Hands-on review: Fuji X100F camera

OK, so I'll admit it, I'm not a professional photographer…but cameras have always been part of my life.

I shot film as kid in the 70s, and my passion is black and white and I still shot this style using both digital and 35mm film. One of my favourite films is the Fujifilm Neopan 100 Acros which is why I jumped at the chance to review the new Fuji X100F!

The Fuji X100F sports the X-Trans 24MP APS-C CMOS III sensor specifically designed for the X Series which uses an aperiodic colour filter array with no anti-aliasing filter.

Getting rid of the anti-aliasing filter is important as doing this in combination with the irregular pattern RGB pixel array and the newly developed X-Processor Pro processing engine means that the X100F can run much more complex and powerful noise reduction algorithms.

This helps greatly improve the signal to noise ratio across the image process and capturing system, resulting in shots with don't really have "noise" anymore, rather they now look very grain-like and still retain a very high level of sharpness and detail even at very high ISO settings.

This is important as "image noise" is the digital equivalent of film grain for analogue cameras. Go out and shoot 35mm and the graininess you see in these silver-halide films are what we see as "noise" in the digital data. For colour images, they are the unwanted noise, but in the black and White images, it becomes an important texture.

The Fuji X100F spots the same X-Trans 24MP sensor as its big brother the X-Pro2 and supports the ACROS film simulation has a completely different noise reduction algorithm from other colour modes that turns this noise into grain-like texture and makes the resulting shots unique and different.

The X100F also sports the new Advanced Hybrid Viewfinder that combines the features of an optical viewfinder (OVF) and electronic viewfinder (EVF) which along the 23mm f/2.0 (35mm Fullequivalent) prime lens means you can apply the electronic display which shows a focus area over the OVF screen to take advantage of Focus Peaking and Digital Split Image functions even in the OVF mode for accurate focusing in real time.

So, who should consider the X100F, when thinking black and white? Street Photographers!

With the adage that the best camera is the one you have with you, this is a camera that's built to be with you on the street! Its small, stylish and with the ACROS film simulation arguably one of the best 'out-of-camera' produces of great looking shots.

I own the X-Pro2 So and think it's the best camera I have owned, so would I buy a X100F? In a heartbeat, if I wanted a constant travelling companion and a 'one-camera, one lens' approach to life…

Review by Malcolm Fraser, reviewer for NetGuide.