Continuing the blog serialisation of my popular X-Pro1 lust/hate/love story:
Part Three: The Return…
About this time, we decided we would move from the UK to Portugal. A very intense few weeks followed, with not a lot of photography.
X-T1/XF18-55 @18 ISO400 F4.0 1/1900. Edited from RAW in Capture One. This is a whole new world!
I was loving the X-T1. So different to the X-Pro1 in every way. I found it dependable. It did as I told it. I still have it (I guess it’ll go if I get an X-Pro2, but let’s save that conundrum to later!)
X-T1/XF35 ISO400 F5.0 1/140. Edited from RAW in Capture One. Look! You can just see something with a X-T1 and shoot it!
But I fancied something a little smaller, something that could just be thrown in the bottom of the push chair and taken out and about for snaps.
Enter the X100S. I still had feelings for the shape and OVF function of the X-Pro1, but I knew from the X-T1 that the performance improvements with the X-Trans II processor and sensor combination were not to be sniffed at. The perfect companion to my X-T1.
X100S ISO800 F3.2 1/100. SOOC Jpeg edited with DxO Optics Pro 8. For shots on the go, the X100 series is top notch.
And indeed it was. Except that the parts of the X100S that were X-Pro1 like, weren’t quite the same… the size was a bit smaller, the OVF frame lines weren’t quite as generous with seeing outside of the frame. It was also a bit annoying that it used a different type of battery to the X-T1.
About this time Fuji were clearly trying to ditch the X-Pro1, it was over 3 years old! The internet was buzzing with rumours of an X-Pro2 and one could buy the X-Pro1, the XF18 & XF27 + the official leather case for about £600. That was cheaper than they were selling the X100S (which had just been superseded by the X100T) for.
At this time, I wonder how many people went out to get a X100S, but saw the X-Pro1 and thought, ‘Wow that’s a good deal – I’ll get that instead’ maybe many, maybe only one…
….But there was definitely one, because I found myself trading my mint X100S, with leather case for a mint X-Pro1, with the leather case and the 2 aforementioned lenses.
I went into this with my eyes open… I knew what the X-Pro1 was like… I knew what it could do and what (I thought) it couldn’t.
My rationale was simple… 2 new prime lenses, a battery solution that also worked with the X-T1; and fitted with the XF27, the X-Pro1 would not be that much different than the X100S.
And when I needed speed, I could just use the X-T1. It wasn’t like I was planning to have the X-Pro1 as my main camera or anything like that.
Except that it didn’t work out like that. The second time around the X-Pro1 became so very, very much more than eye candy to me. I finally figured out how to use it, I fell in love with it holistically; I re-acquired it to grab snaps. I ended up making some of my best photographs
I wonder why that was? What exactly is it about the X-Pro1?
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Adam Bonn Fotografia 
Yes, what exactly is it about the X-Pro1 . . . .?
Really don’t know exactly but it let you make very nice photo’s as seen in your blog and on Flickr.
Although you prove that the other Fuji camera’s ain’t bad either . . . .
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Thanks Jos,
It’s so hard to quantify something as subjective as the X-Pro1 “look”, I’ve sold the X-T1 so I just have a X-Pro1 now!
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