Prime mover
Indeed, there’s no meaningful distinction between ISO 100 and ISO 1600 when looking at the full image. Even zoomed in, a tiny amount of speckling is all you get. Push things further – and shoot with the X100’s topmost, expanded ISO setting of 12,800 – noise was tightly controlled, although the final image was relatively soft.
Threaded shutter release button allows cable accessories of old to be used.
It has to be said that it is disappointing that the lens can’t be changed. On a camera this expensive, the ability to use a reasonable telephoto or wide-angle lens would be appreciated. Still, if you’re going to be stuck with a single optic, it may as well be one as good as the 23mm, f/2 prime lens on the front of the X100.
There’s no barrel distortion to speak of, and it’s impressively sharp, even wide-open. The only trouble is the technical difficulty of getting sharp frames from such a huge aperture. The lack of zoom or interchangeability could even be seen as a good thing – the only way to change the composition of your shots is to move your feet, making the X100 perhaps the only camera on the market that forces photographers into good habits.
Performance, unfortunately, is very mixed. In normal use, shooting JPEGs, the X100 is handy. It starts in just over two seconds, and recovery time between shots is under a second, even in RAW mode. But, while the X100 claims a maximum continuous shooting speed of 5fps, and actually delivered slightly faster (5.6fps) against a stopwatch, this was followed by a digestion period of a little over ten seconds – not much good if things are unfolding in front of you.
Next page: Compact case
COMMENTS
ISO tests
The ISO 6400 image is about 1.5 stops underexposed compared to the others, and therefore can't be used for comparison because if you boost it to the same exposure it will be an effective ISO ~18000. What happened there?
'(and watching, for trainspotters)'
Oi! I'll have you know there is nothing at all wrong with appreciating a well-designed iris! At worst, it's *certainly* not up to the level of social deviance involved in sitting in a bush all day with a pencil, a notepad, and a stopwatch.
It's made for me!
I still shoot rangefinders with film and mostly with a 35mm lens.
When I want to shoot machine gun style, I have access to Canon 1D bodies, but even my slow 5D is enough for what I want to take pictures of.
This beast ist what I longed for, OK, exchangeable lenses would be a boon. But I happily trade a very good fixed 63° f2 lens for a very reasonable viewfinder and controls I can set without taking the camera from my eye.
The price is high, but where do I get a digital camera which handles like my trusty M2 for less than that?
Re: I miss my manual SLR
Not that SLRs are on topic at all, but you do realise you can operate a DSLR in full manual mode... right?
I miss my manual SLR
One of the advantages of manual cams that the full-auto brigade seem to have overlooked is that a manual cam can be prepped for a series of shots before the action starts. When the time comes you can then raise the camera and shoot in one motion, the only delay being your own reflexes.
What's more, you can lower the camera and then raise it again without losing your settings.
Meanwhile the full-auto cam user is frantically trying to get the focus, zoom and exposure back to exactly where they were a few seconds ago ....and misses the shot.
