New Camera

[kathygnome]

Well, when we were visiting Joy and Lona and Henry and Peter, a couple of things happened that made me reevaluate my camera situation. The first was that when we went for a walk, there was no way I could deal with stringing my DSLR around my neck. Too big. Too heavy. Too dorky. Too hot.

The second was the of all the pictures I did take, the best one by far was done with the Fuji XF1 compact and that made me think of some of the better pictures I've taken and quite a few are from the Fuji not the Pentax and I realized that it ain't the camera capabilities, it's that the XF1 is always with us and the Pentax is kind of a hassle. I just plain end up taking more pictures. It also doesn't hurt that the minute she sees the DSLR, Nora just starts mugging for the camera so it's not very natural.

I've always liked Fuji and I've noticed that a lot of the people who were posting photos I thought were really well done were using Fuji mirrorless equipment. The cameras also have a nice retro look. I'd been eyeing them for a while.

Then Fuji had a sale. It wasn't the most amazing sale, but it was a sale sufficient that I could upgrade to a camera that would fit our lifestyle better and with sales of my used equipment, come out only a little worse than even. So I'm now the happy owner of a Fuji X-E1 mirrorless camera with the 18-55 kit lens and the 27mm pancake. The latter was the real key. The thing is tiny, it's a good focal length for general use, and together that means I can carry it in my purse. In fact, if I can find a decent case that hugs the contours of the camera (and I have), it can live in my purse full time and I can drag out the 18-55 when I want to do more serious shooting.

So far the results have been pretty good. The reviews say it has issues with focus and it does hunt a bit, but Pentax was all screw drive and not a whole lot faster. I love the fact that I can see the depth of field in the viewfinder. Generally, the lenses are far superior to anything I had with Pentax except for the old manual 50mm. The 18-55 is just amazing.

Comments

[becky44.livejournal.com]

I've always liked Fuji cameras - I've still got the old 4900 and 602 models.

I bought a modern X-S1 last year... and it delivers great 12MP images - even at 36x. However - the power switch/circuit ruins the whole package - because a camera that only powers up one in four times is useless!

Having said that, I would still have Fuji gear around - because of the quslity. Just not my 'jonah'!