them. The LCD on the back is nice and stealthy, the OVF shows a substantial area around the bright-frame with the 35mm lens, so one can see what is going on outside the picture area. Very much like my M3 Leica in that way. While it replaced the mirrors, levers and cams of the 1930s rangefinder contraption for autofocus, the camera will be instantly comfortable to rangefinder shooters. The EVF is very bright in low light, when your eye fails with the OVF. It gives a 100% view of the scene. Like the X100, the viewing options are excellent for rangefinder shooters, but may be unfamiliar to those who only know dSLR technique.
Like the other two cameras, it has no training wheels. While the manual is much thinner than the 440+ pages in the D700 manual, it reveals a lot, and is absolutely essential unless you already know the X100. Then it still is needed as a reference to differences in detail. None of these cameras would I recommend to casual shooters. While they are all easy to use in the field once you are fluent, fluency demands making the time to learn them thoroughly. Once the shooter is fluent, the cameras will deliver state-of-the art photographs.
Never in my life have I expected one camera to do everything, and I have always tried to select equipment that would be superior in a situation. While I shot 35mm, I also shot medium and large format. I used special cameras like the Brooks VeriWide, a 47mm SuperAngulon lens over a 6×10cm roll film format, and a WideLuxe panoramic camera that shot a 24×56mm format on 35mm film. With digital, it has largely been a choice between P&S and dSLR. Now a few more types of camera are trickling onto the market.
Perhaps a word—or several—on the roles of my cameras:
• The D700 is the ideal camera when working from a vehicle when traveling, or when shooting in a fixed location. Ultimately versatile at the cost of weight. The camera body alone weighs 995g without a lens, and with lenses, the kit can top three kilos by a bunch. My knees scream louder every year when I stroll a city, hauling the load. During film days, I carried both 35mm and medium format cameras that did the job the D700 is doing today.
• The X100 is just 445g, and is with me always. It is silent, unobtrusive and lovely for people, street or decisive-moment shooting. With a fixed 35mm equivalent focal length, it demands a bit from the shooter. It has the best fill-flash capability of any camera I have ever used. It will sync up to 1/2000th, making it very useful in the sun. The flash is just slightly off the optical axis, with almost no detectable secondary shadow. I shot at -2/3EV and the camera holds that precise ratio. In film days, when the working shift was over, I wanted a light self-contained, high-quality camera to carry everywhere. If walking to the grocery store, I did not want an RB67 around my neck. My Konica S3 was the best of the lot—so good that my writer ex- claimed it in the settlement. I really missed the camera. The X100 is in every way the 2011 equivalent of the Konica and plays the same role.
• With all three lenses, the X-Pro1 is only 967g, making it an ideal urban, walkin'-'round, shootin'-stuff camera. The three lenses are the classic photojournalist kit, and that is how I plan to use it. I used both Leica and Canon rangefinder cameras, and had my eye on the much more modern Contax G2 when digital happened along. Kyocera killed Contax, so a digital G2 never showed up until now. It is the camera I have waited for since the beginning of digital.
The G2 was also regarded as a rangefinder by every shooter, even though it too was primarily autofocus. Only nitpickers fail to understand this and harp on the historical name, rather than the design-concept and shooting technique of the camera. "Optical viewfinder camera" would have solved the name problem, though of course SLRs also have viewfinders that are at least partially optical. No one imagined a 2012 camera in the 1930s when rangefinder cameras got their name, any more than the makers of early computers had any concept of the iPad in the 1940s. They initially computed ballistics tables, taking over from people who did so manually. The people were called "computers", which seems absurd today, but that was their job description. Technology changes—old names stick. It looks like a rangefinder camera, shoots like a rangefinder camera, requires rangefinder camera technique, even though it lacks the internal contraption.
At the moment, I have only the 35mm f/1.4 normal lens, and it appears to be spectacularly sharp over the new-technology sensor, with its lack of low-pass filter. Again, all I can view are JPEGs but they are beyond any JPEG I have ever viewed. I gave in to 100% pixel peeping, and at every aperture the sharpness and detail are spectacular. In real world photography, prints, monitor slide-shows and web are about as good as it gets. Detail on my 2560×1600 monitor with the image set to fill it, is amazing—the equivalent of a 25×16" print. Clearly, images could be printed to any size. Even at ISO6400, the images are clean and sharp.
The three viewing systems are the same as they are on the X100, and I find myself moving freely among them. The LCD on the back is nice and stealthy, the OVF shows a substantial area around the bright-frame with the 35mm lens, so one can see what is going on outside the picture area. Very much like my M3 Leica in that way. While it replaced the mirrors, levers and cams of the 1930s rangefinder contraption for autofocus, the camera will be instantly comfortable to rangefinder shooters. The EVF is very bright in low light, when your eye fails with the OVF. It gives a 100% view of the scene. Like the X100, the viewing options are excellent for rangefinder shooters, but may be unfamiliar to those who only know dSLR technique.
Like the other two cameras, it has no training wheels. While the manual is much thinner than the 440+ pages in the D700 manual, it reveals a lot, and is absolutely essential unless you already know the X100. Then it still is needed as a reference to differences in detail. None of these cameras would I recommend to casual shooters. While they are all easy to use in the field once you are fluent, fluency demands making the time to learn them thoroughly. Once the shooter is fluent, the cameras will deliver state-of-the art photographs.
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