You don't understand the demand for high image quality small cameras we can slide into an everyday sling, carry around most time. It's obvious you are not the target user. I understand most cameras purpose, even if I'm not in interested group.
I avoid x100 series because the overhype, but I have to realise this camera fits best of my everyday carry camera requirement. If've mistaken than I will sell it.
No, not that. I've been desperate for a lightweight small compact and capable carry everywhere camera all my photographic life. I'm no fan of lugging my GFX outfit around.
I also understand that all sorts of cameras can serve a useful purpose for someone somewhere even if it makes no sense to someone with different needs.
What I don't understand is why a very limited camera can become insanely popular when it specifications are almost the opposite of the kind of specifications needed for a lightweight, compact do it all all in one camera. It seems counter-intuitive, counter-factual almost. It's a kind of craze or cult.
A fixed lens, fixed focal length camera is, by modern standards, a very inflexible device. It is a very specialised, very niche product. With the Sigma fixed lens cameras, plenty of people ended up carrying 3 or 4 of them at the same time! Not only does this show that people want and need flexibility, but lugging that lot around is the opposite of travelling light and fast.
Some people like the limitation of having to see the world in a single focal length.
Most of my photography portfolio was shot on an APS-C camera with a 35mm lens (53mm FF equivalent).
Not once did I feel that I needed another focal length - that was just how I envisioned framing.
Nowadays for more casual use I’m likely to have a full frame camera with a 35mm lens on it. Occasionally 28mm, which I think gives the scene a bit of a more cinematic look - you take in more of the scenery and have to get closer to your subject for the same frame.
(the term cinematic here is somewhat nonsensical, but it’s very much the opposite of, say an 85mm look).
I've tried out many cameras in that compact carry anywhere role. They all been inadequate in one way or another. No manufacturer has made a serious all in attempt at cracking the problem. Premium compacts have historically been overpriced dross, to be frank. I still actually own a Canon G7. It flatters to deceive, it's not good enough at the job it is intended to fulfil. Competing models are the same.
I believe the G7 was the first digital camera I owned. It was a very short hop from G7 to DSLR because it rekindled my interest in photography, which died along with my access to a darkroom after college.
The closest I got was the Minolta A200, an 8MP 2/3" sensor fixed zoom lens miniature SLR style mirrorless camera with a 28-200mm equivalent manual zoom that was light and flexible and you could just about fit in a coat pocket. It was the baby sized ancestor of modern MILCs but with a fixed lens. It was just about an acceptable compromise. But I could see lots of places where it could have been refined and optimised into a genuinely useful high performance flexible compact and it never was.
You know a lot of photographers eschew zoom lenses. Some embrace them, others abhor them.
Henri Cartier-Bresson I believe preferred 50mm. Peter Lindbergh I believe used 70-200 a lot (but I could be wrong).
When Annie Leibowitz was still a beat photographer for Rolling Stone I suspect she shot a lot of fixed focal length stuff and might have used the 70’s equivalent of an X-100,
The Fuji X100 series are not that camera. They are niche products, the spiritual successor to Japanese fixed lens rangefinders of the 1960s like the Canonet QL17. You remember, those cameras that rapidly died a death when affordable SLRs came on to the market in large numbers...
But also the venerable Olympus XA, Olympus Trip, and the Ricoh GR - produced into the 90s basically up until the release of the RG Digital.
I wasn’t around then, but I owned an Olympus XA (loaned it to someone I had a falling out with). I don’t believe these compact fixed lens cameras were “replaced by SLRs”.
I distinctly remember buying a cheap fixed lens point & shoot in the 90’s to supplement by SLR. Something, essentially, pocketable.
I don't think in the film era it was technologically possible to turn SLR capability into a pocket sized camera. It is now.
You say “SLR capability” - do you mean zoom lens and large sensor? All of the cameras you’re describing that you like have a zoom lens and only fall short in that the lens or sensor isn’t adequate to the job.
I think zoom lenses for large (as in micro four thirds and up) sensors with moderately large aperture are basically impossible to make pocketable.
I think what you’re looking for is either a Panasonic GM1 (smallest mirrorless camera ever, maybe Nikon J1 aside but likely even including those). The camera is barely larger than the lens mount and a “kit” zoom.
Or maybe another Panasonic/Olympus camera in a more SLR style body (which you seem to like) with a “kit” zoom lens.
I don’t see why you need the lens to be integrated into the camera. I don’t think the size savings is as much as you think it is….
The Fuji X-Pro with the 27mm pancake isn’t much larger than the Fuji X-100. Sure like 10-15% in every dimension and enough that it could be a deciding factor in choosing one over another, but also not THAT big a diffence.
But they won't do it, instead they make fake rangefinder lookalikes. My theory is they are bought in large numbers primarily for the looks. A small number of serious photographers manage to do great work with them, but that is not why the range is popular.
Yes, aesthetics is important. However I also believe if you’re going to include an EVF, rangefinder style is how you keep it compact. SLR style necessarily means an SLR style hump on the top.
What was that camera with the pop up EVF? The EVF was on the side, not in the center. Can’t put the pop-up EVF in the way of the lens right? So where do you put an EVF if you want to keep a camera compact? Off in the corner.
