Hello everyone, in thinking of my series of posts about all the lovely cameras and lenses I have, I forgot that like many of my tools, I buy them, use them and never really got around to “reviewing” them. That’s how much I love taking pictures and editing. Much better than arguing online with random strangers about the virtues of different cameras. You can replace camera with “car/computer/graphics card/speaker/headphones/sports team/etc” to get my drift. 🙂
I haven’t been living in a vacuum though, as I’ve seen the online craze for this camera brand, this particular model, and the 6 subsequent revisions that have come out since I bought mine waaay back in 2011.
Today’s post is my review/samples retrospective on the:
Fujifilm Finepix X100 (OG, Classic)
PART I of II
Wedding Photography with the Fuji X100
(These were the easiest photos for me to pull and re edit. Normal photos in a future post.)
But first a throwback!
Us in 2011 with the just released Fuji X100. She’s so pretty. Boffum! 😉
On a totally unrelated note, man do the years just fly by. I used to be even skinnier and back then my face was so sensitive to soap and even water. It was so dry and lots of things irritated it. Those were still such carefree and fun times though. I often wore flip flops to shoots. What the heck?
Fuji X100 sitting amongst the lovely fall leaves
What is the X100?
The Fujifilm Finepix X100 is the first digital large sensor compact retro designed aesthetic fancy camera from Japanese camera and film producer Fujifilm. At the time of its release, it had great specs due to the APS-C sensor, which is the same size as the one in the medium sized cameras of the day and today (Canon Rebel series, Nikon DXX size, Pentax, etc). It really turned heads due to the classic retro aesthetics and was in high demand for a long while. (Leica had their X1 and Sigma also had a series of powerful compacts)
How much is this camera?
I got my X100 in summer of 2011 for a bit more than $1000 I believe. I just checked KEH.com today (Jan 9 2025) and a used one goes for $700+. That’s crazy. What’s even crazier are the prices of the used 5th “V” version. It’s around $2000. 😳 (It’s currently up to VI)
Why did I want one?
Back in the day I really needed a silent camera for events like weddings, quiet corporate work, and even funerals in our community. DSLR’s were and are still great, but in some social situations the relative loud clack of the shutter and mirror was something I was really conscious of back in those days.
What features/special abilities do I really use?
The silent shutter and low noise from the sensor are great for candid wedding photos (in good enough light, and if it focuses, more on that later…). It has a flash which works if you need it, but the real power comes from the leaf shutter and built in ND filter that you can use with off camera strobes to really knock down the ambient for unique fashion type of photos.
What are the drawbacks and what really isn’t that great about this camera?
It is horrible at focusing. When it first came out it was really bad and got marginally better with a firmware upgrade. For static subjects like a landscape, it’s pretty good but sometimes will still get confused. Forget about things up close like leaves blocking the subject too, it’s many times an exercise in frustration. For some situations, it’s best to put the camera in Manual Focus mode and use the back button AF to acquire focus. Then you can shoot consecutive frames without the camera having to reacquire contrast detect AF on EVERY frame either. It doesn’t have a proper continuous mode. It takes awhile to store a raw file regardless of the memory card.
How is the image quality?
It’s really good! In the right lighting conditions. In some lighting I would have to say it looks a lot like Fujifilm X-Tra 400. It’s like the company mandate of the way greens and blues render on 35mm color negative film are in the digital cameras too. The film recipes are about useless in this first version. Like all Fujis the Auto WB in daylight tends to lean towards cool and blue. Shadows and black material like Asian hair will almost always have blue highlights that you will need to knock down in LCH curves later. The lens is not a 35mm. Even though it has that angle of view, it’s still a 23mm f/2. Imagine shooting a 24mm on FF at like f/2.8-3.5 and cropping well into it, and you can imagine what the interplay between subject, leading lines and background all add up to visually. For some things it’s great, for others, just use FF for a better look in my opinion.
Other Misc Stuff?
This camera is still a conversation starter. Even with other photographers. You’d be surprised just how many current photographers still ask what camera is that, does it shoot film? I guess there’s still so much untapped marketing the Japanese manufacturers need to do to bring in new customers. Most definitely, different cameras with different designs and options is only a good thing. Hopefully there will be a rebirth of choices for consumers.
How is the X100 OG for weddings?
For many years this was my “bonus” camera. About 3rd or 4th option behind my Nikons and Canons. It was light enough to always have around my neck, and being in that position it was always faster to draw, as long as you could wake it up fast enough. For some situations like a wedding, people are a lot more comfortable with this vintage looking camera in their space for emotional and quiet moments. Just that alone is probably worth the price of admission.
So here are 200+ Wedding Photos that I dug up from my archives from 2011 to just a few years ago. I really wanted to make it an even “100” to fit the theme, but as you probably know this is my site and I’ve never been shy with hurting the bandwidth. (Yes I know Google overlord, my site takes a bit long to load, hurting the so called user experience, but again, this is my body of work) There are many people who still like to carefully peruse magazines and photo books. 😉
All the Photos you find below were shot with the X100, and re edited from JPGs (gasp!). These are not the main photos I would have delivered to clients, just the fun bonus ones from a not so serious camera that’s still capable of pretty photos.
So that’s it for the first part of my X100 retrospective. Also if you are curious about my Wedding Photography services here in Atlanta, please check out my dedicated page via this LINK.
PART II is Here, X100 Portraits of Life and Fun Moments:
