Mastering the Fuji X100

That was fast! Michael Diechtierow's Mastering the Fuji X100 is due out in a matter of days, from Rocky Nook.

It must be frustrating these days for people who write aftermarket camera manuals. You have to work fast, because people want it yesterday and you're competing not only against anyone else who's working on a similar book, but against the internet, which is disorganized and unreliable, but matchless at instant gratification. And then your book better make its bones poste haste, because the life of the product might have a quick span. The arc of interest is steep and perilous.

It doesn't seem to be damping the public's desire for the books, though. Perhaps they're more needed now than ever, because the learning curves for the products are as long as the typical product's life is short. No sooner have you really mastered your last camera than it's time to buy your next.

Rocky Nook is becoming a favorite imprint of mine. They did European photo guru Harold Mante's Photography Unplugged, which is delightful if you like strongly graphic, brightly colorful pictures done well; TOP friend and advertiser Alain Briot's Marketing Fine Art Photography, which has earned many positive responses from photographers; the newly-released Second Edition of Torsten Andreas Hoffmann's The Art of Black and White Photography, which I have here for review (if you look for this one, be careful, as the Second Edition has the same cover as the 2008 First); our friend George Barr's Why Photographs Work: 52 Great Images, Who Made Them, What Makes Them Special and Why, in which George published Gordon Lewis's photograph from a TOP Print Offer; TOP reader and mountaineer Alexandre Buisse's Remote Exposure: A Guide to Hiking and Climbing Photography; and, for large-format film shooters, The Art of Photography: An Approach to Personal Expression by Bruce Barnbaum, who was a Contributing Editor to Photo Techniques when I was Editor there. That's a nice little mini-catalog right there. I haven't seen the new book on the X100 yet, but if Rocky Nook's track record is anything to go by it's likely to be a good bet.

Here are some quick links to the start pages of Amazon U.K., Amazon Germany, and Amazon Canada (you'll have to search for whichever of the above books might interest you). I'll ask Rocky Nook if they'll let me review the book.

Mike

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Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Rod S.: "How timely! I'm a new and enthusiastic purchaser of the X100. After 35mm, two 6x7 systems since 1994, and 4x5 for architecture, the X100 is my first digital camera. I'm enjoying the large viewfinder that allows me to brace the camera against my forehead and the intuitive manual controls. And I like the autofocus! It did take a few days to work out some default settings to keep the technology from intruding, so I look forward to digesting this book. Thank you for the link, Mike."

Mike replies: Even though we've corresponded from time to time, Rod, I don't think I ever realized you didn't have a digital camera. You picked a nice one to begin with.

Featured Comment by Charles Mason: "Well I have to dissent from the Wonderful Camera thought. I had so hoped this would be a simple form digital camera, the Digital Hexar we all wanted. Instead the user interface is overly complicated. So I am not surprised it takes a full length book to explain this almost-ran (in my humble opinion) camera. I do hope they kept the new X-Pro1 simpler, more like the Leica it is going head-to-head with...one can hope anyway!"

Comments

[Martin Doonan]

It's an interesting notion: that of the covers-everything book.
Like Rod (featured comment), I look to new cameras to figure out the few controls I want to photograph the way I want with it. I then ignore the rest.
With so many features, I've resolved to only use the minimum as I can never remember them all.
For someone like me, feature creep like this makes full coverage books even less useful than they used to be.

[mspy review]

The Fuji X100 makes incredible images under every possible condition from daylight to moonlight, and it's the world's smallest real camera

[Bojidar Dimitrov]

Since Harald Mante got mentioned in this post, let me point out that Harald is a very healthy and vital man even with his 76 years of age. He is still teaching workshops on color and serial photography:

- german: http://www.photogether.de/workshops/krea250/

- english: http://www.photogether.de/welcome/

Harald is quite a prominent figure at Rocky Nook and surely plays a role in their increased interest in photography.

[James Poyner]

The holy grail for my personal photography has always been the Perfect Street Camera and, with appropriate fanfare, I can announce that the X100 is as close to perfect as any I've owned. Nimble & intuitive in operation, it is quiet as only a leaf shutter camera can be. It even has a silent stealth option for when 'quiet' isn't enough. I can't venture an opinion on the JPG modes and film simulation options because I shoot only RAW. All major controls are visible in plain view and I use the AF/AE button for single shot AF, sort of quasi-manual. It's quick, I like it and the camera is as direct and simple to use as any film camera I've worked with and decidedly less complicated than any digital. The icing on the cake is its optical viewfinder, with clarity and visibility of information better than Leicas or Hasselblad X-Pan for me (the latter made by Fuji of course). The last Leica I owned was an M4 but there is a review of the M9 on imaging-resource written by reviewers without previous experience or expectations of Leica rangefinders. They remind me why I gave up on simple Leicas.

[Shaun]

After using the X100 for six months, I find the "challenged" interface and menu system are not an issue. You make your initial settings, and then rarely have to descend into most of those menus again. It's an excellent camera, a little slow at start up, but I find the autofocus more than adequate. Set it on auto-iso, pick an aperture and go shooting. The image quality is superb. This manual will no doubt shed light on some deeply hidden menu items that rarely see light.

[Derek Lyons]

"No sooner have you really mastered your last camera than it's time to buy your next."

Well, if you've got to keep up with fashion... then sure. Otherwise, not so much.

[Bruno]

I would have never bought this kind of book, but it came for free in bundle with my 2nd hand X100 in its original German edition.

It's a good book and was really worthwhile reading, it makes the learning curve of a digital camera much easier. The pictures fully explain the difference between the different picture modes and settings.

The user interface of the X100 isn't the easiest, but not terrible either. When shooting film I don't spend my time switching between 100 and 400 anyhow... when you find the settings that work for you, there's no need to be switching between them all the time. On my M6 I can just change aperture and exposure time, I could also change the iso setting, but if I don't change also the film it doesn't help much!

By the way: has someone noticed how many 2nd hand X100s are flooding the market? I'd like to know if people are selling waiting for the X-Pro 1 or because they're disappointed by the camera.

[Geof Margo]

I was a little amused to see the title of this post. I wish this new book well, but luckily it is a few months too late for me...I found the X100 user experience so complicated and confusing (even though the results were great when I got it right) that it gave me the final push to take my own Giant Leap Backwards to TriX and a Leica M2, at least for a while. I am so enjoying having no camera decisons to make beyond aperture and speed; the rest is me learning to see, which is a thrill. It has also meant learning darkroom work again, itself a hands-on pleasure and a reason to really slow down. My happiness, not my livelihood, is at stake so I am enjoying the indulgence. I can catch up with the 21st century when I am ready! Or not.

[Nico Burns]

Can someone explain the appeal of such a book to me? I don't understand what you could learn from this that you would not learn from a quick fiddle around with the menu system, and a week taking pictures...

[Jay Goldman]

There is already a very good book on the X100.
It is available as a PDF for $10

http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/photographers-guide-to-fujifilm/id489344095?mt=11

Also available from Amazon as a paperback or Kindle edition at

http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&keywords=FUJIFILM%20camera&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3AFUJIFILM%20camera&page=1

I will be interested in seeing the Rocky Nook book.

Jay

[Rod S.]

Yes, Mike, it took some wooing. Because I enjoy the quality of medium format, I hung out for a digital camera that offered something my existing cameras couldn't do: be light and compact enough to carry everywhere in my daily work satchel bag and provide excellent image quality in poor light. I also enjoy the quiet, vibration-free, in-lens shutter which lets me be unobtrusive; a nice change.

The work Olympus XZ-1 I take on my field trips is OK, but I found that having to hold the camera away from me to view the rear screen (which removes me from the feedback I'm accustomed to), and the image's invisibility in Australia's normal bright light, was too frustrating.

[Jon Ball]

I handled the x100 at the B&H superstore in NYC recently. It's a solid, small and wonderfully crafted instrument. It'll be a forthcoming purchase in my arsenal.

[Michael Ibach]

Does anyone think the image of the camera looks crooked? Slightly clockwise.