#041: FUJIFILM XF10

Hey there, I know, It's been a while... Unfortunately things didn't go so well in 2021. The Delta virus came around and we experienced rolling lockdowns between the end of March until around August. At one point even photographing outdoors was prohibited, amongst other things.

Needless to say, zero photographs were taken during the lockdowns. I did get into running during this time and my biggest accomplishment this year was running in the Virtual Boston Marathon! Training and completing it was a great way to get over the monotony of being stuck at home. But even that took a hit when for a brief moment even exercising outdoors was banned! I ended up running a half marathon around the house! Insane, yes.

My insane circles around the house during lockdown. 21.1km.

But then things got "better" and we were allowed out again and I met up with Robin Wong who graciously loaned me his Fujifilm XF10 to play around with. I had been eyeing the Ricoh GR III when it was first launched and the new GR IIIx now because of its new lens. So, having the XF10 was a great surprise and gave me the opportunity to play around with this ultra pocketable camera. Thanks Robin!

It's almost identical in field of view as my mobile phone at 28mm, so all I had to do was pretend that I was shooting with a mobile phone. I don't usually shoot much street stuff on my mobile, the occasional scenes that I do capture, end up on my Instagram feed and the bulk are just random daily shots of family etc. It took a while to get used to that focal length, everything is wider than I'm used to. Also its biggest downside, the slow autofocus had me missing many early shots. Toying around with the fixed snap focus, for me, didn't help much, either I'm doing it wrong or I'm just not used to it. Eventually I got used to its quirky way of handling.

When I do get the focus to hit correctly the images are great. A lot better than my old Olympus EM-1 and the older Fujifilm X100S. That is obvious given the years of technological advancements between the XF10 and the older cameras. Time to invest in a new camera? Maybe… let’s see what 2022 has to offer.

Below is a collection of photos I have taken from early September until now, sinec we were allowed to be out in public again. All shots taken on the FX10 showing how life is returning to some form of new normality around town.

Cheers.