X100T (save $200): AmazonUS / BHphoto / Adorama / Pictureline
Recently the National Geographic delcared the X100T and X-T1 among the 10 best Cameras for Travels you can get in 2015.
And today it’s time for dpreview to declare the X100T the Best Compact Camera for Travels (along with the Panasonic FZ1000, Sony RX100 IV, Panasonic DMC-LX100 and the Olympus Tough TG-4).
About the X100T they say:
“Few cameras in recent history have attracted as much of a cult following as Fujifilm’s X100 series.
They’re the photographer’s darling – not just a good-looking camera, but a beautifully effective machine. The X100T is small and light, and won’t burden a weary traveler, and its low-profile lends itself to street shooting. If you don’t mind zooming with your feet, its 35mm F2 equivalent lens and 16MP X-Trans APS-C sensor will serve you well.
In addition to its travel-friendly size, the X100T offers a hybrid viewfinder with optical and digital views. That’s especially handy when the sun is high in the sky and the 1.04M-dot 3″ LCD becomes harder to see. […]
With obviously classic design cues, the X100T’s controls and handling are timeless. Though it doesn’t offer the cutting-edge modern features of its newer peers, it won’t go out of style anytime soon.
Read it all at dpreview
X100T (save $200): AmazonUS / BHphoto / Adorama / Pictureline
38 Responses
It is sure a great camera for travel.
I have the X100s and love it. Would like weather sealing, though…
Probably in the next one, with a new sensor sometime next year?
I would get one straight away if it had a tilting screen. I shoot street from the hip with the x-t1, and I can’t do without. WR and touchscreen would be nice.
Please make a X100U !
How about you start shooting through the viewfinder.
Several ways to do things…people are all different… you know….?
True, but the x100 was conceived to be used like a classic Camera. Adding those features although useful does not agree with vision of the camera’s concept.
This way of thinking may sound crazy to western culture but for the Japanese they believe in the nobility of purpose. This is the same reason why master craftsmen would spend their lifetime perfecting thier process and technique even though there are machines that can do it faster.
The idea of craftsmanship is not alien to Western culture at all. The opposite is true. On the other hand, photographers often are very practical people, and have to be so!
But more importantly, average users of cameras often come from a P&S culture, or are simply amateurs who want to use any camera as a P&S camera. This falls into the category: the right tool in the wrong hands. :))
“Right tools in the wrong hands” you could not have said it better. Btw, it has never been about skills in craftsmanship. Its about the tradition in doing things. The x100 has always been made for the traditionalist.
The traditionalist that wants a digital camera with autofocus?
And do you know anything about any culture but Japanese? You know that craftsman culture was and has been handed down for hundreds if not thousands of years? that a lot of people got their surnames because of such a system?
Go back to talking about cameras. You obviously care little for truth outside of cultural indoctrination.
“ohm image” stop bullying ryu, it is just lame.
Johnny, if by ‘bullying’ you mean pointing out ryu’s fallacies, and racism, then I’m sorry. If you mean anything else, then you are using the word incorrectly.
pointing out? “all bullshit, you racist, fuck off”. thats not pointing out, thats bullying.
By what definition is what I said bullying? You have strawmanned what I said by bunching three things I said out of context. I called what Ryu said ‘bullshit’. That is not ad hominem, that is a descriptive statement about his comment.
If you search this thread for ‘you racist’, you will find only one location, your post. I didn’t say ‘you racist’. You are intentionally misrepresenting what I said.
I did say fuck off.
That isn’t bullying. I am aggressively calling out Ryu’s racist commentary and illogical framing of the X100 as a camera conceived ‘to be used like a classic Camera’.
If strong disagreements, and even vociferous, angry tirades (agreeable or not) constitute ‘bullying’, then anyone can, and should get away with murder. I am strongly calling out Ryu whose racist statements (note I didn’t call him a racist, nor did I attack his character; I attacked his statement both about Western culture and the camera) etc., deserved every bit of antagonism they received.
By all means, give me a universally accepted (not anecdotal) dictionary definition that would move my words from strong, even vociferous disagreement and complaint, to bullying.
Until then, you have presented a complete strawman which relies on lazy and hasty generalisation.
Electronics are getting overheated, ohm !
Very possibly.
sry tldr, just try to be polite thats all 🙂
I must tell you that I see no reason to be polite to impolite racism. Racist remarks deserve no less than controversy.
you think your are on the moral highground and that gives you the right to insult people. it doesnt
Again Johnny, where did I insult Ryu? I attacked his arguments, not him.
Absolute bullshit.
How can you translate such a peurile understanding of master crafsmanship to a mass-produced camera like the X100? No matter how nice it may be, it is not built, or designed similarly to a good knife, or bowl, or wheel made by a craftperson.
And to the nationalist platitude: ‘crazy to western (sic) culture’ you either don’t get out much, or, if you are Japanese, are blinded by the stupid education system here that hammers into you from the time you’re born that Japan and Japanese people are the master race. It is bull shit. It is ignorant. It is racist.
Fuck off with your superiority complex and talk about cameras.
Edit: misspelled ‘stupid’. Fixed.
Ohm… As a fellow westerner living in Japan for a long time (16+ years in my case) I laughed out loud at your statement because you nailed it 100%. People toss out these bullshit stereotypical nonsense stuff, probably stuff they picked up watching movies like “the last samurai” or worse, yet, “41 Ryonin” and feel like they are an expert on Japanese culture…
Ah well.. it’s all good fun..
Thank Sir for your enlightenment. Although I have to commend you, that in your mere 16 years living of living in Japan you have a commanding grasp of the nuiances of a centuries old culture steep in tradition. My hats off to you Sir.
Ryu San,
Not sure if you are Japanese or not, but I will assume that you are.
16 years of living in Japan only has made me realize how much I don’t know about Japanese culture. But, if that’s your argument then it’s a red herring.
Let’s stay on the original topic and your comment. 1st, the original comment was about the desire to have a tilt screen to allow waist level shooting for street photography. You then replied that it’s got some connection to craftsmanship or centuries old work ethics.. You thinking is flawed for a number of reasons.. Here are just a couple:
1. Fuji is making a mass produced camera, not some specialty boutique item… They are going to make what the market wants as that will be good for their business.. (and good for us, Fujifilm users).
2. If it was truly craftsmenship or making cameras that resemble classics, then why even choose a rangefinder camera? Why not a single-reflex camera instead??
Maybe I’m missing your points. If so, I’m sorry.
However, what I do know about living in Japan for 16 years (and Europe and Middle east for ~15 years before this) (I’m American BTW) is that out of all the countries I’ve lived in (not just visited, but lived in for a year or more) Each country thinks it has some basic mysterious “thing” about it that only people from “X” country can understand.. I hear this all the time from Japanese people.. “Oh, you don’t understand because your not Japanese”.. As Ohm points about above, and which I agree with 100%… it’s Bullshit. There is nothing magical about the Japanese experience compared to any other culture no mater how much you have been told that there is.. Japan is a wonderful place…best country I’ve ever lived in…but sorry, this type of racist thinking by Japanese people drives me crazy and, as an aside, sets up the Japanese future generations for failure and to be controlled by countries like China and other emerging powers….
Also, to continue with just a few more thoughts because it honestly fascinates me.
About this supposed mystical association with Japan to craftsmanship about the the following point.
If craftsmanship is, like you suggested a “Japanese” thing what about Leica and Hasselblad? Do they have some secret Japanese management system driving their quality?
And what about Contax.. Another formidable Camera manufacturer renowned for quality… But, once bought and managed by the Japanese (Kyocera) was bankrupt and disbanded within a short period of time… Where was the Japanese ethics in this move?
After WWII Japan was sadly in a shambles.. But, thru sheer effort and smarts learned massed produced quality control principles from the west and turned a country on the brink of ruin into an absolute powerhouse. The main (but certainly not only) champion of this move was Konosuke Matsushita the famous industrialist whose company we now know as Panasonic.
So, it’s wonderful and great that you are proud to be Japanese, but sorry to burst your bubble, but as hard as it may be for you to admit, Japan owes the rest of the world considerably for what you might call quality products. Also you don’t have some monopoly on craftsmenship.
A very interesting subject and hope my comments don’t offend.
Gentlemen, excuse me, but I need to butt in here 🙂
Yes, any X-camera is a mass-produced tech product following the logic of the market. Period.
The know-how of management, organization, production and technology itself is a joined achievement of humankind.
However, historically speaking, Japan was the only country in Asia that kept continuous knowledge exchange with the West (mostly with Dutch, and then British merchants) during centuries. The Japanese elite learnt helluva lot about Western medicine, technology, biology, chemistry, mathematics, organization, politics and philosophy before any other country in East Asia. There was no time-lag, or falling-behind like in China, for example. Period.
Hence, Japan became the first and most successful country in Asia adopting and refining technological achievements of the West. Hence, her proudness, mostly rightly though.
It’s a bit too easy to say that Japanese modern economy is solely a result of American policy. Shortly, the Japanese built a sound foundation of modernity, right before they shot themselves into the foot during WWII. But, like in the case of Germany, without American involvement and long-term support after WWII, the Japanese economy as it is today would be unthinkable. That’s also true.
Yet, to come to this other interesting point that Ryu brought up. It’s also undeniably true that the Japanese have their thing with beauty. It’s omnipresent. A mixture of abstraction, simplicity, and probably a good portion of self-praise. Which is not bad in itself. No other country I know of in Asia, has this devotion to beauty, and the will-power of a whole society to build a beautiful environment, at least if defined as being pleasant to the eye. No need to mention that most of this devotion to beauty is simply a masquerade, an almost pathological tendency to appear clean, organized and beautiful. As if they wanted to hide something.
Anyway, how does craftsmanship come into the picture? Craftsmanship is the marriage of technology and tradition. It’s a symbol of devotion to detail, persistence and perfection. What a beautiful concept in the mind of a Japanese! But they didn’t invent the concept of craftsmanship nor are they the only guys who pay close attention to details. It’s just that they enjoy making a big fuss about it.
The X-system is not so much about craftmanship itself. It’s also not so much about beauty. All that is marketing BS. Behind the scenes it’s simply about money, market and many many overtime hours. But hey, who said a nice camera system would come without pain?
Sidtw.. Correct on all points. What is frustrating, especially living and working in Japan now for so long, is this notion (perhaps it’s their insecurity about their national identiy??) that it’s a “Japanese thing” and westerners can’t understand it. Western history and civilization dates back as long or longer then the Japanese. The Greeks brought us democracy and all those trappings about the same time that the Japanese will still trying to figure out how to evict the natives (Anui).
And, they conveniently forget that 90% of their current culture (and DNA) is adopted or downright pilfered from the great Chinese cultures. Heck, if it wasn’t for a timely typhoon they would be speaking Mongul or some form of Chinese…
My only nit I have with your comment above is about the beauty in Japan. Being a purely subjective idea, here are my beliefs. I live in a urban area in Japan, not city but not rural… Places most tourists never see… It’s a mess and eyesores everywhere… poor community planning, poor regulation or whatever might cause it I don’t know..but there is very little astetics which please.. I drive to work every day and there are new trash heaps aside the road. But, these are places tourists never see, so the Govt doesn’t bother to clean it up. Before someone retorts that this is due to the small country I will rebut with ‘Singapore’. A country of truly micro proportions but is astetically beautiful from tip to tip.. (Well, even it has its few bad spots)
My fear is that this stupid and false pride is going to spell doom for Japan.. It may have worked for Imperial Japan to whip them into obedience and frothed into crazed occupations throughout Asia, but with a new global stage which all countries must learn to play, such puffed up false pride in your country while thinking other cultures are inferior (and believe me, most Japanese DO think this) is going be their biggest downfall. If/When it happens again, because the regional politics have changed so much, there won’t be an America or West willing to prop them up again.
And your expertise on every culture not Japanese, or a conglomerate bulge of all countries ‘western’ is truly amazing. Surely you know about all those ancient cultures steep (sic) in tradition just as well right?
Again, fuck off with your aggressive, ignorant Japanese superiority. But I can’t stop you from doing it. In fact, I expect that you’ll do it again and again. But you are completely blind, and your arguments are hasty generalisations at best, racialised thinking at worst. Whatever they are, they are ignorant.
In fact, from where did you dredge up the idiocy to derail a conversation about flip screens to attack hundreds of other cultures, language groups, peoples, nations, histories, philosophies, etc., with your bucket-of-shit-racist blanket term, ‘western’ (sic).
So fuck off again and again.
You are far more level-headed about this shit. Good on you.
Sure, I just don’t really understand the “I shoot from the hip” philosophy. Looking for lucky accidents?
Not if you can see the screen!!!
It Is a better height to shoot people with a 35mm than from the height of my head, and I can go around unnoticed, instead of crouching to take a picture. Not discreet!
Next generation soon please, so I could get one before my trip next year! Any latest update on when the next version might come out?
To give a different perspective I chose to get a xt10 instead to my xt1
For travel or size you add a 27mm 2.8 or the 18mm f2 and be pretty much the same as the x100 weight and size but you still have the option when needed to add a Zoom or better prime
The lever on mind malfunctioned and a bunch of the silver pain rubbed off 🙁 not the best build quality.
It’s called “patina” Enjoy the grizzled veteran look 🙂 I still have both of my X-E7 Minolta’s from 1978. They used to be all black, but now they are mostly brass with black in some places. I don’t get the point of those who must maintain the camera and lenses in pristine condition and if a corner or two become marred it’s off to flea bay they go. The wear and tear of ANY camera is, to me, all the fun and joy of the ownership process. I’m like that with my automobiles as well. I keep them way past their prime, but boy they still look good, and run great. I don’t care if my vehicle doesn’t have the latest and great techno-marvel. Just like my cameras. Well worn and still working flawlessly.
I am not a FF adept, but if the next gen X100-something gets a FF sensor, I will surely be interested. The shallow DOF of a FF cam with a lens between 24 and 35mm-eq is just irresistible. However, looking at the Sony RX1, f/2 maximum aperture would be as good as it gets I’m afraid (in keeping the cam reasonably compact).
aps-c is fine. sony rx1 is to bulky with the lens sticking out. the other thing with ff is the price. ~ 1000€ for the x100 is almost to expensice for the most people to carry everywhere with you. a 3000€ sony or ff x100 is to much in my oppionion. shallow dof is nice to have but the tradeoff in size and price is to big.
Yeah, I agree, but the bulkiness of the RX1’s lens is partly due to the smallness of the camera body it seems. I have never held one in my hands though so I find this hard to judge. Anyway, I wouldn’t mind a slightly bigger body if this better balances the lens.
i would love.
New sensor with 35mm F1.4 /F1.7
or with full frame.
Now this is a lot more sensible travel camera list compared to that random National Geographic one. It has a much more likely selection of cameras that would be used on a holiday. I guess it also shows how good it is in its class.