You may recall recently I whined about my then new Fujifilm X-E1 for a number of reasons.
But in spite of that, it had many of the features I wanted in a camera, dedicated large knobs for shutter speed, aperture and exposure compensation and a quiet shutter. An ISO knob would have been handy but I can live without it.
I have also been trying to make a street shooting rig out of one of my cameras, and decided the Fuji would do the best job, because it has Auto ISO and the upper and lower range can be specified and set.
I think this is a great feature because I can set the shutter speed and aperture I want and let the camera do it's thing, or I can just go back to fully manual if I want.
The Fuji has a horrible front grip which caused my fat fingers to mash other buttons on the rear unintentionally, so I added a 3rd party grip, which is made of an aluminium alloy and is consequently light, which I'm very happy with.
The EVF eyecup is non existent from the point of view of shading external light from my eyes, so I bought a generic multiple eyecup set from ebay for very little money and rigged it to fit over the existing eyecup. That problem is now solved and shooting toward the sun is no longer impeded by stray bright light that washes out the EVF image.
I also wanted a 35mm (equivalent) manual lens and settled on an available (on ebay) Nikon mount Sigma Super – Wide II 1:2.8 f=24mm Multi Coated FX which is one of their better lenses of the era. This focal length lens is not so wide as to distort, but wide enough for accurate zone focusing and a goodly angle of view.
The camera was ready to go, so I took it out on an outing and found all my shots were 'leaning' to the right, because I 'shoot from the hip' which is my preferred method. (I shoot this way because I want the subject to be natural and unposed, and also nowadays people can react with suspicion and/or violence when a camera is aimed in their direction. It's just easier).
I was managing to get the subject where I wanted them in the frame, but my judgement of levelling on two planes was sucky to say the least. I bought a little hot shoe mounted circular spirit level and tried it out this afternoon, it works great and my shots are level once more.
So, Fujifilm X-E1, I forgive you for your past sins and accept that we aren't all perfect.
Amen.
