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There has been a bit of comment around this forum about this new camera. I have had my eye on its arrival, because I have tried and failed to find a relatively decent pocket-sized camera for a while. Will this do the trick? (I hope so, but if it doesn't, keep your eyes on the For Sale section! )

Here are the first images, apart from those required to set up the camera. I took them on my morning walk today.








The first three pix are straight OOC jpegs apart from some cropping. The camera will shoot Raw, but Adobe hasn't yet updated its Raw converter for this camera. I don't know why manufacturers don't use the DNG format which would make cameras cheaper, surely. From all reports the Fujifilm Raw converter is a dog, so I'm not going to mess with it. The last image has had a simple B&W conversion in SilverEfex Pro.

The X10 is small enough to fit in my pocket. The settings are pretty straight-forward with plenty of manual options. The dials are easy to read and have a nice positive action - not sloppy at all. The in-camera menu is not quite as intuitive, but you get there in the end. I love the metal lens cap. Beware, there is a lens hood available, but it is $79! (I didn't buy it.)

One of the reasons that I was interested in this camera was the optical viewfinder, a must-have item for me. This one is pretty good, but there are a couple of shortcomings. Firstly, it is a rangefinder, so there can be parallax error, particularly at short range, where you might be better off composing and shooting at arm's length. (Shudder.) Secondly, there is no focus point visible in the viewfinder. You can set this on the LCD, so I didn't have too much trouble. But I did try to snap a rowing crew as they came past and missed the focus, so it will be one aspect to watch. The rangefinder does zoom in and out with the lens, unlike the Panasonic LX3 that I had.

The lens is a 28 to 112 mm f2.0 - 2.8. Plenty of light. You turn the camera on by twisting the zoom, which is manually operated at shooting time too. The camera starts really quickly, especially for this type.

I am more than happy with the jpeg output. Sharpness is pretty good, noise is virtually non-existent. I have taken a couple of indoor shots at higher ISO and they were fine. The camera doesn't let you turn off sharpening and noise reduction - you can only go down to low. I have left them on the default, which is medium.

Colour rendition is also fine (set at Auto WB), although as you would expect with jpegs, a little tweaked.

So far so good. Is it perfect? No. But neither is my D700. I think that it will handle the job for which I bought it. I would have liked an articulated screen, I would have liked the zoom a little wider at the bottom end. But apart from these points and the couple mentioned earlier, I think it is a reasonable fit for me.

It is great to see some actual images from the X10. I am not sure I would class this little beastie as "pocketable" due to the protrusion of the lens (much more protruding than others in the category), but the image quality does look great. I am curently on a uncalibrated lab computer so I cannot trust myself to comment on the colours, so I will revisit this when I get home onto a calibrated screen (but using Google Chrome you may have to take my colour comments with a grain of salt...but then again isnt this a sRGB camera?).

Enjoy your new toy Trevor!

aim54x wrote:but then again isnt this a sRGB camera?).

Enjoy your new toy Trevor!

No. You can (and I have) set it to Adobe RGB as well.

These images were converted to sRGB at upload, however.

aim54x wrote:I am not sure I would class this little beastie as "pocketable" due to the protrusion of the lens

I carried it in the pocket of my shorts for a five km walk. The lens does protrude a bit, thereby earning me losts of smiles from females walking in the other direction.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the X10, good timing too i must say. I am seemingly impressed with the colors you've captured in these shots, i look forward to seeing some more in the future. I still can't make up my mind what I want, what are your plans with the lx3? lol enjoy!

bigsarg7 wrote: I still can't make up my mind what I want, what are your plans with the lx3? lol enjoy!

Sorry - already sold via this forum!

the foto fanatic wrote:

aim54x wrote:but then again isnt this a sRGB camera?).

Enjoy your new toy Trevor!

No. You can (and I have) set it to Adobe RGB as well.

These images were converted to sRGB at upload, however.

That is nice to give you the option to go to AdobeRGB, and it makes sense that it does due to the target market. Conversion to sRGB means your inline with the mainstream for your chosen display mode (ie the internet)

aim54x wrote:I am not sure I would class this little beastie as "pocketable" due to the protrusion of the lens

I carried it in the pocket of my shorts for a five km walk. The lens does protrude a bit, thereby earning me losts of smiles from females walking in the other direction.

You would have gotten more smiles if you had paid the extortionate amount for the lens hood!

the foto fanatic wrote:I carried it in the pocket of my shorts for a five km walk. The lens does protrude a bit, thereby earning me losts of smiles from females walking in the other direction.

I presume they were impressed with your 112 mm? (or was it a cold 28 mm?)

The pictures look of reasonable quality. If the camera
does what you want it to do, then it would have been
a good purchase. We tend to forget the best equipment
is the one that is available when you need it and does
the job it is designed to do. Happy snapping!

I've handled one of these babies and I was impressed with the build quality, F2.8 lens and hand fit. Fuji optics are always high quality and I think the design team at Fuji are world class. Hoping for a X100 with interchangable leica -mount lens. Now that would be an attention grabber! Don't be suprised! Enjoy your photography with your new camera.

It's on its way. One rumour said due January but may not be true. Sensor size somewhere between DX and FX. I even saw a few pictures somewhere recently.

Matt. K wrote:Hoping for a X100 with interchangable leica -mount lens. Now that would be an attention grabber! Don't be suprised!

We were thinking about this and thought...what about the Fuji TX/Hasselblad XPan mount? small mount, small lenses and recommencing + ramping up production of the existing lenses as well as adding to the collection couldnt be too far of a stretch. Going to Leica M only compounds the lens situation and net's less $$ for Fuji, if they are to limit the range of adpators available for the mount, why not make it something they can control? Else buy into one of the other existing mirrorless system mounts....m4/3?

Murray Foote wrote:It's on its way. One rumour said due January but may not be true. Sensor size somewhere between DX and FX. I even saw a few pictures somewhere recently.

Probably on Mirrorless Rumors

Of interest are comments on another blog, The Online Photographer:

Shigetaka Komori, Fuji CEO, has announced that Fuji will enter the mirrorless interchangeable-lens market by next Spring (2012) with a line of products that will share the "Fujifilm X" nomenclature with its recent fixed-lens cameras the X100 and X10.

Komori-san says that the sensor quality of Fujifilm X mirrorless will exceed that of current full-frame sensors, although its sensor size will likely be smaller than 24x36mm.

Now if he can deliver significantly better sensors and sort out the X menu system, I'll have one please.

Michael

I've just been putting one of these babies, (X10) through it paces and I must say it is a joy to use. So far, picture quality is excellent (JPGs only at this stage). The camera has its foibles but these can easily been worked around. Optics are supurb and as a street camera this is going to become a classic. I'll write a more in-depth review later and posts some pics. This is the camera Nikon should have made.