After reading all the reviews and talking to others who raved abut the little Fuji X100S  I finally took the plunge and got one. The price dipped from very expensive to a rather more reasonable “pricey but why not.”

And it is a revelation – the first digital camera to make me feel like its a real camera. Sure it is retro but in a good way with beautifully engineered and simple main analogue controls that allow some major settings to be done without diving into menus. The way you can set full auto – both aperture and speed dials to A or to choose aperture or speed priority by just setting the appropriate dial is brilliant and much better than Nikon or Canon can manage. The viewfinder is very clever with optical and electronic options. Optical is fine but I haven’t got to grips with the way the camera reframes to allow for parallax so I’m mainly using the very good EVF which is effectively “through the lens.”

Quality is excellent with a sharp little fixed 35mm equivalent lens and 16 megapixels in a cleverly designed sensor that is the same size as a Nikon DX (half frame) camera. I’ve really come to love the 35mm lens view from using the iPhone and also a prime 35mm lens on the Nikon D600.

But enough technical fluff, the real test is what is it like to shoot with? Absolutely brilliant is the answer. The closest experience to the way working with the old Nikon FMs in fact. It’s still early daysbut I like the feel of the images it produces and  given it handles low light very well it is ok to set auto ISO within reason and just fire away.

I’ll post more images when I’ve had a chance to really push it but the moment here’s a couple of portraits.