Wednesday, April 13, 2011

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Finally... time with a production Fujifilm X100!

(Click on image to visit gallery)

I have finally been able to shoot with a full production level X100 and now I can post images without any restrictions from Fujifilm. This production camera does have noticeably better image quality than the prototype I used before. Amazingly enough, its lens is even sharper (edge-to-edge) and low-light/high-ISO shooting seems substantially improved too. While still visible, I feel that the somewhat unusual (for a pro-level camera anyway) off-axis "bright light source flare", that can occasionally show up in night photos, is definitely reduced on the production camera as well.

A more detailed report is forthcoming, but for now I have just posted 50 images, all processed from JPEGs shot in-camera, with EXIF info visible and large 2400 pixel versions available for download too. All were handheld shots as well. Some work was done in Adobe Lightroom to many of the images, amounting to exposure adjustment, a slight saturation punch, some clarity and some sharpening also, since that was set to minimal in-camera. Being JPEG files, and with me not being used to how the LCD and histogram on the camera render just yet, means there are a number of photos that are, in my opinion anyway, a little bit overexposed. I have increased the brightness of the X100's LCD slightly to help judge the image tones better on playback. Seeing as how the playback histogram display is not "sticky" and requires four button pushes to get to (one of my minor gripes), I ended up not using it as often as I might on my other cameras.

You can only do so much with an overexposed JPEG file, but most held up fairly well. The auto-white-balance was decent (quite good really, especially in the night shots), but again, not quite to my liking sometimes in the daytime. Normally I would shoot with manual WB, so this was more of a test. As with any camera, it requires some experience to get the most out of it. Looking forward to spending a lot more time behind the excellent hybrid-viewfinder soon!

For now, enjoy the gallery by clicking on the image above, or just click here...

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