No, not another review of the Fuji X100s. Just some real life examples that confirmed why I bought the camera to begin with. This series includes my father-in-law’s old barn. This was used to house equipment for their small farm from his childhood. There was an old red Cub tractor that was sold several years ago before I shot photographs of it. Let that be a lesson – if the urge strikes, shoot the image. You can always delete it, but rarely can you capture the moment again. Anyway, the draw here was to test the higher ISO’s of the X100s. There are clearly highlights from the light through the slats of the barn. There are shadows of varying temperatures and lots of dynamic shades or tones.
my father-in-law’s barn.
First though, let’s start with what drew me most to the X100s. Coming from using Leica now for over 10 years, the X100s has way too many options. However, I can choose what I want and it is probably hidden in there somewhere. My short list for making the choice to carry the X100s with my Leica M9P and the Monochrom was this:
- Very, very good lens (in comparison to Lecia glass, otherwise exceptionally outstanding) with good f/stop range.
- Easy to adjust manual controls for shutter speed, f/stop and exposure adjustment.
- Random color pixels to avoid moire and provide pleasing digital grain.
- Strong high ISO results.
- Strong JPEG results.
Each of the images here was shot using ISO 3200 with no post-processing (except for one or two where I adjusted the tint and / or temperature by less than +/- 5 in Lightroom). Each of these images is also a JPEG straight from the camera. Note that a small amount of sharpening is used, but my belief is that all images should be sharpened for their intended use – viewing or printing. Many purists believe that a JPEG is no match for a RAW image. I would suggest that a perfectly exposed JPEG in the 16 megapixel range would provide superb results when printing at the same large sizes that a 16 megapixel RAW image provides. That test will be done another day.
For now, here are my results and I am quite happy with them. Click on them for larger views.
my father-in-law’s barn.
my father-in-law’s barn.
my father-in-law’s barn.
my father-in-law’s barn.
my father-in-law’s barn.
my father-in-law’s barn.
my father-in-law’s barn.