I left Nikon…. for Fujifilm

Let me start EVERYTHING off by saying I Love Nikon systems, I was a devoted and diehard Nikon believer for 30 years, my switch had little do with the camera system and more to do with me.

Now….to me..

I grew up in the Midwest, Indiana, to be precise. My photographic journey started in high school as more of a filler class then anything of real interest, obviously something changed,…. the moment i developed my first print. A terrible image. A truly underwhelming image of …you guessed it CORN rows….what else would it be…lol.

That terrible image changed my life.

One high school class, hundreds of books, a few mentors, videos and these days YouTube and 30 years of trial and error but i never stop learning, trying and trying again and again in the quest for the handful of images we get JUST RIGHT…

In the beginning my parents found me a Minolta 35mm with a 50mm lens, it was glorious. I loved it, but like many I wanted more the best I could get. Enter Nikon and the F2. To me it was like the Farrari of cameras. I bailed a lot of hay for that camera…

I’ve had a lot gear over the years. bodies, lenses, flashes, lights, but most importantly I’ve USED this gear. I shoot 10’s of thousands of frames every year even before digital i would shoot bricks of film. All my extra money went towards this pursuit.

Enough about my start and past, plenty of time for all that, let us get to NOW.

In 2021 I had a Nikon D600, D800e, D810 and D850 an assortment of great primes and the Holy trinity of f2.8 zooms. The D600 was my day to day shoot the kids camera. The D800e and D810 was for all my portrait, wedding, headshots and most importantly my street and documentary photography. D850 was for landscapes and architecture photography. These Nikons did everything I ever asked them to do WITHOUT FAIL, not once. Fact is…I have never sent a Nikon body or lens in for repair or service. Many trips backpacking in the mountains for weeks, beaches everywhere, countless environments not good for camera gear and never any real issues beyond operator error. I should note that to this day I have also never dropped a body or a lens, it does make a difference to life span.

In 2021 I stated shopping around for a “travel camera” the D8xx bodies are not small, and I didn’t own any “light” lenses to ease the weight. I wanted mirrorless, cause I’ve never owned one, I wanted IBIS, decent frame speed, good auto focus and reliability. After months of research I decided on Fujifilm as my first attempt. Enter the X-H1… GLORIOUS… all over again…

Everything I read and watched, said how great it was, except in a couple ways. It was to much like a DSLR and Sony has better auto focus. Many people sort of turned their nose up to it cause it wasn’t a “true” Fujifilm camera. Missing a Compensation dial and having a fat grip. Too big, too bulky and then.. quickly followed by the newest XT model and the Sony A7iii, Fujifilm’s built like a tank X-H1 went from $2000+ in 2018 to $750 used with 300 images taken on MPB.com in 2021.

Mint….PERFECT…

The Fujifilm X-H1 ticked every box I had. at least 24mp, ibis, built to a pro level, smaller and lighter and “similar” to my dslr’s. My intention was to buy one lens and I would use this combo for my growing desire to do street photography and documentary photography as personal projects. I have always done this type of work from time to time but things they be a changing. Doing all this research I had my X-H1 chosen and decided on the Fujifilm XF 16-80 f4 for the set. $1200 all in. I spent a few weeks learning it around the house, few walks in the woods. After about a month of owning it I had a large portrait shoot over the weekend and for whatever reason I took it with me. Without going way down the rabbit hole in details, let’s just say when I got the images home and started to edit. WOW

I was completely amazed of how much detail there was in the X-H1’s 24mp aps-c vs My Nikon D810’s 36mp full frame sensor. In almost every way I loved the out of camera RAW image from the Fujifilm over the Nikon. Did I have more wiggle room editing the images from the Nikon’s full frame….YES, absolutely. BUT I am an out of camera shooter, I want to spend as little of time editing as possible and all my time out and doing, and most importantly after about 300 images side by side , I didn’t feel like I was giving up anything at all using the X-H1 and its 24mp sensor.

to be continued…..

I Left Nikon for Fujifilm part 2

Now that I was completely impressed by the image quality, let’s see how this baby really handles. Owning only Nikon for so many years I found it relatively easy in learning the controls and a tad bit longer navigating the menus. To be honest what really took me the longest time to adapt to was the way I could customize the camera to fit me and not the other way around. Shoot after shoot I started using the Nikons less and less and just grabbing the X-H1 and getting it done. and done well. I would change the button layout, MY MENU, what dial does what and the film simulations over and over till it was just right for me.

To me Fujifilm is an in camera shooters dream, like having your lightroom presets in your camera. Now I know many people talk about the amazing color renditions and skin tones and that is all true…they are beautiful but I also shoot primarily in black and white and unlike in my other cameras I can shoot everything I want, crop a little bit and done.

Finally we get to the REASONS I made the change entirely.

I changed the type of print I wanted to produce. Yep nothing complicated or technical…personal preference.

For years I have sold beautiful large 30”x45” and 40”x60” prints, I have 3 in my home and 1 in my office along with many more 24”x36” prints. I love them, very proud of them but the ones that move me, that I look at all the time and say something to me are much smaller.

More personal almost.

I do gallery exhibitions, sell prints, publish books and magazines as part of my client work. What I haven’t done in the last 3 years is sell a really large print, everyone purchases a smaller size. Time to evaluate.

So I did.

After owning and using the X-H1 for 8 months here were my conclusions:

Beautiful build quality - To me its near perfect in appearance and feel.

Image quality - cant say enough good things about it’s detail and color rendering. as good as D810

Versatility - every button and dial just as I want it, easy to use vintage glass, can change from modern high tech auto focus too old school manual operation and vintage glass in seconds.

Total weight and cost - thank you APS-C, I walk or hike 15 to 25 miles about every weekend in summer months. weight matters

Print size - I decided that a 13”x19” print matted in a 18”x24” frame would be as large as I would sell. Except the occasional 24”x36” print.

The Fujifilm X-H1 is a truly wonderful camera to use. Feels great, handles great and if you do your part images are great, so much so that I bought two. But most surprising to me is that after all those years of shooting Nikon and loving them, I haven’t missed them once in the last two years of using my X-H1’s.

Thank you for reading.