Great experience with first mirrorless

After using Nikon reflex cameras for almost 25 years, I decided to make a leap into the mirrorless camera system. And since I didn’t like the mirrorless cameras from my beloved brand, I started looking into other brands. After reading many reviews on Fujifilm, Panasonic, Olympus and Sony cameras, my preferred choice was the X-E3. But a few negative reviews held me back from ordering it online. So I went to a camera shop and try it out myself... and got convinced.

After 3 weeks of owning the X-E3, I could keep my review short by saying how much I love this camera. But I still want to add a little more experiences for those people who might find it useful:

- I started to use the camera without reading the manual. I believe it is a good measure for usability. And yes, the reviews I had read before already helped me a little to learn the camera. That being said, I had to fall back to the manual to understand on how I had to configure it to me needs. I do not consider it a bad thing, because it is just so amazing how this camera can be configured. And configuration is something you do once to make shooting pictures everyday a pleasure.

- the touchscreen is another feature I like a lot. But to be honest, I had mixed feelings about it the first days I owned the camera until a discovered how to “swipe” the touchscreen. If you keep your swipes really short, it works like a charm and is very responsive. I like it so much I strongly believe in the next years all digital cameras will have it. Less buttons just makes the camera more ergonomic.

- focusing speed is good. And more than good enough for my kind of photography, which is mostly landscapes and (family) portraits. I didn’t try focus tracking yet, but I might give an update on this topic once I have taken some pictures of my daughter playing basketball. I also experienced some difficulties focusing in low light. More precisely, the camera just failed to focus on low contrast areas in low light.

- film simulation might be a nice feature for people who still used film more than 10 years ago, but let’s be honest, for the younger people this looks like a meaningless approach in giving different looks to your pictures. How long Fujifilm can market this as a feature is a question mark to me. I’m more neutral about the film simulation after a few weeks of using my X-E3. Haven’t really used it yet.

- WiFi connectivity was very easy to set up. It is nice to control the camera from on iPad. I see some benefits in using this for outdoor shoots.

- Today I tried my Elinchrom Skyport Plus triggers, and all worked very smoothly. One side-effect I experienced with a mirrorless camera is that you also see an underexposed image in your viewfinder. Obviously of course... but if you heavily underexpose to get a dramatic exposure with a few flashes, you actually get a very dark or almost black viewfinder. So to compose the image you first have to correctly expose to see the image, and then change your exposure. I assume this is a drawback of a mirrorless camera. Or I still have to learn to use it in a better way.

All in all, I really love this camera. Well done Fujifilm. Shame on you Nikon for not releasing a similar camera.