Advice: Ultra wide travel camera... X100 + Converter, X-T1.... or stick with my D90+10-20mm

I own both an X100 and a Nikon D90+Sigma 10-20mm f4-f5.6 lens.

I love the X100 for it's beautiful jpegs, lightness, low-light capability, depth of field, looks etc. etc. but dislike it for it's AF speed/accuracy and it's sometimes limited focal length.

I love the D90+10-20mm lens for it's ultra-wide capability and AF speed/accuracy, but dislike it for it's weight and low-light capabilities.

I am lucky enough to be heading off travelling for a couple of months on a sabbatical and want to take one camera/lens with me.

Experience shows me that I personally get more interesting and memorable travel shots with the ultrawide lens, but the sheer weight and bulk of the D90+Sigma lens just is a bit of a pain to lug around all day, really reducing my overall enjoyment of just being a tourist.

So.... In an ideal world I'd get something like the 10-20 focal length with the size/weight of the X100, even if I had to sacrifice some quality/low-light/AF speed.

I am considering investing in the X-T1+10-20mm XF lens as a replacement for the D90, but it's still quite heavy - only about 200g lighter than the D90+10-20, and still twice the weight of the X100. So this is the main reason I'm hesitating.

The other option is to get the WCL-X100 adapter for the X100, but this, I think only takes it to 28mm equivalent (i.e. it's not really as wide as I'd like).

Any further thoughts really most appreciated!

Thank you, Mark.

If you really like using an ultrawide, you'll have to go stick with your Nikon or go for one of the interchangeable Fuji bodies. I agree with you that 28mm isn't always quite wide enough, but the x100 with that adapter and the upcoming 50mm teleconverter would make an ideal travel package.

I recently went to Barcelona and used my x100 with the 28mm adapter a lot at night, but during the day dragged my Canon 7D/10-22 around. I was glad for the ultrawide in the narrow alleys of the Gothic Quarter but greatly preferred using the Fuji. it's a tough decision!

I know you only want one camera/lens, but could you be happy with the X100 + X-T1/Xf14mm? The XF14 is around half the weight of the XF 10-24.

I would consider selling the Nikon... and investing in a Fuji X camera, XE2 or T1 with the 18-55 zoom and either the Fuji 14mm or 10-24 f/4. One of the reasons to do this, which you did not mention is that the DR of the Fuji cameras are significantly wider than your D90. With wide angle work many compositions include both bright and dark areas since they capture a wide FOV. The extra DR, plus the DR modes on the Fuji, will make a difference in this area. I know since I shot Nikon for 10 years, last camera was the D300 (which I sold along with all my Nikon stuff about six months after investing in my XE1). I looked into Fuji for two reasons, 1) needed more DR and 2) something lighter to carry on hikes...

The shot below would have required a lot of bracketing and HDR work to include the sun and the shaded mountain but I was able to pull enough info out of a single RAW capture with my XE1 and Fuji 14mm (which is a fantastic lens and optically near perfect in terms of sharpness and distortion - which is important for architecture)





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Fuji Silver XE1 w/14, 35, 18-55, 55-200, Rokinon 8mm Fisheye & Tamron 90mm f/2.8 Macro

In this case I would sell all you have and switch to Micro Four Thirds. You have small mirror less lenses like the Panasonic 7-14 mm that is a fantastic lens and a 14 mm - 28 mm equivalent.

The worse thing you can do is become emotionally attached to gear. Just solve the problem and forget what you have because it sounds like it will not work for you, DSLR or X100, this is just a means to an end.

Or, you could get a D600/610 with the excellent 18-35G. That combination will beat the X-T1 for the type of photography you mention. This is coming from somebody who is looking for every possible reason to switch to the lovely X-T1, but have decided to wait for version 2 and more of the lens line to become available. Have fun on your trip!

As a no-cost option, I would recommend to try pano stitching with the x100 without the wide angle adapter. I've had great results hand holding the camera vertically and taking a series of 3-6 frames left to right with about a 20% overlap between frames and then stitching the frames later in Photoshop, which is quite easy to do. If you don't have PS, there are some free stitching software programs out there, but I don't know how well the work. Stitching in CS6 works quite well.

You would want to test it out and practice before your trip to see if it works for you, and of course, if you were doing night shots, you would need to use a tripod unless you could raise the iso up high enough to allow hand-held shots.

The key for me is shooting the frames in a vertical format so the panos are proportioned better (not long & skinny), shooting extra frame(s) if needed to have some room to crop later, keeping the camera back perpendicular to the ground, pivot from the waist, and not moving my feet between frames. I also shoot RAW files in manual mode and manual focus. I will meter the brightest area and shoot all the frame with the same exposure. Some people shoot in P mode and have no problems too. The stitching technique does not work as well with objects that are close to the camera. Sometimes the stitching won't line up exactly between frames.

Regards.

This is a 8 frame pano stitch on a tripod:

Looking at some of the samples, I recommend the X-E2 and Fuji 10-24mm. The lens is spectacular and stabilized, and that means no tripod is necessary. This is a Fuji image:




10-24 at 10mm



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jaxupra

Digital cameras all involve trade-offs, and the trick is always identifying which features matter the most to you. What will you give up to get what you want?

You're saying you want something with the same wide-angle view as your D90 w/10-20mm, but smaller/lighter and with better lowlight IQ. But you also say you'd sacrifice some IQ/lowlight/AF speed for less size/weight---do you mean IQ/speed compared to your D90, or your X100?

You haven't mentioned whether mirrorless/live view is a +/- or neutral factor for you. That kind of matters when thinking about recommendations.

1. Buy a Nikon D3200 or D3300 body: Keep using your Sigma 10-20. Smaller/lighter body than D90, significantly improved IQ all-around, little/no sacrifice of AF speed.

2. Fuji XE2 w/10-24: The XE2 is 90g lighter than the XT1, so add'l weight savings. Faster AF than X100. I love live view, can't conceive of going back to an OVF DSLR, so I'd pick this over any Nikon D-series choice, even if the weight savings aren't huge. Unfortunately there isn't a smaller/lighter ultrawide Fuji zoom yet.

3. Oly/Panny body w/Panny 7-14 or Oly 9-18: Lightest/smallest package w/ultrawide zoom, better IQ than D90 (if you stick to new/current cams), fast AF. An EM10 or G6 w/integral EVF if you're sure you need an EVF. Best recommendation for smallest/lightest package.

Since a 28mm EFL isn't wide enough for you, I can't see recommending and X100S. It does have better AF than the X100, but it's not wide enough.

You could look at what's available for the Nikon V2/V3, the 6.7-13mm get you about 20-40mm, in a very compact package. Very fast AF, lower IQ, especially lowlight, compared to M43 and APS-C.

AFAIK there's nothing in fixed-lens compact cameras with the ultrawide fl you're looking for.

markalroberts said:

I love the X100 for it's beautiful jpegs, lightness, low-light capability, depth of field, looks etc. etc. but dislike it for it's AF speed/accuracy and it's sometimes limited focal length.

I love the D90+10-20mm lens for it's ultra-wide capability and AF speed/accuracy, but dislike it for it's weight and low-light capabilities.

the sheer weight and bulk of the D90+Sigma lens just is a bit of a pain to lug around all day, really reducing my overall enjoyment of just being a tourist.

So.... In an ideal world I'd get something like the 10-20 focal length with the size/weight of the X100, even if I had to sacrifice some quality/low-light/AF speed.

I am considering investing in the X-T1+10-20mm XF lens as a replacement for the D90, but it's still quite heavy - only about 200g lighter than the D90+10-20, and still twice the weight of the X100. So this is the main reason I'm hesitating.

The other option is to get the WCL-X100 adapter for the X100, but this, I think only takes it to 28mm equivalent (i.e. it's not really as wide as I'd like).

Click to expand...

Ricoh GR w/ 21mm adapter. Gives you the ultra wide you want with IQ as good as any Fuji.

Nice lens.... but not really as wide as I would like - I often go all out to 10mm (15mm equivalent), so this 14mm (21mm equivalent) probably will leave me wanting...

Thank you! Really nice photo too. I'm still thinking that 14mm may not be quite wide enough for me though.

Well, a certain amount of emotional attachment (for someone like me) is worth quite a bit - for example, I just want to take the X100 everywhere I go - there is something so appealing about the way it looks and the handles (even it's clunkyness is appealing)...

... however, I am looking at the other options. I think the Panasonic 7-14 will still be too heavy for me, but the Olympus 9-18 is very small and light (~150g), ok it's plasticy but I may be able to live with that if I can go wide and light.

Yes it looks amazing... but it's still heavy

Really how can a 21mm adapter give me the same width as the wide end of a 10mm-20mm aps-c lens?

Thank you for all this advice! I think you have some very good points here.

Am drawn to the 9-18mm Olympus. Perhaps with the E-PL5 body

Do you think the E-M10 would be much better than the E-PL5 (I appreciate that it has the EVF).

It's about 70g or so heavier than the E-PL5 :/

Apologies, I know this is a Fujifilm forum!

Thanks

Remember, the 9-18 is really 18-36 in FF terms, while the Fuji 10-24 is 15-36. The X-E1 or 2 is the same size as the X100.

markalroberts said:

Well, a certain amount of emotional attachment (for someone like me) is worth quite a bit - for example, I just want to take the X100 everywhere I go - there is something so appealing about the way it looks and the handles (even it's clunkyness is appealing)...

Click to expand...

I feel we are very similar in this regard.

The 10-24 is quite a lump so if you want something lightish an option is the Zeiss 12mm (18) and the lighter XC zoom 16-50mm (24-75). I have the latter and quite like it for it's size - it is especially good value if you pick one of the many new ones split from kits on ebay - that will somewhat offset the price of the Zeiss. The Zeiss is fairly light/small and reasonably wide.

But if you want wide only the 10-24 will do.

cheers

Thanks for all the replies here. Really good advice and very helpful

In the end, I decided to go as wide and light as I could (also I have to be slightly realistic about costs, I come to realise!)

So, I hope you won't think I'm trolling when I say that I went for the OMD E-M10 with 9-18mm lens.

I appreciate I won't get quite the width or perhaps quite the IQ of the X-T1 with 10-24mm lens, but it is still going to produce some great photos - mostly probably better then the D90 with 10-20mm lens (which I was pretty happy with bar the 1.2 kg weight around my neck!)

My thinking:

X-T1+10-24mm = 440g + 410g = 850g

X-T1+10-25mm = £1049 + £849 = £1898

OMD E-M10 + 9-18mm = 396g + 155g = 551g

OMD E-M10 + 9-18mm = £529 + £479 = £998

That's 300g and £900 difference, which, for me and my travels, is hard to ignore.