For the past 5 years, I have been using the Fujifilm x100s as my preferred camera of choice. After borrowing a friend's camera for my first trip to Europe, I purchased my own and it's been hanging on my shoulder almost every day.
Fujifilm replaced the camera with the x100T and later the x100F each of which offered performance enhancements and new features which improved on an already fine camera. Yet despite these advancements, I delayed upgrading. And though those later versions addressed some of the issues that I and others had with my camera, I didn't make a beeline for my camera store with my credit card burning in my hand.
That's because I got used to the camera. Because I used it every day, it became a natural extension of my eye and hand. I didn't have to think much about the camera at all when I made photographs. It had become so familiar to me that its performance, even with its flaws, freed me to focus completely on seeing and making photographs.
The response time of the autofocus, the delay between depressing the shutter release button and the actuation of the shutter were things I had become in tune with and factored into my picture taking. Yes, they were weaknesses, but I had found my workarounds. I rarely had to think of them. I knew that when I finally did upgrade the camera, that intuitiveness would be lost.
And when I played with an x100T and eventually purchased the x100F, that's exactly what I faced. I not only had to relearn a familiar camera, but I also had to relearn my timing with it.
For my street photography, timing is critical. The moment that I release the shutter is based on the anticipation of a moment that passes in milliseconds. I have to know when I am going to release the shutter button even before I've fully depressed it. Those critical seconds can mean the difference between a successful and failed photograph.
Yet, as I began using my new camera, I kept missing the shot. Yes, the autofocus was faster. The delay between depressing the button and the camera taking the picture was shorter. But that completely threw me off. I found myself repeatedly depressing the shutter release button at the wrong time, based on my long-developed muscle memory with the previous version.
It was incredibly frustrating. As similar as this camera was from what I had used for the past five years, it was sufficiently different that I had to learn to adapt.
I'm not complaining that performance has improved, but it reminded me why I am often reluctant to upgrade to a new camera even when it offers the latest and greatest technology.
For as long as I have been a photographer and magazine editor, I have frequently used equipment that's been cutting edge. It was there that I learned a valuable lesson. Every time I switched to another camera, much less a different system, there was a period when I paid more attention to the camera rather than to the moment playing out in front of me. I had to learn the nuances of every feature and control. This resulted in the mechanics taking priority over seeing and actually making images.
When I see people constantly upgrading their camera with each new product announcement, I completely understand the temptation. The allure of the shiny and new has been ingrained in us since we were children. But when it comes to being creative, you interrupt a fluid process of seeing with a lack of familiarity. That may not be a bad thing, but it's something that I always take into consideration whenever I make the choice to replace what I've been using with something new. I have to accept that a lot of good images will be lost in that transition.
I have now had the x100F for about a week and I'm slowly getting acclimated to the way it performs and how it fits into my picture taking. In a short time, it will be as fluid to me as my previous camera was. And then I will be able to fully enjoy, appreciate and understand what this tool really has to offer me.
David Hobby is the lead instructor for all X-Peditions trips.
He spent 20 years as a staff photojournalist, completing more than 10,000 assignments before leaving The Baltimore Sun in 2006 to found Strobist.com. Over the following 15 years, Strobist grew to be the world’s most popular resource for professional-level photographic lighting education.
Valérie Jardin is an award-winning French photographer who has developed a unique style that is both evocative and authentic. Her work is characterized by a strong sense of narrative, capturing candid moments that reveal the human experience in all its complexity and beauty. With a discerning eye for composition and a keen understanding of light and shadow, Valérie Jardin creates emotionally charged photographs of everyday moments.
Rob Hammer is a photographer based in Denver, Colorado, who shoots for commercial clients like Nike, Adidas, Foot Locker, Fox Sports, and Smithsonian and produces other personal documentary exemplary art projects, including American barbershops, basketball culture, duck hunting, and real Cowboys in the American West.
Mikko Takkunen is a photo editor at The New York Times’s Foreign desk, where he spent more than five years between 2016 and 2021 in Hong Kong as the desk’s Asia photo editor. He began taking these photographs in early 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and continued until the summer of 2021 when he left Hong Kong. His latest monograph is titled, Hong Kong.
Ivan McClellan is a photojournalist and designer based in Portland, Oregon. His work reveals marginalized aspects of black culture and challenges broad assumptions and myths about racial identity in America.
In 2015, photographer Ivan McClellan attended the Roy LeBlanc Invitational in Oklahoma, the country’s longest-running Black rodeo, at the invitation of Charles Perry, director and producer of The Black Cowbo
For over 40 years, Jay Silverman has excelled as a leading Director, Producer, and Photographer specializing in award-winning films, television, digital, and print campaigns.
Jay’s narrative films have been awarded numerous Best Feature and Audience Awards at festivals nationwide. His current dramatic feature ‘Camera’, stars Golden Globe, Emmy, and Grammy Award Winner Beau Bridges, Jessica Parker Kennedy, Scotty Tovar, Bruce Davison, and Miguel Gabriel.
Petronella Lugemwa is a storyteller, speaker, educator, and Creative Director of Petronella Photography – an award-winning destination wedding and family photography studio based out of the New York area. She specializes in helping multicultural, interracial, or mixed couples celebrate their love in a modern way and believes that what makes you different makes you beautiful.
Martin Parr CBE (born 23 May 1952) is a British documentary photographer, photojournalist, and photobook collector. He is known for his photographic projects, which take an intimate, satirical, and anthropological look at aspects of modern life. He particularly documents the social classes of England and, more broadly, the wealth of the Western world.
Alex Kilbee has over 20 years of professional photography experience. He received his formal education in South Africa at the prestigious Pretoria Technikon Photography School. He runs The Photographic Eye, one of the most respected photography YouTube channels.
Jesse Lenz is a self-taught photographer and multidisciplinary artist. As an illustrator he has created images for the most well-respected publications around the world, including TIME, The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, and many others. He is the founder and director of Charcoal Book Club, Charcoal Press, and the Chico Hot Springs Portfolio Review. From 2011-2018 he also co-founded and published The Collective Quarterly and The Coyote Journal. He lives on a farm in rural Ohio. He latest monograph is titled Seraphim.
Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind.
Elinor Carucci (born 1971) is an Israeli American photographer and educator living in New York City. She is noted for her intimate portraits of her family's lives.[2][3][4] She has published four monographs: Closer (2002), Diary of a Dancer (2005), Mother (2013), and Midlife (2019). She teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York.
Shortly after RBG’s passing in September 2020, Time magazine commissioned Carucci to write a commemorative piece on the late justice, focused on the stories behind her legendary collars.
Barbara Peacock is a photographer and director living in Portland, Maine. Since having started American Bedroom in 2016, she has won the Getty Editorial Grant, the Women Photograph/Getty Grant, three LensCulture Awards, four Top 50 Critical Mass Awards, and was named one of the Top 100 Photographers in America 2020.
Nick Carver is a working photographer and photography instructor based in Southern California with over eighteen years shooting experience and a professional career spanning more than a decade. Although his teaching and commercial work hinges primarily on digital photography, his passion is fueled by a love for analog film and creating fine art prints. Nick has sought to educate, entertain, and inspire other photographers both in the classroom and through his YouTube videos.
Robbie Quinn is an award-winning, New York–based commercial photographer specializing in environmental portraits. His work, which has brought him to more than a dozen countries, speaks to current issues, including race, immigration, gender identity, and sexual orientation, emphasizing promoting diversity and inclusion.
Rachelle Steele is a Master Photographer based out of Northern California. She is most known for dynamic black and white environmental portraiture and her ability to fill a single frame with design elements of intense storytelling and passionate compositions. Her unique background brings depth and power to her images, communicating something from the eye, heart, and mind.
Joel Meyerowtiz is an award-winning photographer whose work has appeared in over 350 exhibitions in museums and galleries worldwide. Celebrated as a pioneer of color photography, he is a two-time Guggenheim Fellow, a recipient of both the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities awards and The Royal Society’s Centenary Medal. He has published over 53 books. His latest release is titled. The Pleasure of Seeing.
Kirsten Elstner is the founder and director of National Geographic Photo Camp, whose mission is to work with youth from diverse communities worldwide, guiding them as they use photography to tell their own stories and develop meaningful connections with others.
George Lange is a photographer whose pictures have appeared in almost all major magazines, ranging from Entertainment Weekly to Esquire. George has shot advertising photos for many movies and TV shows, including; Seinfeld, The Today Show, Cake Boss, and Jim Carrey’s movies. Most recently, he has worked with Norwest Venture Partners, Twilio, the Richard King Mellon Foundation, and the Grammy Award-winning Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. George's new book, Picturing Joy: Stories of Connection, is a lively guide to George’s approach to life and the highlights of his career.
Michael Rababy documents US American gambling culture in his new book, Casinoland - Tired of Winning. Rows of shrill slot machines, glowing billboards, and gaudy splendor appear alongside exhausted faces, tired looks, and lost games. Rababy’s realistic camera view scrutinizes the glamorous appearance of the gleaming gambling halls and exposes their mendacious promises of wealth.