A buddy of mine recently acquired a used Fuji x100 and lent it to me for a weekend.  The leaf shutter and its ability to sync to 1/4000th of a second is a very compelling feature and I used it in a class to create a moody vibe for our images (see an example here).  But I wanted to see how the Fuji x100 would perform in street photography, so I dragged it around Boston for a day.  Some of the results are after the jump.

The Fuji x100 is well, interesting.  I definitely appreciated the light weight and the real view finder.  But there were some things that drove me F-ing nuts!  I’m used to shooting street photography with a film camera, so I like to set everything on manual or at least aperture priority mode.  I typically stop the lens down to f11 or f16 and either follow the sunny-sixteen rule or let the computer drive the shutter speed.  Pre-focus eight to ten feet and everything from arms reach to about 15 feet will be in decent focus.  Then, just draw and shoot.  No problem right?  Well,  for the life of me I could not figure out how to get the Fuji x100 to fire instantly.  Even with manual focus and left with the power on, the camera wanted to go into a sleep mode and took several seconds to wake. Kind of frustrating when you are used to the instant response of film.  I ended up pressing the shutter button while the camera was at my side to wake the thing before actually taking the shot. Granted, I only had the camera for a couple of days and it is the earlier version, so this may have been corrected (or correctable).  I will say the silence of the leaf shutter was wonderful!  I hate being in some place contemplative like a church, only to have the silence interrupted by the clack-ack of a dSLR.  I’ll have to borrow the Fuji again and try it in low light, indoor situations.