With the release of the Fujifilm XE-5 I thought I’d dig out my XE-2 and see if I’m due an upgrade
The launch of the Fujifilm XE-5 is the most exciting camera release I’ve seen in a few years. As a late-comer to the XE series, I instantly fell in love with the XE-2 as a photo-centric camera. Yes, a lot of the hype is true, there is something about Fujifilm cameras that connect you to the photography process that other cameras can leave you a little cold. I often get more fun shooting with this diminutive APS-C camera than I do with my Sony A7C. I’ve discussed this before, but of all the cameras I’ve owned, only a handful actually get me excited about the shooting process (other cameras include the Rollei 35, the Olympus OMD EM5 and the Zeiss Super Ikonta, to name a few and to prove how it’s difficult to say exactly why this is the case). My Sony has its place, it’s a beast in low-light photograpy and great for adapting legacy lenses, but I’ve been keenly watching the XE series develop as I love their size. I toyed with getting the XE-4, but its lack of controls and any kind of grip put me off.
Of course I don’t need another camera, but my issue with one of the smallest full-frame interchangeable lens cameras, my Sony A7C, is that even with a ‘pancake’ lens, it’s still bulky. I put ‘pancake’ in inverted commas because there doesn’t exist a true pancake lens for the Sony E mount. While Canon and Nikon have a couple in their arsenal, Sony doesn’t. This has something to do with the difference in distance between the mount and the sensor of Sony cameras, so the chances of ever getting a true pancake are pretty much non-existent. Because of this I am always window-shopping, and have even caught myself eyeing up some of the smaller Nikon models as a travel camera alternative.
I enjoy black and white photography. I don’t do it often but I do love looking at the world in shadows and highlights. I’ve run a fair few rolls of black and white through my film cameras and, if I’m honest, it’s a financial hindrance, preventing me from doing it more often. I’m in love with the romance of film photography but from a practical point of view it’s not really happening. Wouldn’t it be fun to have a digital camera specifically for black and white photography? With Fujifilm cameras, our options are vast, not only with film simulations but the ability to create our own recipes to get a specific look. That idea appeals to me. If it can be done in-camera, even better.
I dug out my XE-2s, which has been sitting in storage, for a little one-hour photography project around Staniland Marina in South Yorkshire. I wanted to shoot some straight-out-the-camera black and white jpegs.
It turned out the internal battery had died so I lost all my previous settings and I ended up shooting jpeg only with no RAW back-up. Not really a big deal since that was the point of the exercise, although I got a few ISO settings wrong on the initial images. Whatever, all of these are straight out the camera. I tried playing with the ‘auto’ button in Adobe Camera Raw, which introduced greater dynamic range in the shadows, but I prefer the look Fujifilm gives in-camera.
The XE2’s auto-focus isn’t the fastest, but for stills like this series of photographs that doesn’t matter. It has a limited number of Fujifilm film simulations and no option to create your own recipes. What I would like is the ability to take this camera into the street and take some fast-action photographs using a decent auto-focus with my own recipe. I already have in mind the look I’m after. A few years back I shot a roll of Bellamy Hunt’s Street Pan 400 on one of my Leica’s and instantly fell in love with the inky blacks it produced (I should write a blog post on that experience). I’d love to replicate that experience using a format where I wasn’t restricted by the labour-intensive film experience, limited exposures and cost.
What am I saying? That I’d like to get my hands on the new XE-5 to achieve all this? You bet!