Ray Sachs
Legend
- Location
- Not too far from Philly
- Name
- you should be able to figure it out...
I'm not a religious man. Never have been. But IF there's a god of photography, he or she definitely seems to have a plan in mind for me.... So I'm in NYC, camera shop capital of the Western World. I stopped into both Adorama and B&H just to have a look around. In both shops I asked if they might have a floor sample of the X-Pro 1 that I could take a look at. The guy at Adorama was all but rude - a few cameras have trickled in and gone right out in pre-orders and its gonna be a while before they have one on the floor. Same story at B&H but they haven't gotten any in yet (as of yesterday) and he was at least good natured with me. OK, good. I don't want one. I have an EM5 on pre-order and all logic suggests its the better camera for me. And I know that if one of those shops happened to have one available, I'd probably buy it ANYWAY. Figuring I could sell it if I didn't really like it. I think there will be a pretty active market for these for a while. So, I'd been saved from my foolishness. Right?
So this morning I took a walk through the Village and Washington Square Park and then Uniion Square Park and then my feet were kind of aching from walking forever yesterday, so I hung a left on 17th to start heading back to my place on 19th. And there, within a block of making that left, there I see 17th St. Photo. I've bought a couple of things from them I think so I stopped in to take a short break, if nothing else. I saw their Fuji display - they had an X100, and X10, an XS1, and a bunch of point and shoots, but no X-Pro, as I fully expected. So I hung out and checked out some of their other stuff briefly and the as I was about to walk out the door, the sales guy said "hey, sorry we're so busy - can I help you with anything". Then he spied the GXR hanging around my neck and asked a couple of questions about it. Anyway, then I mentioned that I was half hoping they might have a floor model of the X-Pro 1 just to take a look at. He laughed and said, that they'd just gotten their first one this morning and it was already gone - a guy who'd been wanting one and called them daily and came in and snapped it up literally as soon as it showed up. And then he said, "let me go see when we're expecting more" and disappeared. He was gone for a few minutes and I was about to take off when he shows up with a big box in his hands. And in it was an X-Pro 1, and a 35 and 18mm lens. "I was wrong - we got two". And I said, "WHOA, youre kidding - this one is spoken for by a pre-order, right"? We don't do formal pre-orders he says, we just sort of keep an informal list, and since you're standing here, you're first in that line today.
So, you know the rest. I dug out the plastic. I had almost enough in my camera slush fund to cover it and put the last few hundred on plastic. And I walked out of 17th St. Photo with an X-Pro 1. Figuring, as before, that if I was right and its really not the right camera for me, I'll be able to sell it pretty easily for little or no loss. He even had extra batteries for it, so I grabbed one of those too. So, I've had a quick play now and it feels about like I expcted. The first time I picked it up it felt big. The second time it didn't. The AF seems fine - not EP3 / EPL3 fine, but fine. The menus and quick menu are really nice compared to the X-100. The auto ISO options are right there on the ISO menu where they belong! And the diopter works fine with my glasses so I don't have to go hunt down a lens for it. In fact I took the rear lens off which allows me to get my glasses right up to it, a bit closer.
Needless to say, I cancelled my EM5 pre-order as soon as I got back to my place. And I guess I'll be shooting a lot with the X-Pro 1 for this New York April... As I was reminded yesterday, the EPL3 is all the street camera I could ever want from m43 and I'll still have it for shooting in decent light. And in low light, as good as the EM5 will be, it isn't gonna be as good as the X-Pro. See, I'm rationalizing it already!
This was not supposed to happen. But it seems as though it WAS supposed to happen because it did. And now I'm just kind of shaking my head in minor disbelief. So now I'll be turning even BETTER files into grainy B&W at the first opportunity!
-Ray
So this morning I took a walk through the Village and Washington Square Park and then Uniion Square Park and then my feet were kind of aching from walking forever yesterday, so I hung a left on 17th to start heading back to my place on 19th. And there, within a block of making that left, there I see 17th St. Photo. I've bought a couple of things from them I think so I stopped in to take a short break, if nothing else. I saw their Fuji display - they had an X100, and X10, an XS1, and a bunch of point and shoots, but no X-Pro, as I fully expected. So I hung out and checked out some of their other stuff briefly and the as I was about to walk out the door, the sales guy said "hey, sorry we're so busy - can I help you with anything". Then he spied the GXR hanging around my neck and asked a couple of questions about it. Anyway, then I mentioned that I was half hoping they might have a floor model of the X-Pro 1 just to take a look at. He laughed and said, that they'd just gotten their first one this morning and it was already gone - a guy who'd been wanting one and called them daily and came in and snapped it up literally as soon as it showed up. And then he said, "let me go see when we're expecting more" and disappeared. He was gone for a few minutes and I was about to take off when he shows up with a big box in his hands. And in it was an X-Pro 1, and a 35 and 18mm lens. "I was wrong - we got two". And I said, "WHOA, youre kidding - this one is spoken for by a pre-order, right"? We don't do formal pre-orders he says, we just sort of keep an informal list, and since you're standing here, you're first in that line today.
So, you know the rest. I dug out the plastic. I had almost enough in my camera slush fund to cover it and put the last few hundred on plastic. And I walked out of 17th St. Photo with an X-Pro 1. Figuring, as before, that if I was right and its really not the right camera for me, I'll be able to sell it pretty easily for little or no loss. He even had extra batteries for it, so I grabbed one of those too. So, I've had a quick play now and it feels about like I expcted. The first time I picked it up it felt big. The second time it didn't. The AF seems fine - not EP3 / EPL3 fine, but fine. The menus and quick menu are really nice compared to the X-100. The auto ISO options are right there on the ISO menu where they belong! And the diopter works fine with my glasses so I don't have to go hunt down a lens for it. In fact I took the rear lens off which allows me to get my glasses right up to it, a bit closer.
Needless to say, I cancelled my EM5 pre-order as soon as I got back to my place. And I guess I'll be shooting a lot with the X-Pro 1 for this New York April... As I was reminded yesterday, the EPL3 is all the street camera I could ever want from m43 and I'll still have it for shooting in decent light. And in low light, as good as the EM5 will be, it isn't gonna be as good as the X-Pro. See, I'm rationalizing it already!
This was not supposed to happen. But it seems as though it WAS supposed to happen because it did. And now I'm just kind of shaking my head in minor disbelief. So now I'll be turning even BETTER files into grainy B&W at the first opportunity!
-Ray