Legacy Shoot: The Original X100
Filed under Essay.
For years, it’s been blind and silenced, locked in its fake-satin box, lost to darkness, alive only in the depths of fond memories. I had to dig around for a battery and wait for it to charge. I had to re-configure its spirit from scratch, digging through forgotten menus, breathing life back into the heart of the machine—hoping to jumpstart a broken soul.
And I did.
And we found each other again.
...
Old film cameras never die. But digital? It’s been a different story: technical limitations are more obvious, we expect ever higher resolutions... The general pace of innovation tends to leave previous models in the dust. Or at least our perception of them. And yet, when I look around, the walls in our home are lined with prints from these “old” digital cameras. Their images live on in books, their stories still whisper as they did before, right here on this website.
I once read, in the early days of digital, someone making the case that sensors/processors were like the new film stocks, each new generation bringing a different look to the table, regardless of resolution issues. I’m not sure it’s quite that simple but there is some truth to it. In fact, there has to be, otherwise what’s the point? If the rendering of files doesn’t factor in, then everything out there is simply interchangeable, isn’t it? And we’re just buying cameras based on ergonomics and whizzbang features.
In 2011, I saw something with the X100. The form factor and underlying philosophy were an important part of that experience, but none of that would’ve mattered if the camera’s images had been indistinguishable from the Nikons I was already shooting. It begins and ends with pictures.
I’ve been lucky, as an X-Photographer, to be part of this revolution, to watch the X-series grow (explode, really) from the front-lines. And it’s been an amazing ride—but it also means that I’ve changed and/or used new bodies on an ongoing basis: X-Pro1, X-E1, X100S, X-T1, X-E2, X100T, X-Pro2, X-T2, X100F, GFX 50S, GFX 50R, X-T3, X-Pro3...it’s dizzying. I think I’m even forgetting a few (X-M1, X30, X-E2?).
So for this series I’m stepping back. Instead of jumping ahead to the next shiny new level, I thought I’d revisit some of those “old” kits, the ones I once waxed poetic about. And of course it had to begin with the origin of it all: the X100.
Is there still something to see, ten years later?
...
No Q menu. I’d forgotten about that. The X100 is a Finepix camera after all—no X-series yet. No Classic Chrome or Negative, no Pro Neg film simulations either, just the basics: so I settle on Provia, the same one I used back then. I also remember using DR Auto at the time, so I switch this on as a throwback, along with Auto ISO. It takes me a few minutes to get my bearings again, to reclaim those old rhythms...but it all comes back to me. The biggest change is my reliance on the EVF now—a habit much too engrained and hard to shake, so while I test the OVF for a bit, I quickly switch back. Surprisingly, despite some slowness, the display’s performance doesn’t bother me at all. In fact, nothing about this camera does. There’s no electronic shutter so shooting wide open in bright light requires the ND filter—I map it back to the fn button, like I once did. MF+AF doesn’t exist yet either, so I’m back to focus/recompose. It should all bug the hell out of me...but it doesn’t. Not a single bit.
I slip back into the motions.
I accept the limitations of the machine.
I watch and I shoot—same as it ever was.
On the computer I process the files with new tools and new instincts—a decade’s worth of changes. I’m not the same photographer I was all those years ago...heck, I’m not the same man. And yet, this camera still sings for me. It still shines, just as brightly.
I’d expected a gruelling ordeal, a need to run back as quickly as possible to the latest and greatest…but as it turns out, a great camera remains a great camera.
This first legacy shoot is an eye-opener.
