Do we really need compact cameras in 2020? After all, the iPhone 11 Pro is one of the best travel cameras ever made and smartphones in general have offered a Terminator-style day of reckoning on point-and-shoot cameras. But the Fujifilm X100V reminded us in time that dedicated cameras, even compact ones, can be essential photography tools. Yes, even in the age of awesome phone cameras. As? After spending a few hours with the Fujifilm X100V, and a bit more with its predecessors, I can say that it comes closest to packing traditional camera benefits into a compact format. If my iPhone often looks like the photographic equivalent of Getting an Uber, the X100V is like walking the country roads in a Mazda MX5.
This is less a debate about image quality outright - I haven't spent enough time with the X100V yet to make any definitive statements on it - but more on the X100V as a concept and companion for street photography. What this camera does best is create a filming experience ' ' perfectly evolved. But since it looks a bit like a misty-eyed audiophile praising the ' heat & of your tube amp, I'll be a little more specific. Here are the five features of the X100V that make it a better street photography ally than my iPhone 11 Pro (and some areas where it still doesn't do).
The special sauce X100V
Like many flagship phones today, the iPhone 11 Pro is a brilliant pocket-sized camera. But for those who want to make photography their creative hobby, rather than just a way to record their lives, dedicated cameras like the Fujifilm X100V can offer five features that make them superior tools for creative capture. daily. These are: a viewfinder (to help you compose photos in direct sunlight), a tilting screen (so you can frame photos from high and low angles), a large sensor (to preserve image quality without the need to overlap photos). stones), weather resistance, and finally much more comfortable handling than holding a shiny rectangle. The best thing about the X100V is that, for the first time, it now offers all five in one camera that slips into a large jacket pocket. In this sense, it is unique. As we'll see below, this isn't a perfect camera (which doesn't exist), but it is one that knows exactly what it is, a super-desirable street or travel companion, and doubles those benefits. For me, the game changer on the X100V is its tilting screen. This is something that is otherwise excellent Panasonic LX100 II - another version of ' large compact sensor ' Unfortunately gone. It's also something that's hard to add to a smartphone. The advantage is being able to take photos at ground level which can really add an impression of drama to a scene, or easily take photos above crowds. It doesn't sound great, but it's hard to go back once you're used to it, and the brightness of the X100V's screen is that it's completely flush with the back of the X100V. The camera is folded up, making it virtually invisible when you don't need it. Another big plus on my iPhone 11 Pro is the hybrid viewfinder. It's not huge compared to larger cameras, but it's certainly big enough to wear comfortably during times when the sun is shining and you don't want to squint at a screen. The improved resolution of 3.69 million dots is also useful. Although the hybrid aspect of the viewfinder, you can switch between a traditional optical viewfinder and the EVF using the switch on the front, is something new, the EVF is big. bonus compared to shooting on a smartphone Although I think comfortable handling, a viewfinder, and a tilting screen are all great things to have in an amateur photography camera, some of the other ' advantages & apos; of the Fujifilm X100V on smartphones like the iPhone 11 Pro are more to personal taste. One of them is the dials and manual controls. At this point, it seems fair to acknowledge that the iPhone 11 Pro is now much more than just a compact camera. Apps like Halide have successfully reinvented manual camera controls for buttonless touchscreen panels, features like exposure, shutter speed, ISO, and even focus are at your fingertips. But feel like taking out my iPhone for an afternoon of aimlessly wandering around London, like I did with the X100V?The case against
Of course, every camera is a compromise, and the main limitation of the X100V is that it has a 23mm f/2 fixed lens. That's true, just like we have phones with 10x optical zoom, Fujifilm releases a €1399 camera. 1299 / €50 with a fixed focal length. But wait! One of the most common tips for developing your photography skills is to shoot with a prime lens, as it requires you to be more creative with your composition and exposure. And while I've sometimes wanted the range of a 100mm equivalent, the X23V 2mm f/XNUMX lens—which appears to be sharper than its predecessors when shooting wide open—in fact, offers some useful limitations for creative shooting on the street.
For me, the biggest drawback of the X100V compared to my iPhone 11 Pro is the latter's latest connectivity and in-camera processing options. From a traditional camera perspective, there doesn't seem to be much else Fujifilm could have added to the X100V. But when you look at it in the context of the smartphone revolution, the X100V can still give the impression that it belongs to another era. For example, the long-awaited Zeiss ZX1 offered at least the promise of Adobe Lightroom built into a high-end compact camera. Where are the basic camera editing options or the X100's iPhone-style night mode for a quick Instagram-ready photo? To be fair, the X100V has a new HDR mode built right into the camera, as well as Fujifilm's fantastic range of film simulations, which can be a great starting point (and end point). for your photo editing. But it's unlikely that standalone cameras like this will be jumping on the bandwagon anytime soon, given how much Google and Apple have poured into helping phones push their physical limits. Maybe they never will, but that doesn't mean you won't miss out on the immediacy and flexibility of your phone sometimes.
Despite all this, and a few other visually annoying quirks, like the need to add an optional adapter and filter to make it weatherproof, the Fujifilm X100F is so far one of the best street photography cameras I've ever used and a superior tool to my iPhone 11 Pro when used in this context. Autofocus seems quicker than its predecessors, and it's a good camera that makes strangers really attractive rather than, in the case of DSLRs, reverting. One person even reached out to me asking questions about the camera and their taken photo. Of course, the X100V isn't a replacement for taking photos with my iPhone 11 Pro, and it's far from a versatile travel device. But it's a great blueprint for how cameras can thrive in a rapidly changing world of smartphones.
- These are the best camera phones in the world right now
- Or discover the best compact cameras you can buy
- Read our detailed article: Fujifilm X100V