This weekend was the first opportunity i had to take out and field test the Fujifilm X-Pro 1 i got not too long ago with hopes in transitioning to this camera as my family and travel camera so i didn’t have to carry my 5D with me everywhere. Since Chloe had never been to the National Gallery of Art and we always wanted to see how she would react to the light bridge and the artwork in the museum we decided to go there for the field test. When i shoot with my 5D i’m always using full manual mode and i have been shooting like that for years. It definitely require more thought but the control is what i like about using full manual mode. The X-Pro 1 wasn’t intended to be shot in full manual mode so that was the first thing i had to get use to. I guess it’s nice to only have to think about composition and nothing else. The OVF, although great to have because it gives that immediate visual of what you are shooting, i still found myself switching to the EVF before actually releasing the shutter because i wanted to make sure the focus was set on the correct subject and that i was getting exactly the composition that i wanted. I found the low light performance pretty good for a compact camera but because the 5D performs so well in low light i’m a little spoiled when it comes to that standard. I think the Fujifilm RAW files generally have a little more grain then the Canon RAW files which is not a bad thing in my opinion and just gives that final exposure that extra bit of character. However, i found that when the ISO got up to 3200 or higher the grain level was a little too much for my tastes. Generally, the biggest complaint i keep reading about this camera is the slowness of the AF but i think the most recent firmware did a good job fixing that issue and i didn’t find it difficult to get proper focus. This was only the first time i got a chance to shoot with it but i’m actually enjoying using the camera and pretty pleased with the image quality so far.
