Reviews |Fuji X100F vs The Big Apple

Fuji X100F vs The Big Apple

Amy Davies using the Fuji X100F in NYC
Review

After using the Fuji X100F extensively for almost a week on the streets of New York, I was very happy with how it performed.

It is discreet and was ideal for capturing the kind of street images I was after – when you use it you don’t scream “tourist” so much as you do with a large DSLR. That said, a couple of New Yorkers came up to me to talk about the camera. One thought it might be a film camera, and was shocked to discover it was digital, while another was an X100T user who was excited to see that I had one of these as yet unreleased models.

I am extremely pleased with the images I have captured on the whole – they are rich and vibrant, and I love the colours. I’m a big fan of Fuji’s Classic Chrome Film Simulation mode, but different options suited different scenes – sometimes the Velvia simulation was required, while other times the ACROS simulation was great. A lot of the time the “Standard” simulation was also used.

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There are however a couple of things that would have come in handy which unfortunately the X100F still doesn’t have. As great as the screen and viewfinder combination is, I couldn’t help but wish for a tilting screen to use as a waist-level finder – something that would help tremendously with capturing discreet street shots. A touch sensitive screen would also have been a massive boon – although using the joystick to move the AF point doesn’t take long, it was long enough to occasionally miss the definitive moment which can happen in a split second – I can’t help but feel that a quick tap of the screen would have saved these situations.

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I would also like to see weather-sealing on a camera like this. I got very lucky while I was away that it barely rained – but if it had, it would have been nice to be able to capture rainy-day street scenes, I’m not sure I’d want to risk using a £1200 camera without weather sealing during a downpour.

Overall – it’s fair to say that the X100F was almost the ideal camera for the work I wanted to do during my trip. It was light and discreet, the 35mm focal length was just right for the situation, and the image quality was fantastic. I wouldn’t hesitate to use it again for something like this – but I’d like to see the X100F take a couple of lessons from its younger brother the X70 and include a tilting, touch-sensitive screen for ultimate flexibility.