I’ve had my X100V for a couple of years now (and several other X100 series cameras before that) but it ‘s never been my main, or only, camera. For as long as I can remember I’ve had a camera with interchangeable lenses – film in the ‘old’ days, and digital more recently. Always seeking perfection, I gravitated to full frame, and ended up with a significant sized Sony A7iii outfit. A most capable camera, with huge dynamic range, and superb image quality, but I realised that the weight of the camera and it’s rather bulky and heavy lenses and accessories were becoming a real burden to carry – not helped by my advancing years, and dodgy back!

First thoughts were to offload the heavy (but excellent) zoom lenses in favour of 2 to 3 smaller prime lenses so I kept the excellent full-frame image quality of the Sony, but it soon became clear that that wasn’t really going to solve the problem. as it was still quite a weight to carry around with tripod etc.

What also became apparent was that I was falling out of love with photographing landscapes – after all I’ve been doing it for more years than I can remember, and with so many photographers taking good landscapes, it’s increasingly difficult to come up with something ‘new’. Tramping up and down hills with camera and tripod, and getting up at the crack of dawn for sunrises have definitely lost their attraction.

So, I really needed a fundamental rethink of what I was going to photograph, and what camera to use. Fair to say that I’ve enjoyed finding ‘quirky’ or different photos of everyday life, and I’ve always been a fan of monochrome, even though I’m not very good at it! I was reminded of the excellent One Year, One Mile, One Lens slideshow by Todd Gipstein. If you haven’t watched it, I certainly recommend it. It’s 10 years old now, and was entirely shot on an original Fujifilm X100 camera – and for me it’s a stark reminder that it’s the photographer who makes the image, not the camera.

Something of a Eureka! moment, crystallised by some wise words from my dear wife… (she’s always right!) So I’ve sold the entire Sony outfit (no point in just putting it in a cupboard as the temptation to revert to it would be too great) and the little X100V is my only camera! It all fits in a small shoulder bag – just a couple of filters and spare batteries etc, and I even have a lightweight tripod that is fine for it if I really feel the need.

More to the point, I’ve decided its going to be mono only, at least for a while, and I’ve set up the camera accordingly. I’m not saying I won’t be taking any ‘outdoorsy’ photos (yesterday I had a little wander in some local woodland) but there will be no more traipsing across hills or along muddy paths at the crack of dawn, or stumbling around in the dark finding my way back to the car!

It’s going to be an interesting journey, and I feel quite liberated, so watch this space!