A year with an X-T1

After good experiences with a Fujifilm X100, I bought a Fujifilm X-T1 early last year. It felt like a big change after using Nikon equipment for so many years, and it took me a long time to get to grips with the smaller camera. But perseverance paid off, and I now enjoy the X-T1 tremendously.

There are some things about the X-T1 I’m not so keen on. It took a long time to get used to the digital viewfinder, and the shutter operation felt clunky and slow after the snappiness of the Nikon D7000. But these were teething problems, and the positives of the camera have come to outweigh the negatives – from the in-camera square cropping feature to the effect presets which emulate famous Fuji films of the past.

One of the great bonuses of the X-T1 is its size. Where the Nikon with a couple of lenses weighed a rucksack down quite considerably, the X-T1 is much smaller and lighter, whilst being just as robust. (The Nikon weighs 1234g, where the Fuji only weighs 771g.) This weight saving has proven to be a boon as I’ve embraced mountain hiking more and more – the lighter gear means that I can comfortably take more than one lens with me when we head for the hills. And the camera’s weather sealing means that I don’t have to be quite as worried when the weather turns bad.

Having committed to the Fuji, I took the difficult step to get rid of most of my other equipment, which went in part-exchange towards the new camera. A month or so after buying the camera, I added the Fujinon 55-200mm to my bag. An f/4.8 aperture at 200mm proved to be great for separating subjects from the background – like the swallows which returned to our house in April.

The item I have missed the most over the past twelve months is the Sigma 10-20mm lens, which was my most-used lens between 2007 and 2015. So 2016 sees the arrival of the next Fuji lens to my kit bag – the Fujinon 10-24mm f4. It’s currently sitting on my desk at home, waiting for an outing. (Hopefully this weekend.) If my habits with the former wide-angle lens are a guide, you can expect to see many more wider views in future – like the one below from Pembrokeshire, South Wales.

You can see all of the photos I’ve taken with my X-T1 and shared to Flickr in this overview.