The Optical Viewfinder Experience on the Fuji X-T1 & X-T10

Fuji X-T1 with a vintage Leitz (Leica) 28mm brightline optical viewfinder

With decades of Leica M usage, I’ve become quite partial to the rangefinder form. The Fuji X-Pro1 is a camera that I become comfortable in handling very quickly. It’s familiar in all of the best ways, with its innovative hybrid finder that can switch to an optical view instanteously. And unlike its popular cousins from the X100 series, the X-Pro1 had interchangeable lenses, which increases its versatility.

The X-Pro1, however, is quite long in the tooth and its performance, particularly in AF, falls ever further behind. The last couple of months saw the release of the budget Fuji X-T10 and the firmware 4.0 update to the X-T1. Those two Fuji X camera bodies are now many steps beyond the aging X-Pro1’s focusing performance, but they are EVF only.  There’s a relatively economical way, however, to have optical finder capability on Fuji’s latest cameras.

The Fuji X Daily Carry Part I: Always have one Fuji camera with you at all times

A Fuji X camera with an 18mm (28mm-e) lens, carried discretely under a jacket

My favorite type of photography that I do for myself (rather than for my professional photography work) is street photography. I’ve been doing it since I was a teenager, back in the ‘80’s, and have continued on and off with it, over the decades. It’s always a difficult pursuit for me. I find it’s a lot like poetry – on the surface, it seems quite easy, yet it’s wickedly difficult if you ever try to attempt it yourself.

Creating a street photograph that is an ideal blend of form and content is a challenging endeavor, that doesn’t seem to get easier over the years. That elusive blend is definitely the hardest aspect of shooting street photography.

The easy part is knowing one’s equipment and how to use it. That’s relatively easy to learn, and I’m happy to share some of the techniques that I’ve acquired over the years. I’ve already discussed how I use and set up the Fuji X-Pro1 for street shooting. For this post, I’d like to discuss how to carry a single Fuji X camera (or any other compact camera), so that it’s always with you at all times.

Always have your camera with you

The start of being ready and able to shoot, is always having your camera with you. Even if you don’t intend to being shooting that day, ALWAYS bring it with you.