FujiFilm FinePix X100 - Throwback to Rangefinder With Modern Internals

FujiFilm began its camera making operations back in 1934 with a motion picture camera. The company celebrated it's seventy-fifth year of operation in 2009.

Fujifilm Holdings Corporation or Fujifilm  is a Japanese company known for its photographic film and cameras. It is headquartered Tokyo. The company has other offices in the Nishiazabu Building in Minato.  Fujifilm is the world’s largest photographic and imaging company, well ahead of Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, and Canon. 

Despite it's looks the X100 features a single lens reflex (SLR) size APS-C digital sensor and traditional looking analog control dials. Despite the dated look the camera itself is as modern and up to date as the Canon EOS 60D, the Nikon D7000 or the Pentax K-5.

This is FujiFilm's first camera with a large, APS-C sensor. It is designed for both professionals and advanced amateurs and is the first such camera of this type since the S5 Pro DSLR of 2006.

The X100, though, is very different. At first glance, and even subseqent viewing it looks exactly like a ninteen seventies rangefinder camera. It even has the type of lens and the typical viewfinder placement to the left of the lens. The lens, by the way is a very fast, F2 maximum aperture semi-wideangle lens with a classic 35mm field of view.

The controls along the top are typical of analog style of the 70s era, but they all control the most of the electronics within the camera. Controls adjust shutter speed, aperture, and exposure. The focus is a "by wire" where the adjustments on the lens actually electronically adjust focus. Perhaps the neatest thing about the camera is the hybrid viewfinder. It is optical with a digital overlay.

Looking at the back, however, you get a whole other impression of the camera. Starting at the viewfinder and working left to right, top to bottom, you'll see a diopter correction wheel next to the viewfinder.  To the far right of that a zoom thumbwheel control. Below that to the left you'll see buttons for playback, auto exposure (AE), auto focus (AF), view mode, and then a rather large LCD full color screen for playback and photo composing. To the right of the screen you'll see a menu button in the center of a rocker that controls delete, flash setting, white balance, and macro shooting mode. Below that are two buttons that control the image capture (JPEG/RAW or JPEG only) a back button.

The camera has a huge CCD sensor for its size at 23.6mm×15.8mm (1" x 0.6").

The X100 has many adjustments for image enhancement include fluorescent lighting, shade, incandescent, underwater, custom, and even color temperature selection.

The camera comes with a Lithium Ion battery, charger, USB cable, lens cap, metal strap clip, protective cover, CD-ROM (with software), and owner's manual.

For a full list of specifications see the table below.

The X100 also includes:

• 12 megapixel APS-C sized CMOS sensor
• Fixed 23mm F2 lens (field of view equivalent to a 35mm lens on full frame)
• 2.8" LCD screen, 4:3 aspect ratio, 460,000 dots
• Hybrid optical / electronic viewfinder
• OVF with 0.5x magnification, projected framelines indicate approx 90% of field of view
• EVF with 0.5x magnification, 1,440,000 dots
• Traditional-style control dials for shutter speed, aperture and exposure compensation
• ISO 100 (L), 200-6400, 12800 (H/Push)
• Flash hot shoe and built-in flash
• Built-in neutral density filter (3 stops)
• 1280x720 HD movie recording with stereo sound (720p)

Pricing
The camera is already available in Europe, but does not seem to be available in the U.S. as yet. Prices for U.S. consumers on European websites have the camera listed at around $1,200.

This is an interesting offering. Though it is somewhat gimmicky in it's very convincing attempt to look like a camera from forty years ago, it is also a very sophisticated hobby camera with many functions, relatively high resolution and a good pedigree.

Because image quality is only 12 Megapixel and the movie capture is limited to the low end of High-Definition this might be best viewed as a back-up camera or a camera for the beginner.

The X100 is currently listed at around $1,200.00.

The author was not compensated in any way, monetarily, with discounts, or freebies by any of the companies mentioned.

Though the author does make a small profit for the word count of this article none of that comes directly from the manufacturers mentioned. The author also stands to make a small profit from advertising attached to this article.

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