So I'm thinking about taking the plunge and getting either the X100 or the X100s. These days, I mostly take landscapes and skyline cityscapes. I think I've gotten "less serious" about photography as time goes on -- that is, it used to be I'd take my tripod everywhere and try and use it as much as possible if the situation permitted. Now I really only use the tripod when for panoramic cityscapes and nightscapes.
I shoot with a D600 now and there are some times that I absolutely need to have it with me, but I've found that most of the time when I'm exploring a new city, I'm just taking snapshots anyway and almost always with a 28/1.8 lens. So I figured the X100/S would be great for me since it's way lighter. I'm not demanding perfect image quality and the f/2 wide angle is pretty appealing to me. I'll keep the D600 for more serious stuff.
Was just wondering if anyone else was in the same boat and what they ended up doing. Also, I'm still reading up on the difference between the X100 and X100s, but is the latter really $400 better than the former? The price isn't a huge issue but I don't want to pay that much for minor improvements
justindong wrote:
So I'm thinking about taking the plunge and getting either the X100 or the X100s. These days, I mostly take landscapes and skyline cityscapes. I think I've gotten "less serious" about photography as time goes on -- that is, it used to be I'd take my tripod everywhere and try and use it as much as possible if the situation permitted. Now I really only use the tripod when for panoramic cityscapes and nightscapes.
I shoot with a D600 now and there are some times that I absolutely need to have it with me, but I've found that most of the time when I'm exploring a new city, I'm just taking snapshots anyway and almost always with a 28/1.8 lens. So I figured the X100/S would be great for me since it's way lighter. I'm not demanding perfect image quality and the f/2 wide angle is pretty appealing to me. I'll keep the D600 for more serious stuff.
Was just wondering if anyone else was in the same boat and what they ended up doing. Also, I'm still reading up on the difference between the X100 and X100s, but is the latter really $400 better than the former? The price isn't a huge issue but I don't want to pay that much for minor improvements...Show more →
I've got a x100 and x100s right now. Need to sell the x100, the new one is much improved for how I shoot.
The older camera is still a fine bit of kit and I enjoyed using it. Things that bothered me were the af-s/mf/af-c orientation of the focus switch. Going from af-s to mf was a fiddly affair, and was not easy to do while shooting. They reordered it to be af-s/af-c/mf, so now it's easy to go from one end to the other.
Speaking of MF, it was for all intents and purposes unusable on the x100. With my Nikon kit, I shoot almost exclusively MF lenses, and I do a lot of shooting on the move. MF on the x100 was a joke. With the x100s, it is more than usable, it is a joy. I don't use the focus aides like peeking and split screen, I find it much easier to get proper focus with just the plain view.
AF speed is quite a bit faster around the house in decent light. When it gets dim, I usually switch to MF because it does still hunt more than it should. Better than the x100 yes, but not in the same league as your d600.
High ISO is better. With auto ISO now going up to 6400, I can pretty much forget about it. The only thing that bothers me is that you still can't use exposure compensation when shooting a manual shutterspeed and manual aperture while in auto-iso. Most often I'll set my shutter to 1/250 say, and my aperture to 5.6-8 and fire away. Can't bump up the exposure when doing that. Thankfully the files have a ton of room to be pushed around in post if need be.
If you have any specific questions you'd like answered just holler and I'll do my best to accommodate.
Hello Ian,
Great portraits. You must be shooting very tight with the X100s. The one thing that I'm surprised at is there is not as much distortion as I would expect shooting with a 35mm in tight range. Nice job and thanks for posting
Jack
Thanks Jack. In a square crop it has the same field of view as an 80mm (actually 82mm) in medium format, so it becomes like a standard lens. There's a little distortion (of course) but it's not too bad.
These monochromes are great.. did you use any particular monochrome conversion software too...
I am getting hold of landscape monochromes, but portraits are still challenge...
I did it the easy way - I set the camera to black and white and square format.
No cropping or messing afterwards except a small contrast/structure adjust.
I've never done in camera b/w (with digital) before and didn't really trust it but after seeing these I'll just do it from now on. Why do it the hard way?
