Blasphemy Alert

In spite of the fact that I have made no attempt to conceal or disguise the fact that I occasionally shoot photographs digitally, when you arrive at a site with a name like “Filmosaur” you might be forgiven for thinking it would be about, you know, film. Most of the time it is, and it will remain so. I have not joined a cult or been subjected to conversion therapy or anything of the sort. But I have, of my own free will, purchased another digital camera.

I’ll wait for the concerned murmuring to die down.

Now that you’ve had a moment to process this, you are probably curious about what has drawn my attention away from the One True Path, and what I intend to do with it. The object in question is a Fuji X100F, the fourth iteration of the X100 line, a fixed-lens (23mm f/2, which is a 35mm equivalent) camera that is often spoken of as harkening back to the fixed-lens film rangefinders of yore. It goes so far as to include a number of “film simulation” modes – how well these will work for me remains very much an open question.

It’s rather too early to say anything meaningful about the camera itself, as it’s only just arrived. But I can state that I purchased it in order to see if it lives up to the hype (and there is plenty of hype), and because it seems to offer some respite from the tyranny of choices that plague so many modern digitals. This isn’t to say it lacks options – it doesn’t – but it also seems designed to allow them to be easily ignored, with a view to making it as easy to use as, say, an Olympus 35SP, or if you prefer a little more automation, a Konica Hexar AF.

I do not relish the prospect of fiddling with more knobs and dials than there were in the Apollo 11 command module every time I want to take a picture. My experience with the Fuji X-E1 has been pretty favorable in this regard, and encouraged me to consider the X100 series rather than any of the other compact fixed-lens alternatives. I plan to set the thing up over the initial ownership period, and then leave it alone, save for a few settings necessary to make it do what I want it to.

This experiment will be considered a success if I find the camera easy and encouraging to shoot with, and if the output doesn’t leave me as cold as most digital photographs do. To the latter point, I plan to set up the film simulation modes carefully, and I may consider additional measures to manipulate the photos in-camera. I do not like endless editing after the fact; I want the photo to look the way I want it to when I take it, more or less. Naturally, this means I’ll be shooting JPEG versus RAW, but that’s what I’ve done with the X-E1 and I’ve never had an issue with it.

So, that’s where things stand. Blasphemy? Sure, if you want to be technical and pedantic about it, but I’m just making this stuff up as I go.