4. Mike's list, most excellent, makes it sound like a possible PitA (was your SAB the only reason it frustrated you or were there others? Define "quirky")
Ok, let's see how much I can remember.
First, the SAB issue, I have to dwell on it just a bit. Mine failed during a three week trip to Quebec. I did pack a backup camera but it was a big DSLR that I most certainly didn't want to walk around with for a long time. When mine failed the SAB issue was known but it wasn't quite as widely known as it would later become so I was at the time unaware it was failing. During the trip I started to notice erratic exposures that just didn't make sense. Eventually I figured out that the blades were not closing properly when stopped down. I was for a time able to force it to work with on-off recycling and half-shutter presses and a certain among of chanting and voodoo, but eventually it became a soft focus single lens single focal length single aperture (f/2) camera for the balance of the trip. This was a major PITA but at least I had a backup camera, although unlike the X100 the backup did not get carried everywhere.
SAB affects cameras as they get used. If you have a camera with 5,000 exposures on it and no SAB, you might just have won the SAB lottery. 2,500 - 5000 with no problems? Chances are still high you've got a winner. If your camera has only 500-1000 exposures on it, and it has an early serial number, then you don't know if you've won or lost. Again apparently 21X series numbers are "OK". Yay.
Ok, moving on, never to talk about SAB in this thread again... please remember that some of the issues I had with the camera may now be addressed by more recent firmware. Here's a list of changes:
Firmware for FinePix X100 | Fujifilm Global
1.
Auto-ISO was buried in a submenu not accessible directly as part of the ISO menu; switching between the two necessitated menu diving, or assigning the function to a user definable function button/
2.
Max shutter speed of 1/1000 when aperture is wide open means you often need to access the built in neutral density filter. This requires menu diving or assigning the toggle to a user definable function button.
3. Until V1.20, there was only one
user definable function button.
- segue -
While in Quebec I was shooting in and out of doors all the time. When entering a historic building I'd often need to disable the ND filter and sometimes enable Auto ISO. When outdoors usually I'd be at base ISO.
Walking in and out of churches and other historic buildings I found it a bit maddening how much menu diving I had to do in order to simply ready the camera for current conditions. It seemed like I was always moving from bright exterior to dim interiors and back and it felt like I was doing lot of
menu diving.
While it is easy to assign a function to a button, there was at the time only one user definable function button, but a quite useless "RAW" button on the back panel that we users implored Fujifilm to allow us to re-define. This was *finally* provided for in V1.20 of the firmware, long after I sold my camera.
Two user definable function buttons might be enough for many; one certainly was not.
4.
Autofocus - relatively slow but not unusable. Depends on subject. When it works it is accurate. When it doesn't it is maddening, leading to...
5.
Manual focus - long time users who get the camera often will say that if you use the camera as it is intended - as an autofocus camera - you'll get more joy out of it. I agree with that... provided what one shoots is suitable for the X100's autofocus, it works very very well. Manual focus was provided as something of an afterthought, I believe. The fly by wire focus was interminably slow, requiring so much focus ring turning that it just wasn't practical.
My work around was to use the AFL button to use AF to manually focus on a spot, much like I often use the same feature on a DSLR to pick a focus spot and re-compose. This worked fairly well except that the focus area got larger rather than smaller and sometimes this led to focus errors. I'm not sure if this has been fixed.
Once you've got the lens to focus on the area of interest with AFL - Manual Focus on, if you have time to tweak the focus ring could be used; there are no focus aides other than magnification though, so you need to switch to the EVF and hope that the magnified view is enough. I found this not to be the case often enough as the EVF is not up to the current state of the art and for that matter I think all EVF cameras ought to implement focus peaking as an additional aide as I find peaking very helpful.
6. Like many I shoot aperture priority much of the time. While I like the
on-lens aperture ring, the design of it makes it more difficult to operate than virtually any other camera I own. Maybe it is just my hands - too big or too small, not sure. The ring sits very close to the body and has protrusions. I wish it sat out a bit and was easier to turn. A small flaw although it sticks in my mind so maybe not so small for some.
7. The firmware / camera is a bit
sluggish. Trying to access the menu while the camera is writing to the card can sometimes result in a locked up camera - popping the battery is the solution to this. Card write times are nothing to write home about.
Spray and pray shooters - this isn't the camera for you!
8.
Optical / Electronic Hybrid finder - I like this quite a bit and the OVF was one reason I bought the camera... in fact waited for a maker (other than Leica) to produce such a camera - one with a larger sensor and high IQ.
In practice I found I used the EVF more often than not simply because the framing is accurate as opposed to the OVF where framing is always approximate and quite loose depending on where the subject is. Still it is nice to have the choice and an OVF is very handy for shooting subjects as they enter the frame whereas the EVF doesn't offer any advance warning help there. If you can shoot such a camera with your right eye, then you have options. I can't... I'm doomed to be a left eye shooter forever.
The EVF/OVF has a built in diopter adjustment. Yay.
The EVF gets very noisy as light levels go down. Still usable, but not usable in my experience for manual focus. The EVF suffers from lag.
9.
Lag - some of this has been addressed by firmware, and some of this can be worked around.
The lens did (has this fully been addressed in recent firmware?) something affectionately (or not) known as the Happy Aperture Dance. While you are using the camera the aperture blades are in constant motion or at least are as you move the aim point over your subject. This affects the WYSIWYG view through the EVF of course because... the aperture isn't necessarily at the currently set shooting aperture.
The work around: half shutter press stops the dance and if i recall correctly gives you the WYSIWYG view as far as depth of field. Half shutter press reduces what would be significant lag-to-exposure to near no lag as it should be.
10.
Only full stops on aperture ring. Yes I'm a creature of habit. While there is a work around using the command dial, to me this made the aperture ring a little less useful. Why not do it right and allow at least 1/2 stops if not 1/3 be selected on the ring as they should be? A small annoyance in practice. But. Still.
11.
Flare. I don't want to make a big deal of this other than to implore you to get a hood, and if you do use a filter up front, make sure it's a really good multicoated type.
It seems not all are bothered by flare on the X100 but I found the my X100's Fujinon lens to be more susceptible to veiling flare during the day. A hood is necessary. It may be that the lens is more susceptible to flare when the neutral density filter is engaged, but I never specifically tested that having only realized this might be a factor afterwards.
Others report night time point light flare oddities. Your mileage may vary.
A great many others report no flare problems at all. I don't know what to make of that - it could be my copy was bad, although the replacement lens assembly did nothing to change how my camera acted in this regard.
It could also be my expectations were higher based on experience with other lenses. My more modern Zeiss lenses mostly handle flare prone situations with ease and they are known for this.
I'd be very interested in the opinions of active shooters here since this is much less of a gear forum where people beat their chest over "their" brand. I'm prepared to accept that I might have had a bad copy X2 of the lens.
Summary
I waited for a camera like the X100 to appear before diving into digital in a significant way. Before I was mostly shooting film. What I've learned is that what I thought would be most important to me - an optical finder - has turned out not to be as important as I thought. Since selling the X100 I've owned two different electronic finder only cameras, the NEX-5N and the GXR, so apparently for me - a long time film shooter who thought optical finders were the only way to go - an EVF is just fine.
IQ of the X100, when not suffering from SAB problems, is great. Files are nice to work with. The sensor is a bit dated now... an X200 with a 16MP sensor would be nice. Noise performance is very good - I wish the GXR/M were as good. I miss the NEX-5N in that regard just a little bit more.
Most of the issues I had with the camera were with the user interface when I wanted to work quickly in changing conditions. Some of the firmware improvements go a long way to addressing those issues. I really wish I'd had the latest firmware when I bought mine... who knows, I might have still been using the camera today.
As for a fixed lens fixed focal length camera - I did not find this to be a problem at all. My 35mm film camera almost always had a 35mm lens mounted. Thanks to Lightroom and data gleaned from the last two years of images, I've come to realize through statistics that most of my lenses sit idle. What gets used the most - 90% of the time - is my Zeiss 25mm that I use on APS-C cameras like NEX and GXR.
This bit of data has helped me come to a conclusion - I'm trimming way back.
I've also found that I miss having autofocus on a camera I always have with me.
I wish Fujifilm had announced an update to the X100 with the same field of view, or a 35mm full frame version like the Sony RX1. I do believe I'd give Fujifilm another try if they do either.