First day with the FujiFilm X100F

I got the call yesterday from Henry’s Camera in Nepean that my X100F had arrived.  Oh, that excitement of getting a new camera 🙂   Jen and I rushed into the city – under the disguise that I was taking her to supper- so I could collect my new baby and have a lovely supper at the Fish Mart – haha

Made it home, and did the unbox and photo above with the iPhone to dump onto FaceBook and brag that mine had arrived.   It was almost 9pm so all I had time to do was put the battery on charge and drop one of my X-T1 batteries in it for the setup.   Having interchangeable batteries standardized across the X series is a great move by Fuji.   Took a few low light shots around the house and determined, yup, this is way faster and more sensitive then my X100S.

The plan was to get up today and head somewhere to take some pictures but the weather gods are not on my side today.  Jen had to go back up to the Beechwood Funeral home here in Ottawa this afternoon to finalize a few last things on her dads passing so I tagged along hoping for a break in the rain to take a few pictures.  That’s about what I got, 10 minutes of no rain before it came bucketing down.

Here are a few shots taken during that 10 minute window.  Black and Whites are Arcos film simulation with weak grain and +2 Highs and +2 Shadows.   Maybe a bit aggressive but I need a few sessions to figure out the setting that work for me.  The colour images are Classic Chrome with base settings.   Most are around F5.8 shutter set to go no lower then 1/60th and ISO set to auto 200-6400.   Lightroom tweeks are mostly crop, level, some exposure to compensate for the white snow and adding or removing black and shadows.   All images were jpg’s.

Beechwood is the national military cemetery located in Ottawa but it also hosts the RCMP, the Ottawa Police service and many others.  I had not been to the site before until Jen’s fathers unfortunate passing last week and I was impressed with the facility and location.  I will be revisiting in the spring as it obviously is a very beautiful location, right in the heart of Ottawa.

A Canadian version of the M4E8 Sherman.  I play World of Tanks in my spare time and couldn’t resist taking a picture of a tank I have played in a game for many hours.

Despite a very large melt over the last week, Ottawa still has a lot of snow on the ground and accessing the cemetery is not easy.

Being ex-military myself these are words we should never forget.

The RCMP monument.

Beautiful statue.  What a pain to shoot against a dull sky.

Up to the national military cemetery.

The Ottawa skyline in behind.

Thoughts on the X100F thus far;

• It’s a huge upgrade from the X100S.
• Everything is major fast compared to the X100S
• The buttons feel way more refined and for the most part are much better placed
• How did I live without the focus joystick?
• The Q button is in a HORRIBLE location. I’m constantly hitting it.  I hope Fuji issues a firmware upgrade so that we can remap that elsewhere.  If anything the AFL should be there.
• The custom setups are acting a bit weird.  When I’m on C4 and turn the camera on and go to scroll down to C1 it jumps to C7.  I need to play with this further and see if I’m messing up or the firmware.
• Acros is fun, but I still need to get some time to determine what settings work for me.
• Classic Chrome, nothing more to say – wow     🙂
• I haven’t figured out how to put “format” in “My Settings”.  Why is format so buried in the menus?
• Standardized batteries – woot!
• Need Adobe to hurry up and give us RAW support.   I love shooting Arcos+RAW so I always have a colour image if I want/need it.   Only jpg’s mean I need to shoot everything twice if I have doubt.
• I also need to investigate Film Simulation bracketing.  I was using it in the house this morning and EVERY picture had tons of noise even at ISO 200.  I am thinking that because my first simulation was Arco with weak grain that it might have been putting the grain on the chrome and provia images that followed it?  Again, need to play but anyone else notice this?

Those are my thoughts thus far.    No buyers remorse, this camera is kick ass, just like all the X100’s before it.  But for me it’s heads above my old S version.   How does it compare to my X-T1 and it’s primes? ….. good question that I will need to think about.

So ends day 1, unfortunately day 2 is looking like a washout with lots of rain the in the forecast and day 3 I’m busy and then 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 I’m back to work – argh.  But I will find time to at least torture the dogs and cats – lol.   Cheers!

Jackson having a snooze and the silence of the X100F not waking him as I snap away.

 

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