Hey, it’s Jay P. here from The Slanted Lens. I’ve got with me the Fujifilm X100 VI. This camera is really interesting to me. It’s almost got like a cult following. People can’t get ahold of it. It’s back ordered. My students are dying to get ahold of one. What makes this camera so popular? It’s an APS-C sensor, 40 megapixel APS-C sensor. It’s got a fixed lens, although you do have some teleconverters that go to 50mm and 75mm from this 23mm. So I’m really wondering why is this so popular? Let’s take a look at the specs. Let’s look at some images. Let’s see why people are so in love with the Fujifilm X100 VI.
Nice, look at that.
I have always loved Fujifilm color and just on the standard profile it gives you a beautiful rendition. There’s so many tweaks you can take and make to that standard profile to any of the profiles. There’s just your own kind of recipe. But I just think it’s a beautiful color base to start with. But then you can get into some black and white. The Arcus is really incredible, love that look. So we’re going to bounce around. We’ll do some black and white. We’re going to do some color. Of course, I’m also always shooting in raw. So we’re just looking at that on the jpegs. But I’ve got my raw images to do whatever I want with. So let’s just keep shooting. But I do love that color. It gives you a beautiful look.
So let’s talk about some of the reasons why I think this camera is so popular. Number one is its size. It’s very small. It’s just easy to put in your pocket. It’s got a lens, it’s very pancake. It’s very small, it’s short on the front. It’s just a camera that’s easy to carry with you. One of my students said, “You know, it’s just nice because I can carry it into a concert and take pictures of the concerts. No one thinks twice about it because it’s just small. They don’t think that’s a professional camera.” So it really gives you a great image but looks small and compact and easy to carry around with you.
Another thing is that it, just it has a great retro look. And everyone loves that retro look. It has that kind of analog look, looking back to film days. It has that kind of a look. That’s another reason that a lot of people love it. And that is you have all those great film presets that Fujifilm is so known for, so popular for. A lot of people love to use those. If you’re just shooting jpegs you want to throw out some black and white and get it out quick it’s just really easy to do. So that makes this extremely popular with people.
It’s got very tactile buttons. You’ve got the shutter speed. Inside the shutter speed you’ve got your ISO. And on the lens you have your aperture. So it’s just very easy to use. So those are some of the reasons why I think people are so attracted to this camera, small size, lightweight, easy to carry in your pocket. Great film simulations. It’s just a really retro kind of camera that looks very cool.
So everyone loves the film simulation on the Fuji cameras. This camera has all of them. There’s up to 20 of them. Now they have a new one I think called Real Ace. I’m probably not saying that right. But you know, I think they’re awesome. They have a grain effect. If you want to give a little bit of grain in camera. This is great if you’re doing things that you want to just send out immediately. It’s doing it to the jpeg. If you’re shooting raw you’re not affecting the raw. So you can do those things later. But it’s just, it’s a great look, the different film simulations. They got everything from just your classic negative films to your classic chrome films. I mean there’s some beautiful looks in there. One of my students said, “You know, it makes it so I don’t have to shoot a film camera because that’s too hard. It does do that. So, but I think those are of fun. It isn’t what attracts me to this a camera. It really, I think the ease of use and the smallness of the camera is what really attracts me to it. So, but those film simulations are a lot of fun and people love them.
As a touring music photographer lately my regular clients have been Halsey, Casey Musgraves, Marina, Madeon, Porter Robinson. It’s very important to be able to read the room and know when you should be clicking the shutter and when you should just be putting it away and enjoying the moment. And sometimes if you’re not sure sometimes you just go, “Are you comfortable with me photographing right now?” And they’ll say it and then we’ll go. You know, always get their consent. It always, it just depends on the person you’re photographing. Sometimes they’ll say, “You know what, it doesn’t matter. I could be crying on the floor. I could be doing this. I could be completely no makeup. It’s fine, shoot everything.” Some artists are more of a, “Let’s wait until I got my makeup on.” It just depends. You always got to gauge it. Hi, I’m Yasi. I’m a touring music photographer and my SKB case goes all over the world with me.
So one of the huge upgrades with this camera over the five is it has IBIS. It’s got image stabilization. That’s huge. That’s definitely needed both for stills and for video. And that’s an upgrade that makes this camera a lot more attractive. It really does.
So this camera has a rangefinder OVF. You can look through the OVF. It gives you, you see the line. That line really transfers into whatever lens you have on. So there’s a combination of an overlay there that is electronic. But it also gives you that rangefinder OVF. But I prefer the EVF. With the toggle in the front here you can switch it to the EVF. And in there you can shoot, you can review your images. It’s just how I’m used to working. I like that a lot. The OVF is fun. It really gives it kind of a retro kind of experience. If you want to shoot quick and just see if you want to see somebody walking into the frame it shows you your frame. You can see them entering and you know when to start shooting. So there are some applications when you’re doing street photography that would make that really interesting. But if you really want to get serious about let me look at the image, I really love going to that EVF. You switch back and forth with this little lever in the front very quickly. It’s easy to do go back and forth. But that EVF does chew up the battery. You’re going to need to buy some batteries to be able to use this any kind of long term. You know, if you’re going to use it 2 or 3 hours you’re going to need several batteries to be able to use this long term. If you’re using the EVF especially. So that’s my experience with it. I do love the fact that you have both those options and you can use which one works for you in the situation you’re in.
So the video specs on this camera are quite interesting to me. It does have a 6.2K. That 6.2K does come with a crop. So you have a crop factor there. You have a 4K HQ which is over sampled from that 6.2K. Which gives you a beautiful high detail image. But it also has a crop factor. The standard 4K up to 60 frames a second gives you faster frame rates. But it’s an under sample. So it’s not quite as sharp. But it doesn’t overheat as quickly. It’s going to give you much longer record times. So you’re kind of doing some trade-offs there. The 4K, just a standard 4K these are 4:2:2 10 bit. So the standard 4K is going to give you longer record time and not quite as sharp or as nice an image. But no crop. Whereas you go to the HQ it’s going to give you shorter runtime because it’s going to overheat quicker. But it’s going to give you a better image. When you go to 6.2K it gives you just a beautiful image but it’s going to give you a shorter record time because you’re going to get overheating. So there’s some trade-offs there. But you do get a 4:2:2 10 bit, 200 megabit file from this. Which really gives you a beautiful video. I would consider this kind of like a hit and run video camera for me. If I want to pick up a quick shot here and there, if I want to carry this with me and just pick up some quick b-roll it really works in that way. Which is the same way that it works when it comes to stills. It’s a camera you carry with you to get quick shots. It’s not a camera you use as a long-term recording for a b-camera if you’re doing interviews. This camera is made to be carried with you. It’s a camera that you use when you’re shooting any kind of street photography, street video. It’s that quick shots and on you go. That’s really the genius of this camera. And the video is in that same category.
So just to be clear, I’ve been saying that it’s a 23mm lens and it is. But it’s a 35mm equivalent. So it’s not a wide lens. 35mm is not very wide. You can go to a 50mm or a 75mm with the adapters that go on the front. They’re about $349, I think, for each of those. So it doesn’t really have a good wide end when it comes to the lens choice you can use with this camera. It starts out kind of not very wide and goes longer. So that is a bit of a drawback I think.
So this camera will give you 20 frames a second in electronic shutter up to about 80 frames. But it’ll only give you 11 frames a second in mechanical shutter up to about 38 frames. So it’s really not a high-speed burst kind of camera. But it gives you a decent number of frames per second to get shots and be able to get some interesting images.
So a couple of things before I wrap this up. I was not used to how you set this camera up when it comes to shooting auto modes. I like to shoot aperture priority. So when you turn it to the A on your shutter dial it goes to aperture priority basically. I did some where I did it with both. I would set my aperture. I would set my shutter. And then I did some auto ISO which is just using the red dials. It’s not that hard to figure out once you look at it and just takes a couple of minutes with it. But it is different. It doesn’t have a dedicated dial. It just goes aperture, shutter, you know, auto ISO. It does have a compensation dial. It’s got a pop out screen on the back which was really nice if you want to be able to get down low to be able to shoot with it. It doesn’t have a lot of dials but it’s got the dials that it needs to. It’s got a hot shoe so you can use a strobe on it. It does have a dedicated little flash on it. Which I saw some images one of my students did at a concert with that, using that flash. It looked really interesting to me. It’s like, kind of that on camera flash. It looks really cool.
So I did not expect to be as excited about shooting this as I was. It was a great experience. It was fun to shoot. It’s the compact form factor that just makes it really appealing to me. Something I really like to carry around. So I found the camera very, very interesting. I can see why people are clamoring to get it. Why it’s hard to get a hold of it. But I found it just a lot of fun. Very retro, very small, very interesting to shoot. It’s a winner for me. I really enjoyed it a lot. So there’s a look at the Fujifilm X100 VI. Keep those cameras rollin’ and keep on clickin’!
