What's it like to use the Fujifilm FinePix X100?

The Fuji FinePix X100. It's one of the more talked about and lusted after cameras on the market right now. It's also one quirky beast full of contrasts. Reviewers are quick to point out every annoying flaw, yet are also quick to tell you how much they love it and the resulting images. Thanks to a generous friend, I finally had the chance to test drive it myself for an afternoon.

First Impressions

Before I say more, however, let me state that this is not a full review. It's barely a quick review. In fact, it's really a set of personal impressions based on several hours walking around town playing with the camera in hand. There's no science here. Just my own unfettered opinion. Got it? Good.

First off, if this camera were an automobile, it'd be the strangest mishmash of BMW, Fiat, and Nissan that you could imagine. If that sounds schizophrenic to you, then congratulations. You've taken your first step to understanding this camera.

The top and front of the camera are instantly comprehensible to anybody that's ever used a manual camera. Dials on top for shutter speed and exposure compensation. Ring on the lens for aperture. Brilliantly, the shutter speed and aperture controls both contain an 'A' detent, presumably meaning Auto, which obliterates the need for a separate exposure program switch. Aperture priority, shutter priority, full program, and full manual modes fall out of how you've set these two controls.

In thirty seconds, I was perfectly comfortable. I looked through the viewfinder and was pleased to see it was set to the OVF (optical viewfinder) mode. [The X100 features a unique, switchable, hybrid optical-digital viewfinder.]  I framed and then snapped my first photo. I was pleased as punch that the shutter was barely audible. Perfect. I was starting to really like the camera and then I went to look at my first photo and check out the camera's settings.

Confusing Menus

As I came face to face with the display screen part of the user interface, my comfort evaporated. It was like being in a dream where one second you're driving a 3-series sedan down a spirited road and then the next moment, your car is suddenly a Fiat econobox and the next corner is coming up way too fast.

I'm not going to pull any punches. That elegance in having the manual aperture and shutter controls set the exposure program by deduction isn't anywhere to be found in the menu system. It's a complete mess that is only barely disguised by the beautifully rendered super-smooth high-resolution text.

If you are a creature of habit, you can probably deal with most of this stuff once and then avoid most of it. Unfortunately, there's a few useful things buried in the menus that you'll want to tweak on demand, such as ISO and Auto ISO settings as well as the control for the ND (Natural Density) filter. Sure, you can lift one of these things up to the function button on the top panel for quick access, but you'll still have to dive in for the other items. From my experience so far, you really want that function button to bring up the ISO menu.

Speaking of ISO, the most surprising thing about the X100's controls to me is that there is no manual dial for ISO. In the days of film, the only way to affect sensitivity was to choose a different film. These days, ISO is as important a factor in the exposure equation as shutter and aperture. It should be settable using the same interface modality as the other two bits. Sure, it'd be one more dial, but it'd complete the manual control set.

Exciting Viewfinder

Once I'd fought with the menus and set things up the way I wanted, I focused back on mastering the viewfinder. Simply put, the viewfinder is worth all the hype. The optical viewfinder mode where LCD overlays are used to present frame lines and additional shooting information over the rangefinder image is a joy to use. Even better, you can turn on a histogram and level display.

The electronic viewfinder (EVF) mode, activated with a small discrete lever on the front of the camera, gives you all of that and a 100-percent pixel accurate framing on a 1.44 megapixel display. It's not perfect. It could really use double the resolution. It would also benefit from being able to vary its brightness more as it's dark compared with ambient light in sunlight. Regardless, it's the best EVF I think I've ever used. All other camera makers should aspire to make EVFs at least this good.

Between the dual-personality optical/electronic viewfinder and the screen on the back, you've got three different ways to compose and shoot. And, much to Fuji's credit, the X100 manages to present quite a bunch of information in the viewfinder fairly cleanly. If only you didn't have to deal with the craptastic menu system to set it up. It's NASA levels of awesome wrapped up in a delivery system only Nissan would love.

Shooting RAW

As the afternoon progressed, I kept going through a cycle of feeling a bit more comfortable with the camera, then running into a wall of confusing behavior. First and foremost on the list of maddening behavior is how modal taking a photograph is when image review is on, especially when shooting RAW. You release the shutter and then wait for the camera to write the image. While the camera writes, all you can do is look at the image you just took. You can't immediately press the shutter to take another photograph. When the camera is done writing, it displays an "OK Next" notice. It dismisses easily with a trip of the shutter, but the fact that you're locked into the image review until it appears just feels way too modal.

It didn't help that it takes a while for the X100 to write out RAW images. Uncompressed RAW files from the camera weigh in at 20MB each compared to the compressed 14-16MB files that come out of my Panasonic GF-1 and Nikon D3S cameras, which also sport a 12-megapixel resolution. A little lossless compression would go a long way in terms of both write speed and archival space needed to store the resulting images.

The fix for the modality -- as I found out in a Twitter conversation with Thomas Brand -- is simply to turn image review off using the Tool/Set > Image Disp > Off menu. When image review is off, you can click away multiple times just like you'd expect to be able to without any perceptible delay. Also uncovered in that conversation is that you have to use a fast Class 10 SD card and -- this part is very important -- format it in camera. The X100 moves quite a bit faster when you do this.

The last annoyance I'll touch on here is focus. It's a strange beast on the X100. Autofocus on the camera isn't exactly fast and sometimes it randomly refuses to focus on anything, no matter how many contrasty lines you put into the focus area. I've not sorted out any rhyme or reason to it yet. As well, the fly-by-wire focusing is usable, but only barely so and it requires a trip to the manual to figure out how to get a zoomed manual focus assist view.

Yet, as quirky as the camera is to use, it's all worth it when you see the resulting files on your computer. They are simply amazing for a camera that can easily drop into a jacket pocket. They have the kind of plasticity in processing -- meaning that you can really push sliders around in Aperture or Adobe Camera RAW -- that I'm used to only seeing in files from a digital SLR. No doubt, that's because the sensor is an APS-C sized one of a modern design. [The X100 is compact in size, but its sensor isn't -- equivalent to those found on larger dSLRs.]

Wow, Wonderful ISO

Even better, the sensor performs well at higher ISO settings. To my eye in my test shooting today, it looks like ISO 1000 is excellent. ISO 1600 is quite good and I wouldn't hesitate to use it in almost any situation. Even ISO 3200 results in very usable files based on test shoots of my car in my dimly lit garage. Things only really break down after that point.

I can't overstate how big a deal having a usable ISO 3200 is to me. Combined with the f/2 lens, I think that there are very few places where the X100 can't comfortably operate and make decent photographs. It's a potent package, for sure.

If final image quality from a rangefinder package is what it's all about, then the X100 scores the points that matter. Yes, it's quirky -- to put it mildly. On the other hand, if you can deal with the menus and the occasional temper tantrum that keeps the X100 from focusing on something, it can be a complete joy to use. I wouldn't heartily recommend it to most people, but I'd support any photographer's decision to obtain and use it.

As for me, well, before today, I'd just about talked myself out of picking one up if I happened to find it in stock at a camera store. All the rational reasons factor in. It's not cheap. More cameras are coming. You know the drill. Now that I've experienced the camera first hand for a while, however, and had a chance to get familiar with both its quirks and the workarounds for them, I'm not so sure. I might be picking one up after all. There are a few bits of gear around here that I should sell off first, but I have a feeling that I won't like it when I give this one back. Not at all.

Photo credits: Building and keys, Duncan Davidson; Fujifilm FinePix X100, Joe Wilcox

Reprinted with permission.

Duncan Davidson describes himself as a "professional photographer, accomplished software developer, published author and small business owner". His clients include Apple, O'Reilly Media and TED. "Without a doubt, my work for TED starting with TED2009 has been a career highlight. I've been the principal stage photographer for six major TED events on three continents". He is pictured here on a photo shoot in India. Davidson also has taken on several conservation projects, including organizing the TEDxOilSpill Expedition.