The older two just had their hair cut by Grace and were just relaxing in front of the TV. They weren’t too happy with how short it had turned out – and it shows in this picture – but they eventually calmed down and I think they’ve accepted it now. Kaelyn was especially upset but if you ask me, I think she looks very cute with her short hair…
I’m still loving the X-E1 and especially paired with the XF 35mm f/1.4 it puts out some amazing pictures. I did tinker with the image in Lightroom with some presets but didn’t do anything too crazy… and I love the result. The AF does hunt in some situations but with the much improved manual focus system I find that I am able to nail the focus when I need to. I find myself using the manual focus much more than I ever did with the X100, simply because it is actually usable. I also like that I’m able to manually focus while recording video, which I wasn’t able to do with the X100. Overall, I’m still enjoying this camera immensely and I just love how it feels in my hands when I’m shooting. It definitely makes me want to hold it and keep taking more pictures…
Loving the X-E1 and the two primes. I do wish they would add in the support for the minimum shutter speed with auto iso setting. But because the high iso is so good I could use the shutter priority for my kids with confidence 🙂
I had a huge dental bill due and was thinking about selling some of my gear to cover the costs.
Then I thought, instead of selling off some of the gear, why not just sell everything, cover the cost, and with the remaining money from the sale, just simplify my whole set up with the Fujifilm X-E1? The decisive moment came when I had picked up my 5D with 35L & 580EXII attached to it a couple of weeks ago and immediately knew that I would never pick it up again. It was too heavy, too bulky, and just… too much. So I already knew – for a while actually – that a DSLR wasn’t in my future anymore – and possibly the future of photography as technology develops further. Well then what about the excellent Fujifilm X100 that I have had for over a year now? (I had sold some stuff back then to acquire the X100 as well) I’ve thoroughly enjoyed shooting with it and really loved the pictures I was getting from it. And despite all of its quirks, it really did bring me back the place of simple and non-complicated photography. Some of the quirks did frustrate me at times but both the portability and the excellent jpeg output kept me bonded to it like no other camera ever had before. However, I found myself still wishing for different lenses occasionally and strangely enough, the more I grew comfortable with the X100, the more I wanted to be able to put different lenses on it – not change the body, but just the lens.
When Fujifilm released the X-E1, I knew almost immediately that this was it. It was both cheaper & smaller than the X-Pro1 and in fact, the size was almost identical to the X100. I was over the AF issues after the latest firmware updates that Fuji had released so that wasn’t going to hold me back. So after a few weeks of research and number crunching, I was able to work it out where I would be able to both cover the cost of my dental bill and convert to Fuji’s X system without any trips to the ATM. So after a couple of trips to probably the largest camera market in Beijing(Wukesong), I had sold off all of my photography gear, including the beloved X100, and had the new X-E1 and the excellent two primes to go along with it. (Dental bill, of course, had been paid off as well and I even made a new friend at the camera market!)
Although I wasn’t too worried about the AF performance, I was very pleasantly surprised at how much faster and more accurate it was compared to the X100. Perhaps it was due to the fact that I had relatively low expectations but it is very clear to me that X-E1’s AF is faster and more accurate than the X100. So far I haven’t really lost any shots due to AF misfocus and I’m more than satisfied with the AF performance. (Definitely way better than the 5D classic) X-E1 seems to be focusing fine for my usage with both the XF35 and the XF18.
Anyway, I’m not a pixelpeeper nor a professional reviewer, but just a dad who enjoys photography so I’m just gonna put up some pictures here for viewing. These are pretty much all OOC JPEGS with very minimal adjustments in Lightroom. I am completely smitten with the quality of the pictures this sensor is producing for me…
Only the first two (watch & chair) were converted from raw file and the rest were jpegs (astia mode) with minor adjustments in Lightroom.
Grace and I hadn’t been out for a coffee with just the two of us since before the Summer this year and we finally had lunch off on the same day without the kids around – perfect time to take the new toy for a spin 🙂
Steps of Faith 