Firstly, this blog had its two thousandth visitor recently. A nice little milestone, so thank you to everyone who reads the posts. Two thousand is what some photo blogs get in a week, but I'm happy to get that many over time. 

I was browsing a local camera store with nothing particular in mind, when I saw the new Fuji X100s sitting seductively in a display case. This was a demo model, i.e. one that had been used for testing, and was accordingly reduced in price. Reduced quite a bit, in fact. I idly speculated if it would work out as a more or less price-for-price trade for the D7000 and 28-300 and upon checking with the staff, it was actually very close. It was one of those impulsive things, or semi-impulsive at least, but I couldn't pass up an offer like that. So I've just gone from a DSLR with a 28-300 to a mirrorless with a fixed 35. It was certainly going to change the way I shoot things.

I've used the original X100 before, and I liked it. I had the same problems with it that everyone else did, of course, namely the focusing systems. Auto was slow, and manual was, um, essentially useless, even with firmware upgrades. The word on the net, though, was that Fuji had fixed both AF and MF, as well as tweaking other things on the camera. They'd also given it an upgraded version of the sensor from the X-Pro 1, which I also used. The IQ was quite excellent, but it didn't quite have the same usability factor to me as did the X100. However, if the next version of the X-Pro 1 is as much of an improvement as is the X100s over the X100, it will make for something pretty spectacular.

As for the X100s, though, I have to say that the rumours are accurate. The focusing system on the X100s is now very good. The AF is indeed a bit quicker, but it's the MF which is the revelation. It can now be focused with split imaging or focus peaking, and they both work really nicely, to the extent that it's often more fun to use manual than auto. The new EVF helps too: it is better than the one in the X100 by a fair way. Of course the camera retains the hybrid OVF/EVF, which is a good thing.

Here are some initial shots with it.

The colours are what you would expect from Fuji: awesome. I've been shooting JPEG fine with it, because the JPEGs are so good that they need only a little touch-up from Aperture to be entirely presentable.

I'm not particularly into "street photography" but the X100S seems like a suitable camera. Quiet, small, and now with pretty decent focusing speed.

Nice light

Manual focusing is now a lot more fun. It's quicker and with the split image and peaking options, it's rare to find a situation where you can't focus. You can also magnify it to really nail it.

This was manual as well. Could have done it with auto, of course, but I wasn't in a hurry. The sign wasn't going anywhere.

There are a number of in-camera "film simulation" options, including various black and white versions. This one was, if memory serves, black and white with yellow filter.

This was with the red filter

And this was with the I-can't-remember-which filter

I took this one with the Velvia option, and I had to turn down the saturation a little. It was almost overpowering at first.

More impressive colours

And lastly, some greenery.

Thanks for looking, more to come in due course.