Entries Tagged 'Opinion' ↓

The Camera

Fuji has done a masterful job of revealing, in a death by a thousand cuts sorta way, the specs of the X100. If you don’t know much about the camera go here and for a brochure go here. Anyway, the executive summary is that it is a Retro-styled, fixed lens, APS-C sensor digital camera. It would look fairly comfortable sitting next to the Bolsey camera that my Dad let me use when I was a teenager. Yeh, it’s that retro.

Earlier this week, Fuji announced that the camera had, at long last, gone into production with shipments to the USA due in March.

The Gallery of Pictures

As has become the custom, Fuji posted a sample of pictures made with the camera. As has become the custom, folks formed hard opinions based on the pictures in the gallery.

A collection of JPEG’s reveals very little about a camera, any camera. And if the JPEG’s are straight from the camera you can learn even less. Serious photographers don’t shoot JPEG’s except at family Holiday Gatherings and the Occasional Birthday. Combine that with the nearly infinite variations available in a modern camera’s JPEG output settings and any pronouncement about the quality of a camera is pure BS.

What We Do Know

It Has a Fixed, Prime (non-zoom) Lens

We live in a world of interchangeable lens cameras. Tack sharp primes and zooms are the norm. Other than size, it makes very little difference if the camera behind the lens is a DSLR or one of the newer Mirrorless varieties. They all have lenses that can be swapped out for another. The Fuji X100 does not.

About that Fixed, Prime Lens and, Not Incidentally, a Real ViewFinder

I am in line to buy a FujiFilm X100 for two reasons. First is the fixed, prime lens. I am beyond sick of cleaning senors and dust busting files. It’s a massive waste of time that somewhere along the way became a normal part of the photographic workflow. If Fuji can ship me a camera with a clean sensor having the lens firmly fastened my life will be simpler. At 35mm equivalent, its a great focal length to have fixed on a camera.
I loath point and shoot cameras that rely on holding the camera away from the body while framing a shot. It’s a fundamentally flawed way to take a picture. It’s fine for a snapshot – it’s beyond worthless if precise framing is important. The Fuji X100 has a hybrid viewfinder that allows you to bring the Camera up to your face, hold it properly with both hands and actually frame a photograph with all the precision your right eye provides.

Fine, is there Anything that the Gallery can Tell you about the Camera?

The gallery does tell us this. The lens is sharp and there seems to be very little chromatic aberrations. It also appears that the nine blade diaphram results in an nice out of foucus efffect also know as Bokeh. It tells us nothing else.

Absolutely nothing.

The gallery does not speak to the ergonomics, the focus speed, the focus speed in low light or the quality of an image run through a good RAW session.

(added February 17th)

The Firmware Isn’t Finished

So this fact could also go under what we don’t know about the camera and won’t until the firmware is stable and ready to ship. While the few hands on posts are generally quite positive – fast autofocus, good autofocus even in low contrast situations, very quick ready to shoot time and it’s very quiet (thank you Google Translator) information, the firmware is way short of the 1.x that one would expect in a shipping product. This information comes from Quesabesde.

Which is fine because, until sometime in early March, it isn’t a shipping product.

What about the Sensor?

The APS-C sized sensor is not made my Fuji (and therefore is probably made by Sony.)

Michael Reichmann disagrees with Ken Rockwell and does so in a public place.

When someone disagrees with (apparently) one of your core beliefs you can:

1) Ignore them.
2) Make a reasoned argument that solidifies your point(s).
3) Say something disparaging about their Mother
or (and you don’t see this one nearly enough)
4) Launch an ad hominem attack against an entire country and include an irrelevant history lesson.

Oddly enough, or maybe not, Rockwell choose number 4. I wouldn’t dare to paraphrase this jingoistic nonsense so here is the meat of it in his own words:

Maybe I’m American-centric. American’s don’t understand words like “no,” “I can’t” or “impossible.” In the 1700s everyone knew a motley band of rabble rousers couldn’t defeat the world’s most powerful empire, but we did and created the United States of America in 1776. Everyone knew heavier-than-air flight was a proven scientific impossibility, but in 1903 the Wright Brothers flew anyway. No possible way could men ever get to the moon, but back in 1969 we sent men up there just because we could, and although we continued to send men up there on an almost weekly basis until we got bored of it in the 1970s, no other nation has ever been able to get there to this day almost 40 years later. Tell a Texan (an especially tough breed of American) that he’s got cancer and only 6 weeks to live, and he’ll cut off one of his own nuts just to keep things fair and go off to win le Tour de France — seven times in a row. Do you think it was his bicycle?

So I guess when you try to tell an American that he can’t make good pictures with a crappy camera, that won’t stop him, but Geeze, it would be a very sad world if only Americans had the gumption to make decent photos with crappy cameras. I honestly doubt that.

I sure know I’ve also seen far more really crappy photos made with great equipment, in fact, I’ve made thousands of the crappy ones myself with great gear!

Reichman is a little too found of his toys and can seem a little chummy with those that make them. Rockwell is a mediocre writer who has trouble actually crafting an argument. That said, this round goes to the Canadian for, if nothing else, attempting a reasoned argument.

And for not once mentioning Lance Armstrong…

March 14, 2008 Postscript: As of this evening, Ken Rockwell has excised much of the vitriol quoted above. But, with apologies to the Wright Brothers and Lance Armstrong (who I am certain rode a series of very tricked out bikes on the Tour) not to mention all Canadians, the text deserves to linger. So it does.

April 12: Rockwell has archived the sanitized version of this post. I’ve corrected the link. Scroll to March 13 to read the re-written version.