Fujifilm and Why I Switched
As a follow up to my last post, I wanted to explain a little about why I actually decided to fully switch from Nikon to the Fujifilm X system.
After blowing through a few rolls of film on my dads old Pentax when I was in high school and absolutely loving it even though I had no idea what I was doing, I decided I wanted to start learning and take things a little more seriously. My older brother was using a Nikon at the time and let me try it out and being a typical little brother I wanted to do what he did so I went and found a used Nikon as well. Since then I’ve been brand loyal always upgrading to a newer Nikon when I thought it was time and didn’t want to try anything else. Purely out of ignorance.
During that time I went and studied photography in college, which honestly is a whole blog post in itself, and learned more of the ins and outs of how cameras work and still didn’t want to look at any other brands besides Nikon. It wasn’t a huge deal then because I was only shooting photos and Nikons have great image quality. But now that I am focusing on freelance in a much more professional capacity and have added doing video to my services I quickly saw the areas where Nikon really lacked. It really blew my mind a little seeing the video features that basically every other company was pouring into their dslr and mirrorless bodies that Nikon just didn’t seem to care at all about, mainly being their autofocus system.
Knowing that my goal was to make a run at doing freelance full time I knew it was time for a switch so I started doing exactly what my last blog post talked about and headed to youtube. Watched I don’t even know how many videos on every camera I could think of from the Sony A7 line, Fuji, Nikon, Canon, Panasonic and even Pentax, that I flooded myself with too much information. So I took a few days to kind of reset my brain a little and decided to head to my local camera store. From watching all the videos I did, I had a basic idea of which camera I was interested in so I wanted to actually feel each of them in hand and see how they operated. Now I know I’m probably gonna make some people mad with this next statement, but I really did not like the Sony in hand at all. I’m not saying that they aren’t impressive cameras because they are, it was more a personal preference that I didn’t like the experience of using it or the menu system which is also how I feel about Canon. This left me with the new Nikon Z series and Fuji.
I knew what to expect with the Nikon cameras, very similar in hand to their DSLR lineup that I had been using and the image quality was great. While the video specs and autofocus on the Z6 were much better I would have had to use the adapter to still use the lenses I had and that made the whole set up really big. While there is a trade off on size to still have a full frame sensor, it just didn’t make sense to me. Part of the reason I wanted to switch was to travel more and to have my camera with me more often so having that big of a set up wasn’t gonna cut it.
Then I tried the Fuji system, and honestly it was game over as soon as I took the first photo. Something about the tactile feel with the dials for all the controls just felt right to me, and took me right back to when I first started photography using my dads old Pentax. At first I was definitely concerned that they do use an APSC sensor and not a full frame sensor but the more I looked into it and the very impressive lens lineup they have, I realized that it really didn’t make any sense for me to worry about it. The image quality was as good as anything I’d seen form other companies, the video specs are incredible and in all honesty what are the chances that when you show up to a shoot that the client will have any idea what sensor your camera has or even care for that matter. Fuji’s color science is amazing and the fact that they put out firmware updates for their gear instead of just coming out with a new camera says a lot about the company as a whole and that they really care that their customers are happy and have a good experience.
All of those features bundled into one camera were enough to make me pull the trigger and start selling all of my Nikon gear. I fully understand that there are certain limitations that do come with a smaller sensor but those were not enough to scare me away. I just can’t get over the feel and experience of using these cameras. If you haven’t tried one before I highly recommend giving on a try, even if its just as a fun walk around camera you won’t be disappointed.
I appreciate you all taking the time to read though this. Let me know what your thoughts are on this topic and if you have a topic you’d like some input on shoot it my way and I’ll try to make a post about it.
Hope you all have a great day and get out and create something.
-Tyler