image courtesy: Mike Kobal

 “The scene was dark and quiet and I tried to capture that feeling by keeping the ISO down, I did not want the trees to look grainy or noisy and kept the 1/30 shutter speed. Switched focus to AFC and focused. Failed. No problem, my subjects weren’t going anywhere, just running around in circles, re-framed, focused and captured. AF FAIL again. Now this was a pretty challenging scenery, low light, nothing reliable to focus on and after a few more failed attempts I switched to manual focus, which, from my previous setting was in split mode and I realized instantly split mode wont get the job done here, the subjects are moving too fast, the snow on the ground didn’t offer anything vertical and the trees were too far away. I pressed the toggle switch on the back for a second and this took me to focus peaking, which was the perfect aid for this scenery and thanks to the short throw of the mf ring, I had them focused properly and followed their movements with ease. I never took my eyes off them until I had the shot (after about 30 clicks). […] Back in the East Village, I spotted this lady waiting for the light to change and just caught her, still in AFS mode I switched to AFC mode, left the shutter speed at 1/30th and was pleasantly surprised, the X100S nailed focus the first time, I took a few shots to get the step right and autofocus was spot on every time. Impressive.”

It sounds like a “photografic adventure” in NYC and I really enjoyed reading it. No ISO-charts, no comparisons… just walking around in a cold, snowy winter night, hunting for a good subject to capture with the X100S and writing down his experience. At the end Mike Kobal says that “[…] the X100S is a street photographers dream. AF issues have been fixed and the improved EVF was a joy to use, MF options are in a league of their own. No contenders for now, and I almost forgot, in good light, we have the fantastic OHVF. Do I like this camera? Will I get one? Hell YES![…] ” Read it here.

P.S.: US citizens can now purchase the X20 at ebayUS here.
X100S: BHphoto / Adorama / AmazonUS / AmazonDE / AmazonUK / AmazonITA / DigitalRev / your ebay / your Amazon
X20:  BHphoto (black – silver) / Adorama (black – silver) / AmazonUS (black – silver) / AmazonUK (black – silver) / AmazonDE / AmazonITA / DigitalRev / your ebay / your Amazon

Here is Ralf’s X100S unboxing & review in English (German review). Amazing and outstanding image quality, very good also at high ISO and details. The image quality is also a little better than the X-E1, because “the pictures have a little bit more contrast and just a little bit less noise than the X-E1, but the difference is very very low.”… Take a look also at his Flickr X100S set here.

– In the next video (German version) Ralf reviews the X20. The X10 was already a very good camera. But Fuji improved it. It’s not that huge improvement [as for the X100S], but there are a lot of nice and new functions in the X20 (focus peaking, OFV with Trans Panel, X-TRANS, EXR II, a bit faster AF…), so it’s worth to buy this camera, although the X10 is still really good, and you could save a lot of money if you go for the X10. Here is his X20 Flickr set.

X100S: BHphoto / Adorama / AmazonUS / AmazonDE / AmazonUK / AmazonITA / DigitalRev / your ebay / your Amazon
X20:  BHphoto (black – silver) / Adorama (black – silver) / AmazonUS (black – silver) / AmazonUK (black – silver) / AmazonDE / AmazonITA / DigitalRev / your ebay / your Amazon
X10: [shopcountry 8898]