My Street Photography Weapon

The life of a photographer..you always want to have the best of the best with you at all times..wherever you go..whatever you do..am I correct? I think that works for life in general..we all want the best.

Every time I go out I always want to bring my DSLR camera with me..with a few lens too, but that’s a problem for me because family holidays means I have my son with me all the time which means I carry the baby bag, or my son, or push the stroller.

Having a bag with your camera and lens is do-able, but to me, causes hassle. Instead of carrying my big camera and lenses, I much prefer an awesome compact point and shoot camera with DSLR-like features. Problem was that every point and shoot camera marketed the same ‘DSLR-like’ features and the end result was always disappointing. When you are use to having high quality images you can easily tell the good ones and bad ones and I’ve had my fair share of bad cameras.

Well, they weren’t bad cameras, just not what I wanted. The problem was a lot of the point and shoot cameras has a one inch sensor. My preference is having a full frame sensor which, to me, makes a huge difference to the style I wanted. So maybe stay away from 1 inch sensors?

Yip..that is exactly what I did.

Up step the Fujifilm X100F..this is my secret weapon to street photography. The Fuji has an APSC sensor which is similar to the ones you find in cheaper DSLR cameras, that is, one before full frame. This is where I feel the image quality and low light capabilities excel over the normal point and shoot camera. I wouldn’t exactly call it a point and shoot camera. The camera much more advanced than a normal point and shoot and is very much like a DSLR.

So every time I go away on holidays or a day out with the family, I take the Fujifilm with me. I don’t want this to sound like an advertisement for Fuji, because it’s not..although..I wish it was and Fujifilm did sponsored me..actually, if I was an ambassador for Fuji that would be awesome..Fujifilm, I know you read my blogs..make it happen!!

Aside from the features what else is good?

Many other point and shoot cameras will have a zoom lens which is great except in my opinion, the Fujifilm has a 23mm lens, equivalent to 35mm on full frame cameras, is all you need. When you do street photography you want a lens that can handle a lot of situations, wide enough to capture the scene but not too wide that it’ll distort the image, and not too zoomed in so you don’t have to stand back to frame your shot. This lens make you think what you are doing before taking the shot which makes you learn more.

I am all for zoom lenses and yes it is useful, but carrying around the little X100F with a fixed lens is also good. Because of it’s bigger sensor means I can zoom in during post processing anyways so that isn’t a problem.

Another good feature is the f2 aperture. I would love to have my f1.4 lens with me but sometimes that can be too wide so f2 is perfect for this camera and pretty useless in low light.

This camera sounds awesome and the results look awesome right? Yes it is a fantastic camera..but it comes at a price..a price of £1299!! This ain’t cheap..as a comparison I can get a Sony A7iii for £1700 but without a lens, this camera is full frame, has in body image stabilisation..shoots 4k videos..has amazing eye autofocus etc. So I guess as a comparison..it isn’t so bad is it?

Although it is dear, this isn’t just a simple compact point and shoot. It is a powerful mirrorless setup with a lot of features. Honestly, when I go out I have no hesitation taking this with me instead of my DSLR.

Here are my pros and cons for the camera:

Pros

• Amazing image quality with beautiful colours
• Compact, manual settings and a lot of features
• APSC sensor unlike other small compact cameras
• Video may only be at max 1080p but that’s all I need, I don’t care about 4k resolution just yet.
• Not a pro for many but I love the fixed lens and f2 aperture. It makes me think about composition and stops me from spending on new lenses!!
• Totally perfect for street photography
• The electronic viewfinder is awesome..i use it to review my footage in bright daylight..although people think I am taking a photo of them when I’m not!
• Battery life is actually pretty awesome

Cons

• The price..this thing ain’t cheap..but what good quality thing is?
• Focus isn’t as fast as my DSLR, but I didn’t expect it to be..it sometimes hunt focus at low light
• Sometimes it freezes..mirrorless eh?

So as you can see, there are more pros than cons in my opinion. Fujifilm have produced fantastic cameras, even my dad was a Fuji user! The X series have been fantastic and the newest and latest X100F is no exception. With better focusing than the last generation camera it kept the same formula being a power mirrorless crop sensor camera.

Also, one last thing I should mention. The Fujifilm are known for their simulations in the camera, for example, Provia, Velvia, Classic Chrome (my favourite), Acros etc. Each one giving the image a different look/style is just amazing but this doesn’t matter much to me because..it’s all in the presets, which I should add, I have on sale here on my website! Fancy giving them a try? Click here to buy them.