FUJIFILM XE-1: THE SEXY ONE
My quest for a new camera began when I started researching them online. I had almost bought the Olympus EM5, but the price in India was too high, and APSC vs MFT had me looking elsewhere. Sony did not feature in my set of options back then. The a6000 was one of the most popular cameras back then, but Fuji was doing some great things. Enter the XE-1. The X-Trans sensor was all the rage. They arguably had, and still have the best JPEG engine in a camera, even when I was shooting in RAW+JPEG, the in-camera colour reproduction was second to none. The Dynamic Range (amount of detail captured, which later gives you a wider scope of adjustment in post) was great. No AA filters (better sharpness). The glass (lens) was one of the finest ever made, and still continues to be. The menu and handling of the camera was top notch. And styled after retro cameras, it looked like a vintage piece of art from the 60s. It was made of metal, not flimsy plastic, with the right amount of rugged and smooth texture. It had a shutter and exposure dial, and at the right places. Fuji has the best customer care, with constant updates available for the bodies and lenses, after listening to its consumers. It had everything going for it. There were a couple of irritants. There was no ‘Auto’ mode, which I interpreted as, every photograph has to be thought through. The autofocus was not the best. But overall, there was something alluring with the Fuji. Pictures had a dream like quality. And capturing them was a delight. It had the X factor.
POINT OF VIEW(FINDER)
This was my first rendezvous with the viewfinder. Fuji XE1-1 is equipped with an 2,360,000-dot colour OLED electronic viewfinder, not the brightest, but for a first-time user, it served well. And once you go viewfinder, you can’t go back. A boon in bright daylight and a saviour in low light, the viewfinder became my default option. I cannot emphasize the number of times it’s bailed me out. In every way, it became my point of view.
STEALTH MODE ON
I’d picked up the black version with the kit lens. With a tiny camera and all black set-up, it was less intimidating on the street. There were no strange looks of bewilderment you get with a DSLR, neither was anyone conscious of the fact that I had a camera. It was less intrusive, more personal, and yet a beast when it came to the pictures. I had my ninja mode on.
THE KIT LENS IS LEGIT
Fuji’s kit lens is far superior to any kit lens in the market. Zeiss 16-70 for Sony’s Alpha Series cameras would be a fair comparison. The glass is that good. It also has a bigger f-stop 2.8 vs the standard 3.5 (smaller the number, bigger the f-stop). Essentially that meant more light could pass through to the sensor, also better bokeh (depth of field). This lens is a testimony to the kind of glass Fuji makes. Exceptional in daylight and a fighter in low light. It’s extremely well-built and perfectly weighed for the body. Some might say the 35mm is an ideal fit, but in India that lens was not bundled as a set. In all, it was my second ‘one lens, one body experiment’, and having tried that combination before, I knew what I was in for. But this lens was way better, so evidently, I was excited.
FUJI IS LIKE JAZZ
If you ask any Fuji X user about the initial days with Fuji, they’d echo the same sentiment – LOVE. And it was love at first sight. The greens looked fresh. The yellows looked cheerful. The reds were blushing. And the blues, well, they looked happy. It’s almost like the camera made you fall in love with what you were capturing. Almost like Fuji had a mood setting. With no auto mode and not a blazing fast auto-focus, it felt like time had slowed down, with more thought and meaning going behind every composition. If you equate it with music, Fuji is like jazz. It’s got rhythm, it’s rich, velvety and timeless. It was an instant classic. But one false note was about to ruin everything.
LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP
Like any relationship, it was all hunky-dory in the beginning. Then the cracks began to show. Things became tough. We tried to work it out. But then it got really bad. Almost to a point of no return. What caused this downfall? The auto-focus system. What seemed like a minor irritant before turned to be the biggest deterrent to an otherwise fabulous system. The autofocus started to feel painfully slow and I could not get over the hunting either. I missed so many shots, because the damn thing never focused. Low light brought its own set of issues, and when I say low light, I mean restaurants in broad daylight. Manual focus helped only during still shots, otherwise it took its own sweet time to focus. Everything else can be pardoned, but if the camera is coming in the way for a good photograph, then sadly, it has to go. It’s a real shame that I had to move on from Fuji. From what I’ve read, heard and seen in videos online, the latest Fuji cameras have not only fixed this issue, but started acing everything else as well, including video. It was inevitable. The best crop sensor mirrorless camera comes from Fuji, the Fuji X-T2. But the body alone costs above a lakh, and the lenses start at ₹30,000, something that goes way beyond my budget. I’d gotten the XE-1 with the lens for ₹44,000. So, if you want to invest in Fuji, and have the budget for it, look at the new range of X cameras, they are dope in every which way, the best money can buy. My time with Fuji has been sort of a love-hate relationship. More love though. Lots of love.