Maybe We Need To See Less Of Each Other

Photo from Wikipedia.

I was at Seawood Camera in San Rafael a few weeks ago, and even though I had no business doing so, I checked to see if there were any pre-owned Fuji digital cameras for sale. I purchased 2 Fujis there, an X-Pro2 and my second X-Pro1, and was actually hoping to see an X-E2 body. Instead, I saw a used X-Pro1 with one of the newer WR prime lenses. Much to my surprise, I didn't give a second thought to owning a 4th X-Pro body. I looked at its $1000.00 price tag and moved on.

Why the change of heart? Having three X-Pros in my collection wasn't it. Heck, its never stopped me from buying duplicates, triplicates, or quadruplicates of things I really liked. It's just that after using one almost daily for over a month, I can say that the shortcomings of this first-of-its-kind cameras have become a bit harder to accept, considering that faster, more modern Fujis are in my collection.

For the record, my X-Pros had all of the proper firmware upgrades, so they're all on their best game. But I've experienced some subtle difficulties that might be overlooked by a younger pair of eyes.

The Optical Viewfinder: Much of the X-Pro mystique is built around the Optical View Finder (OVF). As a feature, it offers a shooting experience similar to using a Leica rangefinder camera. In fact, the introduction of an adapter that would mate the Fuji body to an M-mount Leica lens was available at the time of the camera's introduction. Clearly the camera was meant to capture and retain Leicaphiles and turn them into Fujphiles. In short, the OFV was the gateway drug.

In practice, you still needed to revert to the Electronic Viewfinder (EVF) when you needed to establish critical focus. I say "critical", because many seasoned street photographers learned to "zone focus" their cameras, which is no more than guessing the distance, manually transferring that guess to the distance scale on the lens, and hoping that the depth of field for the selected shooting aperture would keep everything sharp. With the X-Pro1 in OVF, you pressing the Command Dial (white arrow) which toggles you into the magnified EVF when you are in the Manual Focus mode. Here Focus Peaking, plus the magnified image, certainly help. Pressing the Command Dial again returns you to the OVF mode. Using the bright line outlines, you'll need to re-compose your image before you shoot, just as you would have done with a Leica rangefinder (or Bessa, or Nikon, or Contax, ad nauseum). True to purpose, the X-Pro1 gave user the Leica experience particularly the focus-reframe-shoot process.

Lack Of Eyepiece Corrections (X-Pro1): When first introduced, I believe Fuji brought to market a digital camera that were trying to duplicate the look and field of the classic Leica rangefinder camera. Like so many cameras of the time, it was probably assumed that the user had 20/20 vision. If a user needed correction, it came in the form of small, screw-in eyepieces which came with several different strengths of diopter correction.  Even so, eyeglass wearers were bound to have more difficulty focusing, especially when confronted with bifocal lenses.

As I mentioned, critical focusing requires that the user revert to an iteration of the EVF. For me, I need the diopter adjustments that the X-Pro1 didn't have. The problem lies in my eyeglass correction. When using the viewfinder in either OVG or EVF, my eye is looking through the transitioning portion of my progressive lens, a never-never land of everything seems slightly out of focus. Diopter adjustments would be very helpful in establishing a compromise focusing distance. For now, I may ask my optometrist if the transition portion of the lens is more towards the lower third of the lens to give my eye better acuity when looking through the viewfinder straight on.

I may switch out to the X-Pro2 body, or even my older X-E1, just to see if I'm right. In the meantime, I stand by my contention that the Optical View Finder is best left to the purists with young, sharp eyes capable of rapid focus acquisition.