Adopting Fuji Cameras for a new venture

I started as professional photographer in 1965. Yes, 1965 – I am 70 years old. On Sep 30 I will end my career as I have known it for decades. I am going back to my roots as a documentary photographer. I have disabled my commercial website and will have a new site online shortly. I am starting a new website to display the documentary photography I will begin to shoot in early October.

When I began my career I carried a Leica M2 with 35mm lens mounted and 21mm lens in the bag plus a Nikon F with a 105mm mounted and a 200mm in the bag. Oh yeah, I had a Honeywell electronic flash in that bag too. All that gear cost me about $1,500 at used prices.

In preparation for my new endeavors I broke the mold by not simply adopting Nikon gear, my choice of decades, as my tools for documentary photography. I took weeks to research and evaluate gear that would be versatile, affordable, and able to produce the quality needed for a documentary photography website. Money was a meaningful concern because my new endeavor will not likely ever produce revenues. I just want to do it before I die. I sold off almost all of my Nikon FF gear recently. I wanted to re-equip at a profit so I tested and bought the following used gear: Fuji X100, Fuji S2, Nikon 70-300 ED, Tamron 10-24. I quickly determined that the gear would give me all the quality I need for Internet displays, and iy covers a wider range of focal lengths than I had back at my start.

I have fully tested the X100. It reminded me of my Leica M2 with 35mm lens experience. I love it. It makes me free. I am testing the S2 now, and I think it is OK for my needs. The used lenses I bought are good. I know them from prior endeavors.

It is the X100 that makes my day. I have read all the concerns and complaints about the camera here at DpReview. I guess it is because I began with a Leica M2 with 35mm lens with no autofocus and only manual exposure control that I find the X100 to be amazing, albeit quirky in some ways.

My new and soon to be online documentary website will be Photowitness.net. Right now it is under construction. By October 15 it will be live with its first content of words and pictures.