Strong statement right?
At one point in time this was the most hyped camera, which, along with a supply issue of parts, led to stock shortages. If you could find one, you often paid premium for it. By a stroke of luck, after months of trying ot hunt one down, I happened across one available on the London Camera Exchange website.
At that point I could have just sold it on and made an extra £500, demand was that crazy. But after months of dogged determination to find the damn thing I wasn't about to let it go. Regrets.
Here's some good things about camera first, along with some of the favourite photos I've taken with it, for a little balance.
- It's light – you can pop it in a large pocket
- Fujifilm color profiles are excellent
- The 23mm lens and sleek looks should make it perfect for street photography
Note the word should.
There's one negative about the Fujifilm X100V, and it's an unforgivable thing which to be honest renders it pretty useless as a camera for anything, especially street photography – autofocus is awful and manual focus is not user friendly at all.
It picks the most random things to focus on in auto mode. It feels like focus roulette. And that's not an appealing game.
When it does focus correctly it takes great images but at least half of all images that I have taken with this camera have been out of focus. And that's an issue I've never had with any other camera, heck I have cameras over 100 years old that have a more user friendly and reliable manual focus that the X100V.
I've used Fujifilm cameras in the past and not encountered this issue, so I'm not sure what specifically about this camera makes focusing, auto or manual, so flipping hit and miss. But it is an issue, it does suck and honestly I rarely use it because of just that point.
If I want a light, small point and shoot to take out with me then this is the one I take, but only because I have no other. And then when I am out and about with it I'm constantly wondering if I'm actually capturing anything useful at all.
I took it out this morning on a rather lovely 10 mile walk, returning home to find 75% of the images I took are totally out of focus (I shout auto focus the whole time).
Some came out ok...
Many were not so ok.
It's the final straw. I'm off to MPB to trade it in for another super light point and shoot. Yes, I'll miss those Fujifilm color profile but hey, there are plenty of Lightroom presets that can give me those for other cameras.
I have been tempted by the new GFX100RF, but if I do go down that route I'll make use of the 'try before you buy' service Fujifilm offer just to make sure it doesn't also suffer from the same issue.
So long my untrustworthy friend 👋
