Truth is, I haven’t given my X100V much love lately. I’d had a few instances of camera shake spoiling photos (down to not using a fast enough shutter speed, given my shaky hands..) so ended up using my recently purchased Sony A7C with its image stabilisation and of course full-frame sensor for ‘casual’ photography. Not such a satisfying experience using it, as the ergonomics are no match for a Fujifilm camera. The tiny viewfinder is a pain if you wear glasses, and even with a slim 35 or 40mm prime lens it’s also still a fair bit bigger than an X100V.

So a misty morning this week seemed like a good opportunity to try and rekindle the connection. I figured that mono would suit the misty conditions, so set the camera up with a mono film simulation, tweaked to give me the high contrast look that Leica cameras are renowned for. Just took the camera, no filters etc and off I went.

The half an hour I planned to spend wandering locally ran to almost two hours, and I took around 35 shots.

Started processing them by loading the JPG simulated files into Lightroom, and have to say I wasnt that keen – they all looked a bit ‘muddy’ and the small amount of grain effect was rather noticeable. Fortunately I always shoot with RAW enabled, and these files, although lacking ‘bite’ were much cleaner. I had recently bought the DxO Pure RAW add-in, so as an experiment processed all the RAWs in that.

Wow! – what a difference, much brighter, sharper, and cleaner – noise, especially in the higher ISO shots was much better too. So these became my start point, and only a modicum of tweaking was needed, both to the shots I left as mono, and the few that seemed to work better in colour. I’m very happy with the results.

So it leaves me in a quandary – do I still need the A7C for ‘casual’ photography where a 35mm or so lens works for most shots, or is the smaller lighter X100V the way to go? (After all, I’ve also got a Sony A7iv and both zoom and prime lenses where I need flexibility, and that’s a much better option then than the A7C). What are your thoughts on the subject?