Living with the Fuji X-Pro 1

There are many influences that make people hand over cash for a Fuji X-Pro 1. There are those seeking lighter weight. Those looking for retro. Those perhaps even first time buyers seduced by good advertising. For a while in the media it was 'the second camera to have'. the world and his brother seemed to have bought one.

For a substantial proportion of the camera buying public, it was the nearest thing we might ever get to a Leica M series. There were similarities all over even down to the launch with just three primes. I think I was somewhere between all of these. I've owned an X-Pro 1 for about 18 months - there are positives and negatives. the size and weight allowed an entire kit to be carried in a small shoulder bag and a day in Venice was possible without shoulder pain or moaning. The quality of the results suggested no compromise was being made. It was a pleasure to use, feeling good in the hand. However there were some aspects that provided a bit more of a challenge given the way I work.

• I'm not certain of the order or priority but the following issues affected me in some way. The USP of a traditional cable release has the downside that there is then no way of using a timer for long exposures. You have to fire the shutter, lock the cable and watch the seconds on the screen and release manually. For most it doesn't matter a hoot but for those of us who make long exposures, it is an added complication.

• I do find the viewfinder most useful in RVF mode in order to allow precise composition but still feel it is difficult to assess accurately. No dioptre adjustment is certainly a factor in this.

• The Q menu button is REALLY easy to hit, real pain.

• The camera goes too far to sleep. The recovery is so slow that it becomes quicker to switch it off and back on again rather than wait for the wake up.

Even with these niggles it is a great camera and still a pleasure to use. Watching how the s/h price is dropping through the floor, it becomes an absolute steal on the used market.

DX to Mirrorless CSC

My 'main' camera is a Nikon D800. It is now outdated and superseded by the D810; I don't have any plan to update it in the next year and probably not the year after that. Along with the 16-35mm and the 70-200mm, I usually carry my 50mm lens. None of them heavyweight but together I know they are in the bag. For some years I carried a Nikon DX format camera when weight was critical. A D3200, 18-55mm and 55-200mm seemed to weight almost nothing in comparison. The image quality was beyond real criticism in my opinion. Of course (since they performed perfectly...) I allowed myself to be seduced into a change. I sold the DX stuff and invested in a Fuji X-Pro1 and a few lenses.Is there a dramatic leap in the quality of the pictures? No. Do I enjoy using it? Oh yes. There is a great feel to the camera and lenses. Increasingly even Nikon's top end lenses and camera seem to be covered in plastic. The Fuji stuff just feels good. As a lightweight kit it works really well and makes a huge difference if a very long day is planned. The optical quality is high, reliability so far is fine but there are, shall we say, some idiosyncrasies.