The Spur Of The Moment - With The New Fujifilm

Finding myself sober and dressed, and in Camera Electronic, and no-one making use of the new Fujifilm X-70 camera for the moment, I clapped a card into it and shot out the door.

I then shot up the Suzuki, the street, and the skyline. Then the staff. If this was Georgia you'd have heard about it in the news, but as it is just Stirling Street and the only reports heard are good ones, you can relax.

The little X-70 was fitted with the supplementary viewfinder to make for snap shots. The viewfinder is the Albada type and is fitted with two sets of markings - one approximates the view of the unaided lens at the equivalent of 28mm focal length. The other delineates the view when a supplementary lens is screwed onto the front of the camera - it widens things out to an equivalent of 21mm.

The results were every bit as good as I expected - the ease-of-use of the X-100 series of cameras combined with the fast focus of the X-T10. And the Albada finder was brilliant and clear - you don't get absolute framing but it is glance quick in use.

As with the X-100 series I would thoroughly recommend this camera for tourists, art gallery shooters, and car show enthusiasts. The standard lens should be perfect for most capture, and if you needed more fill flash than the little tube provides, the hot shoe is fully TTL- operational with Fujifilm flashes.

I was honest. I put it back in the cabinet.

Reluctantly...

The X70 and all it's accessories are available now from our online store.

The Gentle Tele - Converting The X-100 Series Cameras

The Fujifilm X-100 series of cameras are a hit with the buying public - we've proved that over the years. They are a hit with the travelling public too - I know because I travel with one and images it produces are magic.

But it is a camera that has a fixed focal-length lens firmly attached to the front of the body. It is superbly attuned to the APS-C sensor. If I can move back or forward in front of the subject, all is well - I frame as I please.

But if I am stuck inside a cramped space and cannot move back? Well a Fujifilm WCL 100 converter lens screws onto the front of the fixed 23mm Fujinon and widens it out to 18mm. Suddenly the shots inside the museum become possible - and the quality of the resultant image is exactly as good as the 23mm.

How about the business of bringing the far away object closer? Well, you can't expect to put the Mt. Palomar telescope on the end of a fixed focal length, but you can achieve a moderate increase in focal length. Fujifilm make a teleconverter called the TCL 100 that boosts the 23mm to a 35mm. Again there is no change to the image quality and you get to use the maximum aperture just the same.

Here's a visual map of what these focal lengths do - note: this illustration is taken with the Fujifilm X 10 camera on EXR setting.

The converters are not expensive, and they do expand your visual capabilities.