Humanitarian photojournalist Keith Dunlop gets his hands on one of the most talked about new cameras of 2011, the Fujifilm X100.

Fujifilm Finepix X100

INTRODUCTION
As a longtime Leica user, I have been watching with interest the parade of compact mirrorless digital cameras that have been released in the last couple of years. Many are positioned as Leica X1 alternatives, and some even attempt comparison to the Leica M9. One of the most anticipated of these new cameras – and probably the most Leica-esque of the bunch — is the Fujifilm X100.

Based mostly on mixed online reviews of the X100, I have been resisting any temptation to purchase the camera, but when I learned that a respected photographer friend of mine was using one, I had to give it a try.

This review does not attempt to be a comprehensive evaluation of the camera and all of its functions. But, I will convey my observations with a focus on the few key features that are of particular interest to me and the way I shoot. I took the camera with me for a client meeting where we would be touring a wedding site in the Santa Ynes Valley, which also provided the opportunity for some street shooting in the tourist mecca of Solvang. These are my impressions of the camera after a short few hours of use.

BODY & DESIGN
Let’s get the easy stuff out of the way first. The styling of the X100 is drop-dead gorgeous. The body is very much an homage to classic rangefinders of the past — the Leica M3 immediately comes to mind. The body is a bit smaller than a Leica M, but it has a solid build quality and feels good in the hand. The top controls dials are logical and well-built.

One handling problem is that the lens is a pancake design, which means a very small form factor. While the compactness is appreciated, I would have preferred a standard lens depth. I am used to being able to cradle my Leica bodies with the lens in my left hand. This is impossible on the X100.

OPERATION & CONTROLS
This is where things go a little south. Let’s start with the lens controls. The aperture ring has only full click stops. The ring also has inconveniently positioned tabs for control. If shooting with wide apertures, the tabs are not where your fingers want to be. The biggest problem is that the only way to control the aperture with anything other than full stops is to dive into the menu system and use a toggle switch on the back of the body. The toggle switch used for this is far too small and is made from hard plastic. It was nearly impossible to use. There is a manual focus ring, but it just spins continuously. There are no traditional manual focus control stops. Despite this, I made attempts to focus manually by looking through the optical viewfinder, but I received no visual feedback. I quickly made the conclusion that traditional manual focus features just didn’t exist.

The primary things I need to be able to have quick access to on any digital camera are ISO, white balance, and meter mode. On the X100, the Fn button on the top panel is factory dedicated to ISO, which is fine, but means that controlling anything else means diving into the menu system. Most of the time, the Fn button worked as expected, but sometimes it didn’t respond at all. This usually required a full power off/on of the camera. This should not occur.

The menu system requires the use of a jog wheel and center button on the back of the camera which caused the majority of my frustrations. The center menu button is far too small, and the jog wheel is a very hard plastic that my thumb routinely slipped off of it. The design of these controls is simply horrible. They require a photographer to stop what they are doing to focus on trying to manipulate the camera controls correctly. This issue alone turns me off to the camera.

I also had problems with the metering modes. What Fujfilm calls “multi” mode (think evaluative metering in a DSLR) routinely under-exposed most scenes, and completely failed to handle mixed light situations. Average and spot metering modes work well and are the only ones I recommend for this camera.

Another issue concerns the lens design and the built-in neutral density filter. If you shoot with primarily wide apertures and want to work in daylight, you have to engage the ND filter. Because the lens is a leaf shutter design, you cannot shoot faster than 1/1000th of a second with the aperture wide open. Some sort of ND filter then becomes mandatory. It’s terrific that the ND filter is included as a built-in feature, but the fact that you are forced to use the horrible menu system to access it makes it a pain to use. A dedicated ND button would have been far better.

I kept the camera in auto white balance (which actually works really well), because I didn’t want to have to deal with any additional forays into the menu system to change it.

Auto focus worked well, and aside from getting used to the built-in parallax correction feedback in the optical viewfinder, it worked as expected. I did not use the electronic viewfinder and therefore have no reports about its functionality.

I made no attempt to access any of the X100′s other features because I figured, if the easy things are hard to do, why bang my head against the wall trying to do anything else.

IMAGE QUALITY
Image quality is where most users of the X100 are willing to overlook the fact that the camera is a pain in the ass to use. While it’s no Leica M9, the image quality is superb (most closely resembles a Nikon D7000), and high ISO performance is stellar — far better than the Leica M8. The 23mm lens vignettes a moderate amount and there is some mid distortion, but everything cleans up really well in Lightroom with the lens correction feature toggled on. The small form factor of the body and leaf shutter design also means that you can hand-hold the camera down to shutter speeds below anything possible with a DSLR. The lens is a bit soft wide open at close distances, but otherwise, the sharpness and resolution is surprising for a crop-sensor camera. Clearly, image quality is where this camera shines.

CONCLUSION
There are things to love about the X100, and things to hate. The styling is stunning, and the image quality is stellar, but getting from point A to point B makes it a relatively painful experience for a photographer. The X100 feels very much like a camera that was rushed to market before Fujifilm had appropriately developed the control and menu system. I really want to be able to love the camera, and it’s something I would see myself carrying when I don’t want to be weighed down by a DSLR. The concept of a digital rangefinder, with a stellar fixed lens, and great image quality is extremely appealing. The X100 is just a pain to use.

For the advanced amateur who wants a classic rangefinder experience in a compact digital form-factor, this is probably a terrific camera. For a working professional that needs a camera to have intuitive controls that don’t slow down the image making process, the X100 misses the mark.

I may pick up an X100 for myself as a camera to carry on family outings when I don’t want to shoot a film Leica or carry a DSLR, but it would never be the first thing I grab for professional use.