Roll A Week

I’ve been asked about the Fujifilm X10′s viewfinder. And I have to say it’s pretty much useless. It’s okay for basic framing but the rangefinder type of parallax and 85% coverage need to be taken into consideration. The viewfinder does not show any information nor the focusing point. So you cannot say which part of the frame is in focus by looking through the viewfinder.

The viewfinder looks nice on the camera and makes the camera look like a real camera. But that’s pretty much it. Otherwise the camera is definitely worth checking out.

Buying a new camera was a good thing for the blog. This is my week’s fourth post after having several quiet months.

After taking around 80 snaps shots with the gorgeous Fujifilm X10, I’m impressed with the quality of the photos it produces. It’s possible to use up to ISO 1600 and the maximum aperture of f/2-f/2.8 does not harm either. I like the ergonomics of X10 although the camera feels tiny after shooting mostly with DSLR with battery grip and medium format film cameras. The only annoying thing so far is that you need to remove the lens cap to turn the camera on.

I’ve mostly had the camera in JPG (fine, large) mode and only tried the RAW mode. As the camera is suppose to fill our family photo album and to capture photos to share on the internet, I’ll probably shoot in JPG mode in the future too. The JPG files are much smaller than the RAW files and, based on my first snap shots, JPGs have enough quality for light Lightroom enhancing. All the photos below have been enhanced in LR3 if it’s not noted differently. No noise reduction applied in LR3. The color are almost straight out of the camera, I have only corrected the white balance and added some contrast with curves.

ISO 640, f/2.8, 1/40s @ 28.4mm (112mm in 35mm language), shot in JPG:

Same in black and white:

ISO 1600, f/4, 1/60s @ 11.3mm (around 45mm), shot in JPG:

Another ISO 1600 example, f/2, 1/30s @ 7.1mm (28mm), shot in JPG:

And another ISO 1600 example, f/2.2, 1/30s @ 10.8mm (42mm), shot in JPG:

Here’s one photo that was shot in RAW mode. The photo is straight out of the camera except for the white balance which was corrected in Lightroom. ISO 640, f/2.8, 1/50s @ 28,4mm (112mm):

And here’s the enhanced version:

Next I will shoot something other than myself (in our brand new bathroom!).