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Thursday, March 10, 2011

X100 on the street, almost (updated)

Update: this article gives reasons to use a Leica M9 camera. I put it in here because I feel that the the X100 is "the poor man's Leica". The mechanical-ness of it, the high quality, the rangefinder-like finder, etc, is much like a Leica. There may ultimately be a quality difference, but then a Leica is much, much more expensive. And doesn't have autofocus.
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It seems the Fujifilm X100 (what a boring name though*) continues to be a hit. It is being delivered now, but I haven't got mine yet. My supplier bemoans that they got one shipping already, but the number feel far, far, far short of the que they have for the camera! (And you had to put up a deposit, so these are serious orders too.)
He also told me it looks and feels great. Something which actually had not  motivated me yet, perhaps because I never was a rangefinder user/fan.

But it strikes me that this is actually the fulfilment of a plea I have written here at least twice in the past six years: I wished for somebody to make a compact, yet top-notch quality camera, which looked and felt great and delivered super quality images.

Oooh, I found it! In 2006 I wrote:
But there is one camera we don't quite have yet: the super-quality street- or travel-camera. I want something with the mechanical quality of the Zeiss Ikon or the Leica M, or the Contax T2.
I want something with compromise-free mechanical quality. Something for lovers of excellent tools. I want it to be compact and leightweight like the original Ur-Leica seventy years ago, or Olympus OM-2, or maybe even Rollei 35. ...
I want it to be really fast. Top speed and reliability of the autofocus.
An excellent imaging chip, of course. And a great lens. It does not even have to be exchangable or a zoom lens. Just a really good one. And wideangle.

And here we are! Only five years later, could be worse. (I'm not sure about the speed of the X100, but it can't be bad.)

Update:
Somebody has imagined a black one. That looks nice also!


* Why can't the Japanese think up good names? It's not hard. The Fujifilm... MetaScope... SteelBird... RangeClassic... Finnigan'sWake... LimitBuster... RetroFuture... FantaOptic... 
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10 comments:

  1. Xavier10 Mar 2011, 13:48:00

    Well, my dream camera would be a Leica M9 with an x100 viewfinder and 3 smaller size high quality autofocus lenses : 20 mm f/2,8 - 50 mm f/1,4 - 135 mm f/2...

    Hmmm, and while we are dreaming, enough processing power for autofocus target tracking... Acquisition being done through joystick, trackpad or even better eye controlled ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Eolake Stobblehouse10 Mar 2011, 13:56:00

    Kewl.

    I would be hard to make auto-focus lenses as small as Leica M lenses, those classy mofos are *dang* compact.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Howard10 Mar 2011, 14:21:00

    That's a very neat looking bit of kit, hope it works as well as it looks.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Eolake Stobblehouse10 Mar 2011, 14:24:00

    Reports so far are very promising.
    And I really liked their image samples:


    http://thurly.net/116b

    ReplyDelete
  5. Monsieur Beep!11 Mar 2011, 12:25:00

    another dreamer here, lol!
    Aw this camera, I´m fancying it, maybe purchasing it some day.
    Not caring about the maiden name of my would-like-to-own-this "Fuji".
    Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Miserere11 Mar 2011, 15:06:00

    I like me some black camera porn. Maybe I'll just wait for the black version to buy the X100. Bet I have to pay a $100 premium, like in the old days :-(

    ReplyDelete
  7. Eolake Stobblehouse11 Mar 2011, 20:15:00

    Unfortunately I think there is no black version, it was just somebody's photoshop play.

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  8. Miserere11 Mar 2011, 21:03:00

    Oh, I know there is no black version NOW, but many, many, many people have said they would like one, and Fuji have said they are considering it. I interpret this as meaning that when sales of the X100 start to die down and their factories can breathe a little easier, they'll release a black version. I'm sure they're aware of what Leica did with the black X1.

    ReplyDelete
  9. robj19 Mar 2011, 14:13:00

    Dear Eolake,
    this story surprised me:
    I thought the new (digital)Olympus PEN was the poor men's Leica, and now Sony has a similar item, but I'm not a real photographer, so i may be wrong. The advantage of the Olympus is that with an adapter one can use all the OM-2 lenses, of which I still have 4!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Eolake Stobblehouse19 Mar 2011, 14:17:00

    Notice though, that the sensor is much smaller, so a 24mm wide-angle lens will behave like a 48mm normal lens, not all that practical.

    On the up-side, a 135mm lens will become a 270mm super-tele.

    ReplyDelete