10 Years of Fuji: was it worth it? Those upgrades over time? Mostly full res pics

deednets wrote:

The "10 Years of Fuji" context interests me, as I've also used x-trans cameras for a decade now.

A few things got me to try Fujifilm back then. First, the cameras were starting to show up in my circle of photographers in the SF Bay Area, and they provided a quite different counterpoint to the DSLRs that we were all using. Second, as a photographer for decades before that time, I was not so pleased about the loss of manual controls on most of the digital cameras of that time — and the Fujifilm cameras provided them. Third, as a person using a large (and quite good) full frame system from another manufacturer for my photography, I was ill-equipped for things like street photography and travel, and the Fujifilm system offered some attractive options.

So, to try the system out, and with the goal of using it for street/travel, I picked up the little XE1 — actually, we got two of them — along with a few of the lenses available at that time. I was very impressed by the lenses, especially the 35mm f/1.4 and the 14mm f/2.8, and the system proved itself to be better for the travel/street work.

It had its downsides. The XE1 was not particularly fast and the AF was both slow and not always accurate. Back then we were also dealing with a couple of post-processing issues with Fujifilm files and Adobe software. (These are no longer an issue.) While I would not have considering moving to _only_ Fujifilm, the camera/lenses worked well for the intended purpose.

After being convinced that the system was viable, I moved to the XPro2 as soon as it was introduced. At the time, this was a remarkable camera and arguably the Fujifilm flagship. The hybrid viewfinder, one of the most interesting technology developments at the time, appealed to those who like rangefinder-style cameras and decreased our concerns about EVF performance (now largely not an issue) and let us use larger lenses. In fact,t the XPro2 was the most versatile and adaptable camera in the line-up and even when compared to other brands.

The AF was fast enough, though not super speedy, but the camera could do a lot. While the old 16MP sensor was good for a 16MP APS-C sensor, the 24MP sensor was a step up in every way. For example, I have been able to successfully use the camera for handheld night street photography.

I recently moved to the XT5. I no longer have the concerns that were addressed by the XPro line — we're all adapting to EVFs and that in the XT5 is quite good. The camera feels solid and tight and is quite well designed. In hand, it feels as smaller than the XPro2. And the image quality coming from the 40MP sensor is better than than from the 24MP sensor. In particular, it is less subject to some of the sharpening issues that we had to work around with the older sensors.

In short, while we could (and I did) make good, useful (and marketable) images with those fine little 16MP cameras, the improvements to the sensors and the rest of the system have been worth it for me.