Don't talk to me about horizontals and
verticals. I just got a Fuji X10. It's
a beaut in some ways. Like a real camera.
But using the viewfinder, which still comes
naturally to me after all this time looking
at a 3" rectangle, makes for crazy
'lining up' issues.
I've been waiting for a camera manufacturer
to make a digital OM1 ever since digital
began. Although the viewfinder makes this
Fuij obviously more of a rangefinder than an
SLR it's SO like a film camera in its feel
and gadget interface and the way it responds;
it's getting there. Always surprises me that
people who design things, unwittingly I think
when sweeping out the old to usher in a
revolutionary new thing, often design out
what often were very good features of
previous generations of equipment for the
sake of making a change. It's odd. It doesn't
make sense. It's not how natural evolution
would work. It's reinventing the wheel. But
with unnecessary tassles and knobbly bits
that take a long tome to be worn off to get
back to simplicity.
What I want is a tough, portable, compact and
nice feeling piece of machinery I can take
anywhere, and occasionally bash on a rock by
mistake, which I can pick up to my eye in an
instant no matter what is happening to the
light, and make do what I want it to like a
sixth sense without having to squint at some
dial, knob, switch pin or button, or flashing
phrase on a screen to find that it's too dark
or it's moved itself onto 1600 asa or the
flash has just popped up whatever - fighting
to get an exposure value, depth of field,
feeling of motion or mood - that I set up in
the moment by MY being fully in charge of the
scene rather than the camera and a bunch of
technicians in some dust free lab deciding in
advance what will happen just then. The X10
is getting there but there's still a leap
back to be made before the future is as far
forward as it should be.
I have no idea if that makes any sense
whatsoever.
H@shim A ™photostream.