The Practical Impractical - Or Using The Fujifilm X-70

I looked at the Fujifilm X-70 some time ago from a seller's point of view - the sleek appearance, the specifications, etc. Trying to push your urge-to-purchase buttons, but without charging up a battery and seeing if it would actually do the job. Today I took that extra step.

My experience with the Fujifilm system grows as I add new lenses and bodies to the X system...but one thing has remained much the same for a long time. I have an original X-100 camera that is the daily shooter throughout the town and has gone on holiday with me many times. It is the camera du jour for many of my trips to car shows, together with he EF-42 flash from Fujifilm.  The basic reason is that it has a leaf shutter that allows me to use high shutter speeds in sync with the flash in sunny conditions.

The X-70 also has this sort of shutter. It can sync perfectly well all the way up to over 1/1000 of a second with no complicated behaviour on the part of the flash. You can balance ambient lighting with fill flash easily. The only awkward part of it might be the physical size and balance of the EF-42 and X-70 combination

The other two advantages of this camera over others in the X-series lie with the 18.5mm focal length of the lens and the fact that it is a fixed optic. 18.5mm on an APS-C sensor approximates the view of a 28mm lens on a full frame camera. Not too wide as to distort groups unmercifully, and wide enough to get a medium car in frame from a close distance. Remember my propensity to take car shots...

The fact that the lens is fixed on means there are no intervals when the body of the camera is open to ingest dust particles. I do not have to present it to the techs for a swabbing-out every three months.

Note that there is an wider-angle supplementary lens for this camera that widens it to an equivalent of 21mm in full-frame terms. A little wide for me and certainly prone to perceived distortion.

Okay. We know it looks cool and sits cleverly in the palm of the hand, but does it take car pictures? Does it take details? Can it take model car pictures? Can it trigger a studio flash system? Is the lack of a fixed viewfinder a hindrance?

a. Yes. The sensor is 16.2 mega pixels - better than the X-100 and that is plenty good enough. The new processor and new film simulations are all working well. 18.5 mm is wide enough for a crowded car show or a suburban carport.

b. Yes, it takes details. I pushed it into the model plate on the Suzuki and it kept focusing far closer than I imagined. No special programming was necessary to go in there - it just worked.

c. Yes, it is good in the studio. The trick is to set the tiny little on board flash to commander mode and dial the ISO down to 200. Then with the aperture on f:16 and the shutter speed on 1/250, that little flash contributes hardly at all to the scene in front of it, but cheerfully sets off the slave sensors in the studio lights - they do the exposure. You might want to select a manual focus point or just let the machine run the auto focus on a nearby object.

The detail is actually better at a close range than that of the X-100 lens.

d. Is an eye-level viewfinder necessary? I would have said yes before the advent of the tilting LCD screen. Now, whenever I use a camera with one of these, I tilt it out flat and peer down into it as if it were the waist-level finder of a medium-format film SLR. Works for me.

Note that this LCD screen is also touch-sensitive. You can fire the camera by poking it. As yet I can think of no reason to do this, but there are always new situations. I'll suspend judgement on it.

As I have more cameras than arms at present, I will continue using the other cameras, but the ease of operation of this one leads me to hope that the next iteration of the X-100 series will also have a tilting screen. That would be perfect!

Fujifilm Week Day Five - The X-70

I was nearly going to entitle that The Fellow Traveller, but something about the phrase seems wrong - perhaps I'll settle for the Little Traveller...because that is what this camera is.

To give you a first impression of it...well, a lot of people will think of it as the Fujifilm X-100T in miniature. Fine as far as that goes, and it has some basis in fact, but it misses a couple of important points; this camera has no built-in viewfinder system, and the lens is set to be considerably wider.

There are also other features like the tilting LCD screen ( tilting all the way over to 180º selfie mode ), the WiFi simple connectivity, and the automatic lever just under the shutter speed dial that suggest casual modern usage. Just the thing for a pocket traveller.

I second Fujifilm's choice of the 18.5mm focal length of the lens matched to the APS-C sensor as being of prime importance to the tourist market. Okay, you say that this will not help taking pictures of bears in Alaska, but then you could not really contemplate that with this part of Fujifilm's output - that would be a job for the X-Pro2 and at the 100-400mm lens. The European or Asian traveller, however, will quickly realise that many of their best photo opportunities will be close at hand and require some considerable breadth of vision. Temples, cities, wide scenic landscapes are all rendered well by that 18.5mm on APS-C. If you must, remember it as 28mm on a 35mm film camera...

The selfie-flip of the sighting system - the LCD screen - is whatever you wish to make of it. If you are determined to have a picture of yourself in Angkor Wat or in front of the Buckingham Palace by all means go ahead - neither temple nor monarchy will take much notice nor harm from it. At least the 18.5mm will give you a little more view of the surroundings on the final photo - you'll be able to see the pickpocket as they scuttle away with your wallet.

Where you will appreciate it is in the landscape shots that can now be done from a lower perspective and with less vertical distortion. You'll be looking down into the image, much as you did in the TLR days, and some people find that this makes it much easier for them to level out their horizon lines. By all means use the in-built green horizon indicator in the camera. Likewise, press the wide flat shutter button that Fujifilm have thoughtfully provided with your thumb when you are looking down -you'll be much more comfortable at the end of a shooting day.

Note that you can focus and shoot with that screen - it is one of the touch models.

If you are determined to shoot with the camera at eye level but not at arm's length, there is an optional bright viewfinder that you can slot into the hot shoe. I would do this, but then I am of the older generation that owns sports coats and ties and hats...and that may frighten you.

In any case, you can, as you can with the X-100T, confidently take the X-70 on holiday with a couple of cards and batteries, a retro half case, and nothing else. And come back with some of the best tourist shots you've ever taken. My favourite setting would be Classic Chrome JPEG + RAW and let the little beast have its head with the auto ISO.